diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:40:03 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:40:03 -0700 |
| commit | 3cf67aae341f7d35fee6306f5494bd70db4e6301 (patch) | |
| tree | a8d8bffa10aaf18156c3e6d28ab7cf460812d399 /old | |
Diffstat (limited to 'old')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/12471-8.txt | 11796 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/12471-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 241333 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/12471.txt | 11796 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/12471.zip | bin | 0 -> 241111 bytes |
4 files changed, 23592 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/old/12471-8.txt b/old/12471-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..80d20f1 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12471-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11796 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, What I Remember, Volume 2, by Thomas +Adolphus Trollope + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: What I Remember, Volume 2
+ +Author: Thomas Adolphus Trollope + +Release Date: May 28, 2004 [eBook #12471] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT I REMEMBER, VOLUME 2
*** + + +E-text prepared by the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading +Team from images provided by the Million Book Project. + + + +WHAT I REMEMBER + +BY + +THOMAS ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE + +IN TWO VOLUMES + +VOL. II + +1887 + + + + + + +CONTENTS. + +CHAPTER I. +IN THE NORTH OF ENGLAND + +CHAPTER II. +JOURNEY IN BRITTANY + +CHAPTER III. +AT PENRITH.--AT PARIS + +CHAPTER IV. +IN WESTERN FRANCE.--AGAIN IN PARIS + +CHAPTER V. +IN IRELAND.--AT ILFRACOMBE--IN FLORENCE + +CHAPTER VI. +IN FLORENCE + +CHAPTER VII. +CHARLES DICKENS + +CHAPTER VIII. +AT LUCCA BATHS + +CHAPTER IX. +THE GARROWS.--SCIENTIFIC CONGRESSES.--MY FIRST MARRIAGE + +CHAPTER X +ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING + +CHAPTER XI. +REMINISCENCES AT FLORENCE + +CHAPTER XII. +REMINISCENCES AT FLORENCE + +CHAPTER XIII. +LETTERS FROM PEARD--GARIBALDI--LETTERS FROM PULSZKY + +CHAPTER XIV. +WALTER S. LANDOR.--G.P. MARSH + +CHAPTER XV. +MR. AND MRS. LEWES + +CHAPTER XVI. +LETTERS FROM MR. AND MRS. LEWES + +CHAPTER XVII. +MY MOTHER.--LETTERS OF MARY MITFORD.--LETTERS OF T.C. GRATTAN + +CHAPTER XVIII. +THEODOSIA TROLLOPE + +CHAPTER XIX. +DEATH OF MR. GARROW--PROTESTANT CEMETERY.--ANGEL IN THE HOUSE NO MORE + +CHAPTER XX. +CONCLUSION + +INDEX + + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +No! as I said at the end of the last chapter but one, before I was led +away by the circumstances of that time to give the world the benefit +of my magnetic reminiscences--_valeat quantum!_--I was not yet bitten, +despite Colley Grattan's urgings, with any temptation to attempt +fiction, and "passion, me boy!" But I am surprised on turning over my +old diaries to find how much I was writing, and planning to write, +in those days, and not less surprised at the amount of running about +which I accomplished. + +My life in those years of the thirties must have been a very busy +one. I find myself writing and sending off a surprising number of +"articles" on all sorts of subjects--reviews, sketches of travel, +biographical notices, fragments from the byeways of history, and the +like, to all kinds of periodical publications, many of them long since +dead and forgotten. That the world should have forgotten all these +articles "goes without saying." But what is not perhaps so common an +incident in the career of a penman is, that _I_ had in the majority +of cases utterly forgotten them, and all about them, until they were +recalled to mind by turning the yellow pages of my treasured but +almost equally forgotten journals! I beg to observe, also, that all +this pen-work was not only printed, but _paid for_. My motives were of +a decidedly mercenary description. "_Hic scribit famâ ductus, at ille +fame._" I belonged emphatically to the latter category, and little +indeed of my multifarious productions ever found its final resting +place in the waste-paper basket. They were rejected often, but +re-despatched a second and a third time, if necessary, to some other +"organ," and eventually swallowed by some editor or other. + +I am surprised, too, at the amount of locomotion which I contrived to +combine with all this scribbling. I must have gone about, I think, +like a tax-gatherer, with an inkstand slung to my button-hole! And +in truth I was industrious; for I find myself in full swing of some +journey, arriving at my inn tired at night, and finishing and sending +off some article before I went to my bed. But it must have been only +by means of the joint supplies contributed by all my editors that +I could have found the means of paying all the stage-coaches, +diligences, and steamboats which I find the record of my continually +employing. "_Navibus atque Quadrigis petimus bene vivere!_" And +I succeeded by their means in living, if not well, at least very +pleasantly. + +For I was born a rambler. + +I heard just now a story of a little boy, who replied to the common +question, "What he would like to be when he grew up?" by saying that +he should like to be either a giant or a _retired_ stockbroker! I find +the qualifying adjective delicious, and admire the pronounced taste +for repose indicated by either side of the alternative. But my +propensities were more active, and in the days before I entered my +teens I used always to reply to similar demands, that I would be a +"king's messenger"! I knew no other life which approached so nearly to +perpetual motion. "The road" was my paradise, and it is a true saying +that the child is father to the man. The Shakespearian passage which +earliest impressed my childish mind and carried with it my heartiest +sympathies was the song of old Autolycus: + + "Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way, + And merrily hent the stile-a: + Your merry heart goes all the day, + Your sad tires in a mile-a." + +Over how many miles of "foot-path way," under how many green hedges, +has my childish treble chanted that enlivening ditty! + +But that was in much earlier days to those I am now writing of. + +During the years between my dreary time at Birmingham and my first +departure for Italy, I find the record of many pedestrian or other +rambles in England and abroad. There they are, all recorded day by +day--the qualities of the inns and the charges at them (not so much +less than those of the present day as might be imagined, with the +exception of the demands for beds), the beauty and specialties of the +views, the talk of wayfaring companions, the careful measurements of +the churches, the ever-recurring ascent of the towers of them, &c. &c. + +Here and there in the mountains of chaff there may be a grain worth +preserving, as where I read that at Haddon Hall the old lady who +showed the house, and who boasted that her ancestors had been +servitors of the possessors of it for more than three hundred +years, pointed out to me the portrait of one of them, who had been +"forester," hanging in the hall. She also pointed out the window from +which a certain heiress had eloped, and by doing so had carried the +hall and lands into the family of the present owners, and told me that +Mrs. Radcliffe, shortly before the publication of her _Mysteries +of Udolpho_, had visited Haddon, and had sat at that window busily +writing for a long time. + +I seem to have been an amateur of sermons in those days, from the +constant records I find of sermons listened to, by no means always, +or indeed generally, complimentary to the preachers. Here is an entry +criticising, with young presumption, a sermon by Dr. Dibdin, whose +bibliophile books, however, I had much taste for. + +"I heard Dr. Dibdin preach. He preached with much gesticulation, +emphasis, and grimace the most utterly trashy sermon I ever heard; +words--words--words--without the shadow of an idea in them." + +I remember, as if it were yesterday, a shrewd sort of an old lady, the +mother, I think, of the curate of the parish, who heard me, as we were +leaving the church, expressing my opinion of the doctor's discourse, +saying, "Well, it is a very old story, young gentleman, and it is +mighty difficult to find anything new to say about it!" + +The bibliomaniacal doctor, however, seems to have pleased me better +out of the pulpit than in it, for I find that "he called in the +afternoon and chatted amusingly for an hour. He fell tooth and nail +upon the Oxford Tracts men, and told us of a Mr. Wackerbarth, a curate +in Essex, a Cambridge man, who, he says, elevates the host, crosses +himself, and advocates burning of heretics. It seems to me, however," +continues this censorious young diarist, "that those who object to the +persecution, even to extermination of heretics, admit the uncertainty +and dubiousness of all theological doctrine and belief. For if it be +_certain_ that God will punish disbelief in doctrines essential to +salvation, and _certain_ that any Church possesses the knowledge what +those doctrines are, does it not follow that a man who goes about +persuading people to reject those doctrines should be treated as we +treat a mad dog loose in the streets of a city?" Thus fools, when they +are young enough, rush in where wise men fear to tread! + +I had entirely forgotten, but find from my diary that it was our +pleasant friend but indifferent preacher, Dr. Dibdin, who on the 11th +of February, 1839, married my sister, Cecilia, to Mr., now Sir John, +Tilley. + +It appears that I was not incapable of appreciating a good sermon +when I heard one, for I read of the impression produced upon me by an +"admirable sermon preached by Mr. Smith" (it must have been Sydney, I +take it) in the Temple Church. The preacher quoted largely from Jeremy +Taylor, "giving the passages with an excellence of enunciation and +expression which impressed them on my mind in a manner which will not +allow me to forget them." Alack! I _have_ forgotten every word of +them! + +I remember, however, perfectly well, without any reference to my +diary, hearing--it must have been much about the same time--Sydney +Smith preach a sermon at St. Paul's, which much impressed me. He took +for his text, "Knowledge and wisdom shall be the stability of thy +times" (I write from memory--the memory of half a century ago--but I +think the words ran thus). Of course the gist of his discourse may be +readily imagined. But the manner of the preacher remains more vividly +present to my mind than his words. He spoke with extreme rapidity, and +had the special gift of combining extreme rapidity of utterance with +very perfect clearness. His manner, I remember thinking, was unlike +any that I had ever witnessed in the pulpit, and appeared to me to +resemble rather that of a very earnest speaker at the hustings than +the usual pulpit style. His sentences seemed to run downhill, with +continually increasing speed till they came to a full stop at the +bottom. It was, I think, the only sermon I ever heard which I wished +longer. He carried me with him completely, for the century was in +those days, like me, young. But if I were to hear a similarly fervid +discourse now on the same subject, I should surely desire some clearer +setting forth of the difference between "knowledge" and "wisdom." + +It was about this time, _i.e._, in the year 1839, that my mother, who +had been led, by I forget what special circumstances, to take a great +interest in the then hoped-for factory legislation, and in Lord +Shaftesbury's efforts in that direction, determined to write a novel +on the subject with the hope of doing something towards attracting the +public mind to the question, and to visit Lancashire for the purpose +of obtaining accurate information and local details. + +The novel was written, published in the then newly-invented fashion of +monthly numbers, and called _Michael Armstrong_. The publisher, Mr. +Colburn, paid a long price for it, and did not complain of the result. +But it never became one of the more popular among my mother's novels, +sharing, I suppose, the fate of most novels written for some +purpose other than that of amusing their readers. Novel readers are +exceedingly quick to smell the rhubarb under the jam in the dose +offered to them, and set themselves against the undesired preachment, +as obstinately as the naughtiest little boy who ever refused to be +physicked with nastiness for his good. + +My mother neglected no means of making the facts stated in her book +authentic and accurate, and the _mise en scène_ of her story graphic +and truthful. Of course I was the companion of her journey, and was +more or less useful to her in searching for and collecting facts in +some places where it would have been difficult for her to look +for them. We carried with us a number of introductions from Lord +Shaftesbury to a rather strange assortment of persons, whom his +lordship had found useful both as collectors of trustworthy +information, and energetic agitators in favour of legislation. + +The following letter from the Earl of Shaftesbury, then Lord Ashley, +to my mother on the subject, is illustrative of the strong interest he +took in the matter, and of the means which he thought necessary for +obtaining information respecting it: + + * * * * * + +"MADAM,--The letters to Macclesfield and Manchester shall be sent by +this evening's post. On your arrival at Macclesfield be so kind as +to ask for Reuben Bullock, of Roe Street, and at Manchester for John +Doherty, a small bookseller of Hyde's Cross in the town. They will +show you the secrets of the place, as they showed them to me. + +"Mr. Wood himself is not now resident in Bradford, he is at present in +Hampshire; but his partner, Mr. Walker, carries out all his plans with +the utmost energy. I will write to him to-night. The firm is known +by the name of 'Wood and Walker,' Mr. Wood is a person whom you may +easily see in London on your return to town. With every good wish and +prayer for your success, + +"I remain your very obedient servant, + +"ASHLEY. + +"P.S.--The _Quarterly Review_ of December, 1836, contains an article +on the factory system, which would greatly assist by the references to +the evidence before Committee, &c. &c." + + * * * * * + +It is useless here and now to say anything of the horrors of +uncivilised savagery and hopeless abject misery which we witnessed. +They are painted in my mother's book, and should any reader ever refer +to those pages for a picture of the state of things among the factory +hands at that time, he may take with him my testimony to the fact that +there was no exaggeration in the outlines of the picture given. What +we are there described to have seen, we saw. + +And let doctrinaire economists preach as they will, and Radical +socialists abuse a measure, which helps to take from them the fulcrum +of the levers that are to upset the whole existing framework of +society, it is impossible for one who _did_ see those sights, and +who has visited the same localities in later days, not to bless Lord +Shaftesbury's memory, ay, and the memory, if they have left any, of +the humble assistants whose persistent efforts helped on the work. + +But the little knot of apostles to whom Lord Shaftesbury's letters +introduced us, and into whose intimate _conciliabules_ his +recommendations caused our admittance, was to my mother, and yet more +to me, to whom the main social part of the business naturally fell, a +singularly new and strange one. They were all, or nearly all of them, +men a little raised above the position of the factory hands, to the +righting of whose wrongs they devoted their lives. They had been at +some period of their lives, in almost every case, factory workers +themselves, but had by various circumstances, native talent, industry, +and energy, or favouring fortune--more likely by all together--managed +to raise themselves out of the slough of despond in which their +fellows were overwhelmed. One, I remember, a Mr. Doherty, a very small +bookseller, to whom we were specially recommended by Lord Shaftesbury. +He was an Irishman, a Roman Catholic, and a furious Radical, but a +_very_ clever man. He was thoroughly acquainted with all that had been +done, all that it was hoped to do, and with all the means that were +being taken for the advancement of those hopes, over the entire +district. + +He came and dined with us at our hotel, but it was, I remember, with +much difficulty that we persuaded him to do so, and when at table his +excitement in talking was so great and continuous that he could eat +next to nothing. + +I remember, too, a Rev. Mr. Bull, to whom he introduced us +subsequently at Bradford. We passed the evening with this gentleman at +the house of Mr. Wood, of the firm of Walker and Wood, to whom also we +had letters from Lord Shaftesbury. He, like our host, was an ardent +advocate of the ten hours' bill, but unlike him, had very little hope +of legislative interference. Messrs. Walker and Wood employed three +thousand hands. At a sacrifice of some thousands per annum, they +worked their hands an hour less than any of their neighbours, which +left the hours, as Mr. Wood strongly declared, still too long. Those +gentlemen had built and endowed a church and a school for their hands, +and everything was done in their mill which could humanise and improve +the lot of the men, women, and children. Mr. Bull, who was to be the +incumbent of the new church, then not quite finished, was far less +hopeful than his patron. He told me that he looked forward to some +tremendous popular outbreak, and should not be surprised any night to +hear that every mill in Bradford was in flames. + +But perhaps the most remarkable individual with whom this Lancashire +journey brought us into contact, was a Mr. Oastler. He was the Danton +of the movement. He would have been a remarkable man in any position +or calling in life. He was a very large and powerfully framed man, +over six feet in height, and proportionately large of limb and +shoulder. He would, perhaps, hardly have been said to be a handsome +man. His face was coarse, and in parts of it heavy. But he had a most +commanding presence, and he was withal a picturesque--if it be not +more accurate to say a statuesque--figure. Some of the features, too, +were good. He had a very keen and intelligent blue eye, a mass of iron +grey hair, lips, the scornful curl of which was terrible, and with all +this a voice stentorian in its power, and yet flexible, with a flow +of language rapid and abundant as the flow of a great river, and as +unstemmable--the very _beau-idéal_ of a mob orator. + +"In the evening," says my diary, "we drove out to Stayley Bridge to +hear the preaching of Stephens, the man who has become the subject of +so much newspaper celebrity," (Does any one remember who he was?) "We +reached a miserable little chapel, filled to suffocation, and besieged +by crowds around the doors. We entered through the vestry with very +great difficulty, and only so by the courtesy of sundry persons who +relinquished their places, on Doherty's representing to them that we +were strangers from a distance and friends to the cause. Presently +Stephens arrived, and a man who had been ranting in the pulpit, +merely, as it seemed, to occupy the people till he should come, +immediately yielded his place to him. Stephens spoke well, and said +some telling words in that place, of the cruel and relentless march of +the great Juggernauth, Gold. But I did not hear anything which seemed +to me to justify his great reputation. Really the most striking part +of the performance, and that which I thought seemed to move the people +most, was Oastler's mounting the pulpit and giving out the verses of a +hymn, one by one, which the congregation sang after him." So says my +diary. Him I remember well, though Stephens not at all. I remember, +too, the pleasure with which I listened to his really fine delivery of +the lines; his pronunciation of the words was not incorrect, and when +he spoke, as I heard him on sundry subsequent occasions, his language, +though emphasised rather, as it seemed, than marred by a certain +roughness of Lancashire accent, was not that of an uncultivated man. +Yes! Oastler, the King of Lancashire as the people liked to call +him, was certainly a man of power, and an advocate whom few platform +orators would have cared to meet as an adversary. + +When my mother's notes for her projected novel were completed, we +thought that before turning our faces southwards, we would pay a +flying visit to the lake district, which was new ground to both of +us. I remember well my intense delight at my first introduction to +mountains worthy of the name. But I mean to mention here two only of +my reminiscences of that first visit to lake-land. + +The first of these concerns an excursion on Windermere with Captain +Hamilton, the author of _Cyril Thornton_, which had at that time made +its mark. He had recently received a new boat, which had been built +for him in Norway. He expected great performances from her, and as +there was a nice fresh wind idly curling the surface of the lake, he +invited us to come out with him and try her, and in a minute or two we +were speeding merrily before the breeze towards the opposite shore. +But about the middle of the lake we found the water a good deal +rougher, and the wind began to increase notably. Hamilton held the +tiller, and not liking to make fast the haulyard of the sail, gave me +the rope to hold, with instructions to hold on till further orders. He +was a perfect master of the business in hand, and so was the new boat +a perfect mistress of _her_ business, but this did not prevent us from +getting thoroughly ducked. My attention was sufficiently occupied in +obeying my orders, and keeping my eye on him in expectation of fresh +ones. The wind meanwhile increased from minute to minute, and I could +not help perceiving that Hamilton, despite his cheery laughter, was +becoming a little anxious. We got back, however, to the shore we had +left after a good buffeting, and in the condition of drowned rats. My +mother was helped out of the boat, and while she was making her way +up the bank, and I was helping him to make the boat secure, I said, +"Well! the new boat has done bravely!" "Between you and me, my dear +fellow," said he, as he laid his hand on my shoulder with a grip, that +I think must have left his thumb-mark on the skin, "if the boat had +not behaved better than any boat of her class that I ever saw, there +would have been a considerable probability of our being dined on by +the fishes, instead of dining together, as I hope we are going to do! +I have been blaming myself for taking your mother out; but the truth +is that on these lakes it is really impossible to tell for half an +hour what the next half hour may bring forth." + +The one other incident of our visit to lake-land which I will record, +was our visit to Wordsworth. + +For my part I managed to incur his displeasure while yet on the +threshold of his house. We were entering it together, when observing +a very fine bay-tree by the door-side, I unfortunately expressed +surprise at its luxuriance in such a position. "Why should you be +surprised?" he asked, suddenly turning upon me with much displeasure +in his manner. Not a little disconcerted, I hesitatingly answered +that I had imagined the bay-tree required more and greater warmth of +sunshine than it could find there. "Pooh!" said he, much offended at +the slight cast on his beloved locality, "what has sunshine got to do +with it?" + +I had not the readiness to reply, that in truth the world had +abundance of testimony that the bay could flourish in those latitudes! +But I think, had I done so it might have made my peace--for the +remainder of that evening's experiences led me to imagine that the +great poet was not insensible to incense from very small and humble +worshippers. + +The evening, I think I may say the entire evening, was occupied by +a monologue addressed by the poet to my mother, who was of course +extremely well pleased to listen to it. I was chiefly occupied in +talking to my old schoolfellow, Herbert Hill, Southey's nephew, who +also passed the evening there, and with whom I had a delightful walk +the next day. But I did listen with much pleasure when Wordsworth +recited his own lines descriptive of Little Langdale. He gave them +really exquisitely. But his manner in conversation was not impressive. +He sat continuously looking down with a green shade over his eyes even +though it was twilight; and his mode of speech and delivery suggested +to me the epithet "maundering," though I was ashamed of myself for the +thought with reference to such a man. As we came away I cross-examined +my mother much as to the subjects of his talk. She said it had been +all about himself and his works, and that she had been interested. But +I could not extract from her a word that had passed worth recording. + +I do not think that he was popular with his neighbours generally. +There were stories current, at Lowther among other places, which +imputed to him a tendency to outstay his welcome when invited to visit +in a house. I suspect there was a little bit of a feud between him and +my brother-in-law, Mr. Tilley, who was the Post Office surveyor of the +district. Wordsworth as receiver of taxes, or issuer of licenses or +whatever it was, would have increased the profits of his place if the +mail coach had paid its dues, whether for taxes or license, at his end +of the journey instead of at Kendal, as had been the practice. But of +course any such change would have been as much to the detriment of the +man at Kendal as to Wordsworth's advantage. And my brother-in-law, +thinking such a change unjust, would not permit it. + +I cannot say that on the whole the impression made on me by the poet +on that occasion (always with the notable exception of his recital of +his own poetry) was a pleasant one. There was something in the manner +in which he almost perfunctorily, as it seemed, uttered his long +monologue, that suggested the idea of the performance of a part got +up to order, and repeated without much modification as often as +lion-hunters, duly authorised for the sport in those localities, might +call upon him for it. I dare say the case is analogous to that of the +hero and the valet, but such was my impression. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +I had been for some time past, as has been said, trying my hand, +not without success, at a great variety of articles in all sorts of +reviews, magazines, and newspapers. I already considered myself a +member of the guild of professional writers. I had done much business +with publishers on behalf of my mother, and some for other persons, +and talked glibly of copyrights, editions, and tokens. + +(I fancy, by the by, that the latter term has somewhat fallen out of +use in these latter days, whether from any change of the methods used +by printers or publishers I do not know. But it strikes me that many +youngsters, even of the scribbling tribe, may not know that the phrase +"a token" had no connection whatever with signs and wonders of any +sort, but simply meant two hundred and fifty copies.) + +And being thus equipped, I began to think that it was time that I +should attempt _a book_. During a previous hurried scamper in Normandy +I had just a glimpse of Brittany, which greatly excited my desire to +see more of it. So I pitched on a tour in Brittany as the subject of +my first attempt. + +Those were happy days, when all the habitable globe had not been +run over by thousands of tourists, hundreds of whom are desirous of +describing their doings in print--not but that the notion, whether +a publisher's or writer's notion, that new ground is needed for the +production of a good and amusing book of travels, is other than a +great mistake. I forget what proposing author it was, who in answer +to a publisher urging the fact that "a dozen writers have told us all +about so and so," replied, "But _I_ have not told you what _I_ have +seen and thought about it." But if I had been the publisher I should +at once have asked to see his MS. The days when a capital book may be +written on a _voyage autour de ma chambre_ are as present as ever they +were. And "A Summer Afternoon's Walk to Highgate" might be the subject +of a delightful book if only the writer were the right man. + +Brittany, however, really was in those days to a great extent fresh +ground, and the strangely secluded circumstances of its population +offered much tempting material to the book-making tourist. All this is +now at an end; not so much because the country has been the subject of +sundry good books of travel, as because the people and their mode of +life, the country and its specialties have all been utterly changed by +the pleasant, convenient, indispensable, abominable railway, which in +its merciless irresistible tramp across the world crushes into a +dead level of uninteresting monotony so many varieties of character, +manners, and peculiarities. And thus "the individual withers, and the +world is more and more!" But _is_ the world more and more in any sense +that can be admitted to be desirable, in view of the eternity of that +same Individual? + +As for the Bretons, the individual has withered to that extent that +he now wears trousers instead of breeches, while his world has become +more and more assimilated to that of the Faubourg St. Antoine, with +the result of losing all those really very notable and stiff and +sturdy virtues which differentiated the Breton peasant, when I first +knew him, while it would be difficult indeed to say what it has +gained. At all events the progress which can be stated is mainly to be +stated in negatives. The Breton, as I first knew him, believed in all +sorts of superstitious rubbish. He now believes in nothing at all. +He was disposed to honour and respect God, and his priest, and his +seigneur perhaps somewhat too indiscriminately. Now he neither honours +nor respects any earthly or heavenly thing. These at least were the +observations which a second, or rather third visit to the country a +few years ago suggested to me, mainly, it is true, as regards the +urban population. And without going into any of the deeper matters +which such changes suggest to one's consideration, there can be no +possible doubt as to the fact that the country and its people are +infinitely less interesting than they were. + +My plans were soon made, and I hastened to lay them before Mr. +Colburn, who was at that time publishing for my mother. The trip was +my main object, and I should have been perfectly contented with terms +that paid all the expenses of it. _Dî auctius fecerunt_, and I came +home from my ramble with a good round sum in my pocket. + +I was not greedy of money in those days, and had no unscriptural +hankerings after laying up treasure upon earth. All I wanted was a +sufficient supply for my unceasing expenditure in locomotion and inn +bills--the latter, be it observed, always on a most economical scale. +I was not a profitable customer; I took nothing "for the good of the +house." I had a Gargantuesque appetite, and needed food of some sort +in proportion to its demands. I neither took, or cared to take, any +wine with my dinner, and never wanted any description of "nightcap." +As for accommodation for the night, anything sufficed me that gave me +a clean bed and a sufficient window-opening on fresh air, under such +conditions as made it possible for me to have it open all night. To +the present day I cannot sleep to my liking in a closed chamber; and +before now, on the top of the Righi, have had my bed clothes blown off +my bed, and snow deposited where they should have been. + +But _quo musa tendis?_ I was talking about my travels in Brittany. + +I do not think my book was a bad _coup d'essai_. I remember old John +Murray coming out to me into the front office in Albemarle Street, +where I was on some business of my mother's, with a broad good-natured +smile on his face, and putting into my hands the _Times_ of that +morning, with a favourable notice of the book, saying as he did so, +"There, so _you_ have waked this morning to find yourself famous!" +And, what was more to the purpose, my publisher was content with the +result, as was evidenced by his offering me similar terms for another +book of the same description--of which, more anon. + +As my volumes on Brittany, published in 1840, are little likely to +come under the eye of any reader at the present day, and as the +passage I am about to quote indicates accurately enough the main point +of difference between what the traveller at that day saw and what the +traveller of the present day may see, I think I may be pardoned for +giving it. + +"We had observed that at Broons a style of _coiffure_ which was new +to us prevailed; and my companion wished to add a sketch of it to his +fast-increasing collection of Breton costumes. With this view, he had +begun making love to the maid a little, to induce her to do so much +violence to her maiden modesty, as to sit to him for a few minutes, +when a far better opportunity of achieving his object presented +itself. + +"The landlady's daughter, a very pretty little girl about fourteen +years old, was going to be confirmed, and had just come down stairs +to her mother, who was sitting knitting in the _salle à manger_, for +inspection and approval before she started. Of course, upon such an +occasion, the art of the _blanchisseuse_ was taxed to the utmost. Lace +was not spared; and the most _recherché coiffure_ was adopted, that +the rigorous immutability of village modes would permit. + +"It would seem that the fickleness of fashion exercises in constant +local variations that mutability which is utterly denied to it in +Brittany with regard to time. Every district, almost every commune +has its own peculiar 'mode' (for both sexes) which changes not from +generation to generation. As the mothers dress, so do their daughters, +so did their grandmothers, and so will their grand-daughters." [But I +reckoned when writing thus without the railroad and its consequences.] +"If a woman of one parish marries, or takes service, or for any other +cause resides in another, she still retains the mode of her native +village; and thus carries about her a mark, which is to those, among +whom she is a sojourner, a well-recognised indication of the place +whence she comes, and to herself a cherished souvenir of the home +which she never ceases to consider her own country. + +"But though the form of the dress is invariable, and every inhabitant +of the commune, from the wealthy farmer's wife to the poorest cottager +who earns her black bread by labour in the fields, would as soon think +of adopting male attire as of innovating on the immemorial _mode du +pays_, yet the quality of the materials allows scope for wealth and +female coquetry to show themselves. Thus the invariable _mode de +Broons_, with its trifling difference in form, which in the eye of the +inhabitants made it as different as light from darkness from the _mode +de St. Jouan_,' was equally observable in the coarse linen _coiffe_ of +the maid, and the richly-laced and beautifully 'got up' head-dress of +the daughter of the house. + +"A very slight observation of human nature under a few only of its +various phases may suffice to show that the instinct which prompts a +woman to adorn her person to the best possible advantage is not the +hot-house growth of cities, but a genuine wild flower of nature. No +high-born beauty ever more repeatedly or anxiously consulted her +wax-lit _psyché_ on every faultless point of hair, face, neck, feet, +and figure, before descending to the carriage for her first ball, than +did our young Bretonne again and again recur to the mirror, which +occupied the pier between the two windows of the _salle à manger_, +before sallying forth on the great occasion of her confirmation. + +"The dear object of girlish ambition was the same to both; but the +simplicity of the little _paysanne_ showed itself in the utter absence +of any wish to conceal her anxiety upon the subject. Though delighted +with our compliments on her appearance, our presence by no means +prevented her from springing upon a chair every other minute to obtain +fuller view of the _tout ensemble_ of her figure. Again and again the +modest kerchief was arranged and rearranged to show a hair's breadth +more or a hair's breadth less of her brown but round and taper throat. +Repeatedly, before it could be finally adjusted to her satisfaction, +was the delicate fabric of her _coiffure_ moved with cautious care and +dainty touch a _leetle_ backwarder or a _leetle_ forwarder over her +sun-browned brow. + +"Many were the pokings and pinchings of frock and apron, the +smoothings down before and twitchings down behind of the not less +anxious mother. Often did she retreat to examine more correctly the +general effect of the _coup d'oeil_, and as often return to rectify +some injudicious pin or remodel some rebellious fold. When all was at +length completed, and the well-pleased parent had received from the +servants, called in for the express purpose, the expected tribute of +admiration, the little beauty took _L'Imitation de la Vierge_ in her +hand, and tripped across to a convent of _Soeurs Grises_ on the other +side of the way to receive their last instructions and admonitions +respecting her behaviour when she should be presented to the bishop, +while her mother screamed after her not to forget to pull up her frock +when she kneeled down. + +"All the time employed in this little revision of the toilet had not +been left unimproved by my companion, who at the end of it produced +and showed to the proud mother an admirable full-length sketch of her +pretty darling. The delighted astonishment of the poor woman, and her +accent, as she exclaimed, '_O, si c'était pour moi_!' and then blushed +to the temples at what she had said, were irresistible, and the +good-natured artist was fain to make her a present of the drawing." + +My Breton book ("though I says it as shouldn't") is not a bad one, +especially as regards the upper or northern part of the province. That +which concerns Lower Brittany is very imperfect, mainly, I take it, +because I had already nearly filled my destined two volumes when I +reached it. I find there, however, the following notice of the sardine +fishery, which has some interest at the present day. Perhaps the +majority of the thousands of English people who nowadays have +"sardines" on their breakfast-table every morning are not aware that +the contents of a very large number of the little tin boxes which are +supposed to contain the delicacy are not sardines at all. They are +very excellent little fishes, but not sardines; for the enormously +increased demand for them has outstripped the supply. In the days when +the following sentences were written sardines might certainly be had +in London (as what might not?) at such shops as Fortnum and Mason's, +but they were costly, and by no means commonly met with. + +On reaching Douarnenez in the summer of 1839 I wrote:--"The whole +population and the existence of Douarnenez depend on the sardine +fishery. This delicious little fish, which the _gourmands_ of Paris so +much delight in, when preserved in oil, and sent to their capital in +those little tin boxes whose look must be _familiar to all who have +frequented the Parisian breakfast-houses_" [but is now more familiar +to all who have entered any grocers shop throughout the length and +breadth of England], "is still more exquisite when eaten fresh on the +shores which it frequents. They are caught in immense quantities along +the whole of the southern coast of Brittany, and on the western shore +of Finisterre as far to the northward as Brest, which, I believe, is +the northern limit of the fishery. They come into season about the +middle of June, and are then sold in great quantities in all the +markets of southern Brittany at two, three, or four sous a dozen, +according to the abundance of the fishery and the distance of the +market from the coast. I was told that the commerce in sardines along +the coast from l'Orient to Brest amounted to three millions of francs +annually." + +At the present day it must be enormously larger. I remember well the +exceeding plentifulness of the little fishes--none of them so large as +many of those which now fill the so-called sardine boxes--when I was +at Douarnenez in 1839. All the men, women, and children in the place +seemed to be feasting upon them all day long. Plates with heaps of +them fried and piled up crosswise, like timber in a timber-yard, were +to be seen outdoors and indoors, wherever three or four people could +be found together. All this was a thing of the past when I revisited +Douarnenez in 1866. Every fish was then needed for the tinning +business. They were to be had of course by ordering and paying for +them, but very few indeed were consumed by the population of the +place. + +And this subject reminds me of another fishery which I witnessed a +few months ago--last March--at Sestri di Ponente, near Genoa. We +frequently saw nearly the whole of the fisher population of the place +engaged in dragging from the water on to the sands enormously long +nets, which had been previously carried out by boats to a distance not +more I think than three or four hundred yards from the shore. From +these nets, when at last they were landed after an hour or so of +continual dragging by a dozen or twenty men and women, were taken huge +baskets-full of silvery little fish sparkling in the sun, _exactly_ +like whitebait. I had always supposed that whitebait was a specialty +of the Thames. Whether an icthyologist would have pronounced the +little Sestri fishes to be the same creatures as those which British +statesmen consume at Greenwich I cannot say; but we ate them +frequently at the hotel under the name of _gianchetti_, and could find +_no_ difference between them and the Greenwich delicacy. The season +for them did not seem to last above two or three weeks. The fishermen +continued to drag their net, but caught other fishes instead of +_giancketti_. But while it lasted the plenty of them was prodigious. +All Sestri was eating them, as all Douarnenez ate sardines in the old +days. When the net with its sparkling cargo was dragged up on the sand +and the contents were being shovelled into huge baskets to be carried +up into the town, the men would take up handfuls of them, fresh, and I +suppose still living, from the sea, and plunging their bearded mouths +in them, eat them up by hundreds. The children too, irrepressibly +thronging round the net, would pick from its meshes the fishes which +adhered to them and eat them, as more inland rising generations eat +blackberries. I did not try the experiment of eating them thus, as one +eats oysters, but I can testify that, crisply fried, and eaten with +brown bread and butter and lemon juice, they were remarkably good. + +Fortified by the excellent example of Sir Francis Doyle, who in his +extremely amusing volume of _Reminiscences_ gives as a reason for +disregarding the claims of chronology in the composition of it, the +chances that he might forget the matter he had In his mind if he did +not book it at once, I have ventured for the same reason to do the +same thing here. But I have an older authority for the practice in +question, which Sir Francis is hardly likely to have lighted on. +That learned antiquary and portentously voluminous writer, Francesco +Cancellieri, who was well known to the Roman world in the latter years +of the last, and the earliest years of the present, century, used +to compose his innumerable works upon a similar principle. And when +attacked by the critics his cotemporaries, who Italian-like supposed +academically correct form to be the most important thing in any +literary work, he defended himself on the same ground. "If I don't +catch it _now_, I may probably forget it; and is the world to be +deprived of the information it is in my power to give it, for the sake +of the formal correctness of my work?" + +There is another passage in my book on Brittany respecting which it +would be interesting to know whether recent travellers can report +that the state of things there described no longer exists. I wrote in +1839-- + +"Very near Treguier, on a spot appropriately selected for such a +worship--the barren top of a bleak unsheltered eminence--stands the +chapel of _Notre Dame de la Haine!_ Our Lady of HATRED! The most +fiendish of human passions is supposed to be under the protection of +Christ's religion! What is this but a fragment of pure and unmixed +Paganism, unchanged except in the appellation of its idol, which has +remained among these lineal descendants of the Armorican Druids for +more than a thousand years after Christianity has become the professed +religion of the country! Altars, professedly Christian, were raised +under the protection of the Protean Virgin, to the demon _Hatred_; and +have continued to the present day to receive an unholy worship from +blinded bigots, who hope to obtain Heaven's patronage and assistance +for thoughts and wishes which they would be ashamed to breathe to man. +Three _Aves_ repeated with devotion at this odious and melancholy +shrine are firmly believed to have the power to cause, within the +year, the certain death of the person against whom the assistance of +Our Lady of Hatred has been invoked. And it is said that even yet +occasionally, in the silence and obscurity of the evening, the figure +of some assassin worshipper at this accursed shrine may be seen +to glide rapidly from the solitary spot, where he has spoken the +unhallowed prayer whose mystic might has doomed to death the enemy he +_hates_." + +I must tell one other story of my Breton recollections, which refers +to a time much subsequent to the publication of the book I have been +quoting. It was in 1866 that I revisited Brittany in company with +my present wife; and one of the objects of our little tour was the +Finisterre land's end at the extreme point of the horn-like promontory +which forms the department so named. We found some difficulty in +reaching the spot, not the least part of which was caused by the +necessity of threading our way, when in the immediate neighbourhood of +the cliffs, among enormous masses of seaweed stacked in huge heaps +and left to undergo the process of decay, which turns it into very +valuable manure. The odour which impregnated the whole surrounding +atmosphere from these heaps was decidedly the worst and most +asphyxiating I ever experienced. + +We stood at last on the utmost _Finis terrae_ and looked over the +Atlantic not only from the lighthouse, which, built three hundred feet +above the sea level, is often, we were told, drenched by storm-driven +spray, but from various points of the tremendous rocks also. They are +tremendous, in truth. The scene is a much grander one than that at our +own "Land's End," which I visited a month or two ago. The cliffs are +much higher, the rocks are more varied in their forms--more cruelly +savage-looking, and the cleavages of them are on a larger scale. The +spot was one of the most profound solitude, for we were far from the +lighthouse, and the scream of the white gulls as they started from +their roosting-places on the face of the rocks, or returned to them +from their swirling flights, were the only indication of the presence +of any creature having the breath of life. + +The rock ledges, among which we were clambering, were in many places +fearful spots enough--places where a stumble or a divagation of +the foot but six or eight inches from the narrow path would have +precipitated the blunderer to assured and inevitable destruction. +"Here," said I to my wife, as we stood side by side on one such ledge, +"would be the place for a husband, who wanted to get rid of his +wife, to accomplish his purpose. Done in ten seconds! With absolute +certainty! One push would suffice! No cry of any more avail than the +screams of those gulls! And no possibility of the deed being witnessed +by any mortal eye!" + +I had hardly got the words out of my mouth before our ears were +startled by a voice hailing us; and after some searching of the eye +we espied a man engaged in seeking sea-fowls' eggs, who had placed +himself in a position which I should have thought it absolutely +impossible to reach, whence he had seen us, as we now saw him! + +Let this then, my brethren, be a warning to you! + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +Returning from my Breton journey, I reached my mother's house in York +Street on the 23rd of July, 1839, and on the 26th of the same month +left London with her to visit my married sister in her new home at +Penrith, where Mr. Tilley had established himself as Post Office +surveyor of the northern district. His home was a pretty house +situated between the town and the well-known beacon on the hill to the +north of it. + +The first persons I became acquainted with in this, to me, entirely +new region, were Sir George Musgrave, of Edenhall, and his wife, who +was a sister of Sir James Graham. My brother-in-law took me over to +Edenhall, a lovely walk from Penrith, and we found both Sir George +and Lady Musgrave at home. We--my mother and I--had not at that +time conceived the idea of becoming residents at Penrith. But when +subsequently we were led to do so, we found extremely pleasant and +friendly neighbours at Edenhall, and though not in strict chronology +due in this place, I may throw together my few reminiscences of Sir +George. + +He was the _beau-idéal_ of a country gentleman of the old school. He +rarely or never went to London--not, as was the case with some of his +neighbours, because the expense of a season there was formidable, for +his estate was a fine one, and he was a rich man living largely within +his income, but because his idea was, that a country gentleman's +proper place was on his own acres, and because London had no +temptations for him. He was said to be the best landlord in the +county, and really seemed to look upon all his numerous tenants, +and all their labourers, as his born subjects, to whom protection, +kindness, assistance, and general looking after were due, in return +for their fealty and loyal attachment. I think he would have kicked +off his land (and he was a man who could kick) any man who talked in +his hearing of the purely commercial relationship between a landlord +and his tenants. Of course he was adored by all the country side. No +doubt the stout Cumberland and Westmoreland farmers and hinds were +good and loyal subjects of Queen Victoria, but for all practical +purposes of reverence and obedience, Musgrave was king at Edenhall. + +Lady Musgrave was a particularly lady-like woman, the marked elegance +of whose breeding might, with advantage, have given the tone to many a +London drawing-room. I have seen her surrounded by country neighbours, +and though she was _velut inter ignes luna minores_, I never saw the +country squire's or country parson's wife, who was not perfectly happy +and at ease in her drawing-room, while unconsciously all the time +taking a lesson in good breeding and lady-like manners. She was +thoroughly a help-meet for her husband in all his care for his people. +I believe that both he and she were convinced at the bottom of their +hearts that Cumberland and Westmoreland constituted the choicest, +best, and most highly civilised part of England. And she was one of +those of whom I was thinking, when in a former chapter I spoke of +highly educated people whom I had known to affect provincialism of +speech. Lady Musgrave always, or perhaps it would be more correct to +say generally, called a cow a "coo," and though I suspect she would +have left Westmoreland behind if evil fate had called her to London, +on her own hill-sides she preferred the accents of the native speech. + +Sir George had, or affected to have, considerable respect for all the +little local superstitions and beliefs which are so prevalent in +that "north countree." And the kindness with which he welcomed us as +neighbours, when we built a house and came to live there, was shown +despite a strong feeling which he had, or affected to have, with +regard to an incident which fatally marked our _début_ in that +country. + +We bought a field in a very beautiful situation overlooking the ruins +of Brougham Castle and the confluence of the Eden with the Lowther, +and proceeded to build a house on the higher part of it. But there was +a considerable drop from the lower limit of our ground to the road +which skirted the property, and furnished the only access to it. There +was some difficulty, therefore, in contriving a tolerable entrance +from the road for wheel traffic, and it was found necessary to cause a +tiny little spring that rose in the bank by the roadside to change +its course in some small degree. The affair seemed to us a matter of +infinitesimal importance, but Sir George was dismayed. We had moved, +he said, a holy well, and the consequence would surely be that we +should never succeed in establishing ourselves in that spot. + +And surely enough we never did so succeed; for, after having built a +very nice little house, and lived in it one winter and half a summer, +we--for I cannot say that it was my mother more than I, or I more than +my mother--made up our minds that "the sun yoked his horses too far +from Penrith town," and that we had had enough of it. Sir George, +of course, when he heard our determination, while he expressed +all possible regret at losing us as neighbours, said that he knew +perfectly well that it must be so, from the time that we so recklessly +meddled with the holy well. + +He was the most hospitable man in the world, and could never let many +days pass without asking us to dine with him. But his hospitality was +of quite the old world school. One day, but that was after our journey +to Italy and when he had become intimate with us, being in a hurry to +get back into the drawing-room to rejoin a pretty girl next whom I had +sat at dinner, I tried to escape from the dining-room. "Come back!" +he roared, before I could get to the door, "we won't have any of your +d--d forineering habits here! Come back and stick to your wine, or by +the Lord I'll have the door locked." + +He was, unlike most men of his sort, not very fond of riding, but was +a great walker. He used to take the men he could get to walk with him +a tramp over the hill, till they were fain to cry "Hold! enough!" But +_there_ I was his match. + +Most of my readers have probably heard of the "Luck of Edenhall," for +besides Longfellow's[1] well-known poem, the legend relating to it +has often been told in print. I refer to it here merely to mention a +curious trait of character in Sir George Musgrave in connection with +it. The "Luck of Edenhall" is an ancient decorated glass goblet, which +has belonged to the Musgraves time out of mind, and which bears on it +the legend:-- + + "When this cup shall break or fall, + Farewell the luck of Edenhall." + +[Footnote 1: Subsequently to the publication of his poem Musgrave +asked Longfellow to dine at Edenhall, and "picked a crow" with him on +the conclusion of the poem, which represents the "Luck" to have been +broken, which Sir George considered a flight of imagination quite +transcending all permissible poetical licence.] + +After what I have written of Sir George and the holy well, which we so +unfortunately moved from its proper site, it will be readily imagined +that he attached no small importance to the safe keeping of the +"Luck;" and truly he did so. But instead of simply locking it up, +where he might feel sure it could neither break nor fall, he would +show it to all visitors, and not content with that, would insist +on their taking it into their hands to examine and handle it. He +maintained that otherwise there was no fair submission to the test of +luck, which was intended by the inscription. It would have been mere +cowardly prevarication to lock it away under circumstances which took +the matter out of the dominion of "luck" altogether. I wonder +that under such circumstances it has not fallen, for the nervous +trepidation of the folks who were made to handle it may be imagined! + +I made another friend at Penrith in the person of a man as strongly +contrasted with Sir George Musgrave as two north-country Englishmen +could well be. This was a Dr. Nicholson, who has died within the last +few months, to my great regret, for I had promised myself the great +pleasure of taking him by the hand yet once again before starting on +the journey on which we may, or may not meet. He was my senior by a +few years, but not by many. Nicholson was a man of very extensive +reading and of profound Biblical learning. It may be deemed surprising +by others, as it was, and is, to me, that such a man should have been +an earnest and thoroughly convinced Swedenborgian--but such was the +case. And I can conscientiously give this testimony to the excellence +of that creed--that it produced in the person of its learned +north-country disciple at least one truly good and amiable man. Dr. +Nicholson was emphatically such in all the relations of life. He was +the good and loving husband of a very charming wife, the unremittingly +careful and affectionate father of a large family, a delightful host +at his own table, an excellent and instructive companion over a cigar +(hardly correctly alluded to in the singular number!) and a most +_jucundus comes_ in a tramp over the hills. + +Amusing to me still is the contrast between those Cumberland walks +with Sir George and my ramblings over the same or nearly the same +ground with the meditative Swedenborgian doctor;--the first always +pushing ahead as if shouldering along a victorious path through life, +knowing the history of every foot of ground he passed over, interested +in every detail of it, and with an air of continually saying "Ha! +ha!" among the breezy trumpets of those hills, like the scriptural +war-horse; the second with his gaze very imperfectly turned +outward, but very fruitfully turned inward, frequently pausing with +argumentative finger laid on his companion's breast, and smile half +satirical half kindly as the flow of discourse revealed theological +_lacunae_ in my acquirements, which, I fear, irreparably and most +unfairly injured the Regius professor of divinity in the mind of the +German graduate. For Nicholson was a theological "doctor" by virtue of +a degree from I forget what German university, and had a low estimate, +perhaps more justified at that day than it would be now, of the extent +and calibre of Oxford theological learning. He was himself a disciple, +and an enthusiastic admirer of Ewald, a very learned Hebraist, and an +unflagging student. + +I was more capable of appreciating at its due value the extent and +accuracy of his knowledge upon another subject--a leg of mutton! It +_may_ be a mere coincidence, but certainly the most learned Hebraist +it was ever my lot to know was also the best and most satisfactory +carver of a leg of mutton. + +Nobody knows anything about mutton in these days, for the very +sufficient reason that there is no mutton worth knowing anything about. +Scientific breeding has improved it off the face of the earth. The +immature meat is killed at two years old, and only we few survivors of a +former generation know how little like it is to the mutton of former +days. The Monmouthshire farmers told me the other day that they could +not keep Welsh sheep of pure breed, because nothing under an eight-foot +park paling would confine them. Just as if they did not jump in the days +when I jumped too! Believe me, my young friends, that George the Third +knew what he was talking about (as upon certain other occasions) when he +said that very little venison was equal to a haunch of four-year-old +mutton. And the gravy!--chocolate-coloured, not pink, my innocent young +friends. Ichabod! Ichabod! + +My uncle, too, Mr. Partington--who married my father's sister, and +lived many years chairman of quarter sessions at Offham, among the +South Downs, near Lewes--there was a man who understood mutton! A +little silver saucepan was placed by his side when the leg of mutton, +or sometimes two, about as big as fine fowls, were placed in one +dish before him. Then, after the mutton had been cut, the abundantly +flowing gravy was transferred to the saucepan, a couple of glasses of +tawny old port, and a _quantum suff._ of currant jelly and cayenne +were added, the whole was warmed in the dining-room, and then--we ate +mutton, as I shall never eat it again in this world! + +Well! _revenir a nos moutons_ we never, never shall! So we must, alas! +do the reverse in returning to my Penrith reminiscences. + +I remember specially an excellent old fellow and very friendly +neighbour, Colonel Macleod, a bachelor, who having fallen in love with +a very beautiful spot, in the valley of the Lowther, built an ugly +brick house, three stories high, because, as he said, he was so greedy +of the view, forgetful apparently that he was providing it mainly for +his maid servants. Then there was the old maiden lady, with a name +that might have been found in north-country annals at almost any +date during the last seven hundred years, who mildly and maternally +corrected my sister at table for speaking of _vol-au-vent_, telling +her that the correct expression was _voulez-vous!_ My sister always +adopted the old lady's correction in future, at least when addressing +her. + +Then there were two pretty girls, Margaret and Charlotte Story, the +nieces of old De Whelpdale, the lord of the manor. I think he and Mrs. +De Whelpdale never left their room, for I do not remember to have ever +seen either of them; nor do I remember that I at all resented their +absence from the drawing-room when I used to call at the manor house. +One of the girls was understood to be engaged to be married to a far +distant lieutenant, of whom Penrith knew nothing, which circumstance +gave rise to sundry ingenious conceits in the acrostic line, based on +allusions to "his story" and "mystery!" I wonder whether Charlotte is +alive! If she is, and should see this page, she will remember! It was +for her sake that I deserted, or tried to desert, Sir George's port, +as related above. + +We left Penrith on that occasion without having formed any decided +intention of establishing ourselves there, and returned to London +towards the end of August, 1839. During the next two months I was hard +at work completing the MS. of my volumes on Brittany. And in November +of the same year, after that long fast from all journeying, my mother +and I left London for a second visit to Paris. But we did not on this +occasion travel together. + +I left London some days earlier than she did, and travelled by Ostend, +Cologne, and Mannheim, my principal object being to visit my old +friend, Mrs. Fauche, who was living at the latter place. I passed +three or four very pleasant days there, including, as I find by my +diary, sundry agreeable jaunts to Heidelberg, Carlsruhe, &c. My mother +and I had arranged to meet at Paris on the 4th of December, and at +that date I punctually turned up there. + +I think that I saw Paris and the Parisians much more satisfactorily on +this occasion than during my first visit; and I suspect that some of +the recollections recorded in these pages as connected with my first +visit to Paris, belong really to this second stay there, especially I +think that this must have been the case with regard to my acquaintance +with Chateaubriand, though I certainly was introduced to him at the +earlier period, for I find the record of much talk with him about +Brittany, which was a specially welcome subject to him. + +It was during this second visit that I became acquainted with Henry +Bulwer, afterwards Lord Dalling, and at that time first secretary of +the British legation. My visits were generally, perhaps always, paid +to him when he was in bed, where he was lying confined by, if I +remember rightly, a broken leg, I used to find his bed covered with +papers and blue-books, and the like. And I was told that the whole, or +at all events the more important part of the business of the embassy +was done by him as he lay there on the bed, which must have been for +many a long hour a bed of suffering. + +Despite certain affectations--which were so palpably affectations, and +scarcely pretended to be aught else, that there was little or nothing +annoying or offensive in them--he was a very agreeable man, and was +unquestionably a very brilliant one. He came to dine with me, I +remember, many years afterwards at my house in Florence, when he +insisted (the dining-room being on the first floor) on being carried +up stairs, as we thought at the time very unnecessarily. But for +aught I know such suspicion may have wronged him. At all events his +disability, whatever it may have been, did not prevent him from making +himself very agreeable. + +One of our guests upon that same occasion (I must drag the mention of +the fact in head and shoulders here, or else I shall forget it), was +that extraordinary man, Baron Ward, who was, or perhaps I ought to say +at that time had been, prime minister and general administrator to the +Duke of Lucca. Ward had been originally brought from Yorkshire to be +an assistant in the ducal stables. There, doubtless because he knew +more about the business than anybody else concerned with it, he soon +became chief. In that capacity he made himself so acceptable to the +Duke, that he was taken from the stables to be his highness's personal +attendant. His excellence in that position soon enlarged his duties +to those of controller of the whole ducal household. And thence, by +degrees that were more imperceptible in the case of such a government +than they could have been in a larger and more regularly administered +state, Ward became the recognised, and nearly all-powerful head, +manager, and ruler of the little Duchy of Lucca. And I believe the +strange promotion was much for the advantage of the Duke and of the +Duke's subjects. Ward, I take it, never robbed him or any one else. +And this eccentric specialty, the Duke, though he was no Solomon, +had the wit to discover. In his cups the ex-groom, ex-valet, was not +reticent about his sovereign master, and his talk was not altogether +of an edifying nature. One sally sticks in my memory. "Ah, yes! He was +a grand favourite with the women. But _I_ have had the grooming of +him; and it was a wuss job than ever grooming his hosses was!" + +Ward got very drunk that night, I remember, and we deemed it fortunate +that our diplomatist guest had departed before the outward signs of +his condition became manifest. + +Henry Bulwer, by mere circumstance of synchronism, has suggested the +remembrance of Ward, Ward has called up the Duke of Lucca, and he +brings with him a host of Baths of Lucca reminiscences respecting his +Serene Highness and others. But all these _must_ be left to find their +places, if anywhere, when I come to them later on, or we shall never +get back to Paris. + +It was on this our second visit to _Lutetia Parisiorum_ that my mother +and I made acquaintance with a very specially charming family of the +name of D'Henin. The family circle consisted of General le Vicomte +D'Henin, his English wife, and their daughter. The general was a +delightful old man, more like an English general officer than any +other Frenchman I ever met. Madame D'Henin was like an Englishwoman +not unaccustomed to courts and wholly unspoiled by them. Mademoiselle +D'Henin, very pretty, united the qualities of a denizen of the inmost +circles of the fashionable world with those of a really serious +student, to a degree I have never seen equalled. They were great +friends of the Bishop of London, and Mademoiselle D'Henin used to +correspond with him. She was earnestly religious, and I remember her +telling me of a _démêlé_ she had had with her confessor. She had told +him in confession that she was in the habit of reading the English +Bible. He strongly objected, and at last told her that he could not +give her absolution unless she promised to discontinue the practice. +She told him that rather than do so, she would take what would be to +her the painful step of declaring herself a Protestant, whereupon he +undertook to obtain a special permission for her to read the English +Bible. Whether he did really take any such measures I don't know, and +I fancy she never knew; but the upshot was that she continued to read +the heretical book, and nothing more was ever said of refusing her +absolution. + +I have a large bundle of letters from this highly accomplished young +lady to my mother. Many passages of them would be interesting and +valuable to an historian of the reign of Louis Philippe. She writes at +great length, and her standpoint is the very centre of the monarchical +side of the French political world of that day. But as I am _not_ +writing a history of the reign of Louis Philippe, I must content +myself with extracting two or three suggestive notices. + +In a letter dated from Paris, 19th July, 1840, she writes:--"You shew +much hospitality towards your royal guests. But I assure you it will +not in this instance be taken as an homage to superior merit--words +which I have heard frequently applied here to John Bull's frenzy +about Soult, and to the hospitality of the English towards the Duc de +N[emours], When I told him how much I should like to be in his place +(_i.e._, about to go to England), he protested that he would change +places with no one, '_quand il s'agissait d'aller dans un aussi +delicieux pays, que cette belle Angleterre, que vous avez si bonne +raison d'aimer et d'admirer._'" + +On the 29th of August in the same year she writes at great length of +the indignation and fury produced in Paris by the announcement of +the Quadruple Alliance. She is immensely impressed by the fact that +"people gathered in the streets and discussed the question in the open +air." "Ireland, Poland, and Italy are to rise to the cry of Liberty." +But she goes on to say, "Small causes produce great effects. Much of +this warlike disposition has arisen from the fact of Thiers having +bought a magnificent horse to ride beside the King at the late +review." She proceeds to ridicule the minister in a tone very +naturally suggested by the personal appearance of the little great man +under such circumstances, which no doubt furnished Paris with much +fun. But she goes on to suggest that the personal vanity which +made the prospect of such a public appearance alluring to him +was reinforced by "certain other secondary but still important +considerations of a different nature, looking to the results which +might follow from the exhibition of a war policy. This desirable end +being attained beyond even the most sanguine hopes, the martial fever +seems on the decline." + +Now all this gossip may be accepted as evidencing the tone prevailing +in the very inmost circles of the citizen king's friends and +surroundings, and as such is curious. + +Writing on the 8th of October in the same year, after speaking at +great length of Madame Laffarge, and of the extraordinary interest +her trial excited, dividing all Paris into Laffargists and +anti-Laffargists, and almost superseding war as a general topic +of conversation, she passes to the then burning subject of the +fortification of Paris, and writes as follows--curiously enough, +considering the date of her letter:-- + +"Louis Philippe, whose favourite hobby it has ever been, from the idea +that it makes him master of Paris, lays the first stone to-day. Some +people consider it the first stone of the mausoleum of his dynasty. +I sincerely hope not; for everything that can be called lady or +gentleman runs a good chance of forming part of the funeral pile. The +political madness which has taken possession of the public mind is +fearful. Foreign or civil war! Such is the alternative. Thiers, who +governs the masses, flatters them by promises of war and conquest. The +_Marsellaise_, so lately a sign of rebellion, is sung openly in the +theatres; the soldiers under arms sing it in chorus. The Guarde +Nationale urges the King to declare war. He has resisted it with all +his power, but has now, they say, given way, and has given Thiers +_carte blanche_. He is in fact entirely under his control. The +Chambers are not consulted. Thiers is our absolute sovereign. We call +ourselves a free people. We have beheaded one monarch, exiled three +generations of kings merely to have a dictator, '_mal né, mal fait, et +mal élevé_.' There has been a rumour of a change of ministry, but no +one believes it. The overthrow of Thiers would be the signal for a +revolution, and the fortifications are not yet completed to master it. +May not all these armaments be the precursors of some _coup d'état_? A +general gloom is over all around us. All the faces are long; all the +conversations are sad!" + +This may be accepted as a thoroughly accurate and trustworthy +representation of the then state of feeling and opinion among the +friends of Louis Philippe's Government, whether _Parceque Bourbon_ or +_Quoique Bourbon_, and as such is valuable. It is curious too, to find +a staunch friend of the existing government, who may be said to have +been even intimate with the younger members of the royal family, +speaking of the Prime Minister with the detestation which these +letters again and again express for Thiers. + +In a letter of the 19th November, 1840, the writer describes at great +length the recent opening of the Chamber by the King. She enlarges on +the intensity of the anxiety felt for the tenor of the King's speech, +which was supposed to be the announcement of war or peace; and +describes the deep emotion, with which Louis Philippe, declaring his +hope that peace might yet be preserved, called upon the nation to +assist him in the effort to maintain it; and expresses the scorn and +loathing with which she overheard one republican deputy say to another +as the King spoke, "_Voyez donc ce Robert Macaire, comme il fait +semblant d'avoir du coeur_!" + +A letter of the 14th March, 1842, is written in better spirits and +a lighter tone. Speaking of the prevalent hostile feeling towards +England the writer wishes that her countrymen would remember +Lamartine's observation that "_ce patriotisme coûte peu! Il suffit +d'ignorer, d'injurier et de hair_." She tells her correspondent that +"if Lord Cowley has much to do to establish the exact line between +Lord Aberdeen's _observations_ and _objections_, Lady Cowley has +no less difficulty in keeping a nice balance between dignity and +popularity," as "the Embassy is besieged by all sets and all parties; +the tag and rag, because pushing is a part of their nature; the _juste +milieu_ [how the very phrase recalls a whole forgotten world!] because +they consider the English Embassy as their property; the noble +Faubourg because they are tired of sulking, and would not object +to treating Lady Cowley as they treated Colonel Thorn,[1] viz., +establishing their quarters at the 'Cowley Arms,' as they did at +the 'Thorn's Head,' and inviting their friends on the recognised +principle, '_C'est moi qui invite, et Monsieur qui paie_'" + +[Footnote 1: Colonel Thorn was an American of fabulous wealth, who was +for a season or two very notorious in Paris. He was the hero of the +often-told story of the two drives to Longchamps the same day; first +with one gorgeous equipment of _liveries_, and a second time with +other and more resplendently clothed retainers.] + +Then follows an account of a fancy _bal monstre_ at the Tuileries, +which might have turned out, says the writer, to deserve that title +in another sense. It was believed that a plot had been formed for +the assassination of the King, at the moment, when, according to his +invariable custom, he took his stand at the door of the supper-room to +receive the ladies there. Four thousand five hundred tickets had been +issued and a certain number of these, still blank, had disappeared. +That was certain. And it was also certain that the King did not go to +the door of the supper-room as usual. But the writer remarks that the +tickets may have been stolen by, or for, people who could not obtain +them legitimately. But the instantly conceived suspicion of a plot is +illustrative of the conditions of feeling and opinions in Paris at the +time. + +"For my part," continues Mademoiselle D'Henin, "I never enjoyed a +ball so much; perhaps because I did not expect to be amused; perhaps +because all the royal family, the Jockey Club, and the fastidious +Frenchwomen congratulated me upon my toilet, and voted it one of the +handsomest there. They _said_ the most becoming (but that was _de +l'eau bénite de Cour_); perhaps it was because the Dukes of Orleans, +Nemours, and Aumale, who never dance, and did so very little that +evening, all three honoured me with a quadrille. You see I expose to +you all the very linings of my heart I dissect it and exhibit all +the vanity it contains. But you will excuse me when I tell you of a +compliment that might have turned a wiser head than mine. The fame of +my huntress's costume (Mademoiselle D'Henin was in those days the very +_beau-idéal_ of a Diana!) was such that it reached the ears of the +wife of our butcher, who sent to beg that I would lend it to her to +copy, as she was going to a fancy ball!" + +A letter of the 8th of August, 1842, written from Fulham Palace, +contains some interesting notices of the grief and desolation caused +by the sad death of the Duke of Orleans. + +"Was there ever a more afflicting calamity!" she writes. "When last +I wrote his name in a letter to you, it was to describe him as the +admired of all beholders, the hero of the _féte_, the pride and honour +of France, and now what remains of him is in his grave! The affliction +of his family baffles all description. I receive the most touching +accounts from Paris. Some ladies about the Court write to me that +nothing can equal their grief. As long as the coffin remained in the +chapel at Neuilly, the members of the family were incessantly kneeling +by the side of it, praying and weeping. The King so far mastered his +feelings, that whenever he had official duties to perform, he was +sufficiently composed to perform _son métier de Roi_. But when the +painful task was done he would rush to the chapel, and weep over the +dead body of his son, till the whole palace rang with his cries and +lamentations. When the body was removed from Neuilly to Notre Dame, +the scene at Neuilly was truly heartrending. My father has seen the +King and the Princes several times since the catastrophe, and he says +it has done the work of years on their personal appearance, The Due de +Nemours has neither eaten nor slept since his brother died, and +looks as if walking out of his grave. Mamma wrote him a few lines +of condolence, which he answered by a most affecting note. Papa was +summoned to attend the King to the House, as _Grand Officier_, and +says he never witnessed such a scene. Even the opposition shed their +crocodile tears. Placed immediately near the King on the steps of +the throne, he saw the struggle between kingly decorum and fatherly +affliction. Nature had the victory. Three times the King attempted to +speak, three times he was obliged to stop, and at last burst into a +flood of tears. The contagion gained all around him. And it was only +interrupted by sobs that he could proceed. And it is in the face of +this despair, when the body of the prince is scarcely cold, that +that horrid Thiers and his associates begin afresh their infernal +manoeuvres!" + +A letter of the 3rd April, 1842, contains among a quantity of the +gossip of the day an odd story, which, the writer says, "is putting +Rome in a ferment, and the clergy in raptures." I think I remember +that it made a considerable stir in ecclesiastic circles at the time. +A certain M. Ratisbonne, a Jew, it seems entered a church in Rome (the +writer does not say so, but if I remember rightly, it was the "Gesu"), +with a friend, a M. de Bussières, who had some business to transact in +the sacristy. The Jew, who professed complete infidelity, meantime was +looking at the pictures. But M. de Bussières, when his business was +done, found him prostrate on the pavement in front of a picture of the +Madonna. The Jew on coming to himself declared that the Virgin had +stepped from her frame, and addressed him, with the result, as he +said, that having fallen to the ground an infidel, he rose a convinced +Christian! Mademoiselle D'Henin writes in a tone which indicates small +belief in the miracle, but seems to accept as certain the further +facts, that the convert gave all he possessed to the Church and became +a monk. + +I have recently--even while transcribing these extracts from her +letters--heard of the death, within the last few years, of the writer +of them. She died in England, I am told, and unmarried. Her sympathies +and affections were always strongly turned to her mother's country, as +indeed may be in some degree inferred from even those passages of her +letters which have been given. And I can well conceive that the events +which, each more disastrous than its predecessor, followed in France +shortly after the date of the last of them, may have rendered, +especially after the death of her parents, a life in France +distasteful to her. But I, and, I think, my mother also, had entirely +lost sight of her for very many years. Had I imagined that she was +living in England, I should undoubtedly have endeavoured to see her. + +I have known many women, denizens of _le grand monde_, who have +adorned it with equally brilliant talents, equally captivating beauty, +equally sparkling wit and vivacity of intelligence. And I have known +many, denizens of the studious and the book world, gifted with larger +powers of intellect, and more richly dowered with the results of +thought and study But I do not think that I ever met with one who +possessed in so large a degree the choice product resulting from +conversance with both these worlds. She was in truth a very brilliant +creature. + +Madame D'Henin I remember made us laugh heartily one evening by +telling us the following anecdote. At one of those remarkable +_omnium-gatherum_ receptions at the Tuileries, of which I have spoken +in a former chapter, she heard an American lady, to whom Louis +Philippe was talking of his American recollections and of various +persons he had known there, say to him, "Oh, sire, they all retain the +most lively recollections of your majesty's sojourn among them, _and +wish nothing more than that you should return among them again_!" The +Duke of Orleans, who was standing behind the King, fairly burst into a +guffaw. + +There was a story current in Rome, in the days of Pius the Ninth, +which may be coupled with this as a good _pendant_. His Holiness, when +he had occupied the papal throne for a period considerably exceeding +the legendary twenty-five years of St. Peter, was one day very affably +asking an Englishman, who had been presented to him, whether he had +seen everything in Rome most calculated to interest a stranger, and +was answered; "Yes indeed, your Holiness, I think almost everything, +except one which I confess I have been particularly anxious to +witness--a conclave!" + +Here are a few jottings at random from my diary, which may still have +some little interest. + +"Madame Le Roi, a daughter of General Hoche, told me (22nd January, +1840), that as she was driving on the boulevard a day or two ago, +a sou piece was thrown with great violence at the window of her +carriage, smashing it to pieces. This, she said, was because her +family arms were emblazoned on the panel. Most of the carriages in +Paris, she said, had no arms on them for fear of similar attacks." + +Then we were active frequenters of the theatres. We go, I find, to the +Français, to see Mars, then sixty years old, in _Les Dehors Trompeurs_ +and in the _Fausses Confidences_; to the opera to hear _Robert le +Diable_ and _Lucia di Lammermuir_, with Persiani, Tamburini, and +Rubini; and the following night to the Français again, to see Rachel +in _Cinna_. + +I thought her personally, I observe, very attractive. But that, and +sundry other subsequent experiences, left me with the impression +that she was truly very powerful in the representation of scorn, +indignation, hatred, and all the sterner and less amiable passions of +the soul, but failed painfully when her _rôle_ required the exhibition +of tenderness or any of the gentler emotions. These were my +impressions when she was young and I was comparatively so. But when, +many years afterwards, I saw her repeatedly in Italy, they were not, I +think, much modified. + +The frequent occasions on which subsequently I saw Ristori produced an +impression on me very much the reverse. I remember thinking Ristori's +"Mirra" too good, so terribly true as to be almost too painful for the +theatre. I thought Rachel's "Marie Stuart" upon the whole her finest +performance, though "Adrienne" ran it hard. + +Persiani, I note, supported by Lablache and Rubini, had a most +triumphant reception in _Inez de Castro_, while Albertazzi was very +coldly received in _Blanche de Castille_. Grisi in _Norma_ was +"superb." "Persiani and P. Garcia sang a duet from _Tancredi_; it was +divine! I think I like Garcia's voice better than any of them. Nor +could I think her ugly, as it is the fashion to call her, though it +must be admitted that her mouth and teeth are alarming." + +Then there were brilliant receptions at the English Embassy (Lord +Granville) and at the Austrian Embassy (Comte d'Appony). My diary +remarks that stars and gold lace and ribbons of all the Orders in +Christendom were more abundant at the latter, but female beauty at the +former. I remember much admiring that of Lady Honoria Cadogan, and +that of a very remarkably lovely Visconti girl, a younger sister of +the Princess Belgiojoso. But despite this perfect beauty, my diary +notes, that it was "curious to observe the unmistakable superiority +as a human being of the young English patrician." I remember that the +"sit-down" suppers at the Austrian Embassy--a separate little table +for every two, three, or four guests--were remarked on as a novelty +(and applauded) by the Parisians. + +Then at Miss Clarke's (afterwards Madame Mohl) I find Fauriel, "the +first Provençal scholar in Europe," delightful, and am disgusted with +Merimée, because he manifested self-sufficiency, as it seemed to my +youthful criticism, by pooh-poohing the probability of the temple +at Lanleff in Brittany having been aught else than a church of the +Templars. + +Then Arago reads an _Eloge_ on "old Ampère," of which I only remark +that it lasted two hours and a half. Then there was a dinner at Dr. +Gilchrist's whose widow our old friend Pepe, who for many years had +always called her "Madame Ghee-cree," subsequently married. My notes, +written the same evening, remind me that "I did not much like the +radical old Doctor (his wife was an old acquaintance, but I had +never seen him before); he is eighty, and ought to know better. Old +Nymzevitch (I am not sure of the spelling), the ex-Chancellor of +Poland, dined with us. He is eighty-four. When he said that he had +conversed with the Duc de Richelieu, I started as if he had announced +himself as the Wandering Jew. But, in fact, he had had, when a young +man, an interview with the Duc, then ninety. He was, Nymzevitch told +me, dreadfully emaciated, but dressed very splendidly in a purple +coat all bedizened with silver lace. He received me, said the old +ex-Chancellor, with much affable dignity."' + +Then comes a breakfast with Pepe, at which I met the President +Thibeaudeau, "a grey old man who makes a point of saying rude, coarse, +and disagreeable things, which his friends call dry humour. He found +fault with everything at the breakfast table." + +Then a visit to the Chamber (where I heard Soult, Dupin, and Teste +speak, and thought it "a terrible bear-garden)" is followed by +attendance at a sermon by Athanase Coquerel, the Protestant preacher +whose reputation in the Parisian _beau monde_ was great in those days. +He was, says my diary, "exceedingly eloquent, but I did not like his +sermon;" for which dislike my notes proceed to give the reasons, which +I spare the, I hope grateful, reader. Then I went to hear Bishop +Luscombe at the Ambassador's chapel, and listened to "a very stupid +sermon." I seem, somewhat to my surprise as I read the records of it, +to have had a pronounced taste for sermons in those days, which I fear +I have somehow outgrown. But then I have been very deaf during my +later decades. + +Bishop Luscombe may perhaps however be made more amusing to the reader +than he was to me in the Embassy chapel by the following fragment of +his experience. The Bishop arrived one day at Paddington, and could +not find his luggage. He called a porter to find it for him, telling +him the name to be read on the articles. The man, very busy with other +people, answered hurriedly, "You must go to hell for your luggage." +Now, Luscombe, who was a somewhat pompous and very _bishopy_ man, was +dreadfully shocked, and felt, as he said, as if the porter had struck +him in the face. In extreme indignation he demanded where he could +speak with any of the authorities, and was told that "the Board" +was then sitting up stairs. So to the boardroom the Bishop went +straightway, and announcing himself, made his complaint. The chairman, +professing his regret that such offence should have been given, +said he feared the man must have been drunk, but that he should be +immediately summoned to give an account of his conduct. So the porter +in great trepidation appeared in a few minutes before the august +tribunal of "the Board." + +"Well, sir," said he in reply to the chairman's indignant questioning, +"what could I do? I was werry busy at the time. So when the gentleman +says as his name was Luscombe, I could do no better than tell him to +go to h'ell for his luggage, and he'd have found it there all right!" + +"Oh! I see," said the chairman, "it is a case of misplaced aspirate! +We have spaces on the wall marked with the letters of the alphabet, +and you would have found your luggage at the letter L. You will see +that the man meant no offence. I am sorry you should have been so +scandalised, but though we succeed, I hope, in making our porters +civil to our customers, it would be hopeless, I fear, to attempt to +make them say L correctly." _Solvuntur risu tabulae_. + +I find chronicled a long talk with Mohl one evening at Madame +Récamier's. The room was very full of notable people of all sorts, and +the tide of chattering was running very strong. "How can anything last +long in France?" said he, in reply to my having said (in answer to +his assertion that Cousin's philosophy had gone by) that it had been +somewhat short-lived. "Reputations are made and pass away. It is +impossible that they should endure. It is in such places as this that +they are destroyed. The friction is prodigious!" + +We then began to talk of the state of religion in France. He said +that among a large set, religion was now _à la mode_. But he did not +suppose that many of the fine folks who _patronised_ it had much +belief in it. The clergy of France were, he said, almost invariably +very illiterate. Guizot, I remembered, calls them in his _History of +Civilisation doctes et crudits_, but I abstained from quoting him. +Mohl went on to tell me a story of a newspaper that had been about to +be established, called _Le Democrat_. The shareholders met, when it +appeared that one party wished to make it a Roman Catholic, and the +other an atheist organ. Whereupon the existence of God was put to the +vote and carried by a majority of one, at which the atheist party were +so disgusted that they seceded in a body. + +I got to like Mohl much, and had more conversation, I think, with him +than with any other of the numerous men of note with whom I became +more or less acquainted. On another occasion, when I found him in his +cabinet, walled up as usual among his books, our talk fell on his +great work, the edition of the oriental MSS. in the _Bibliothèque +Royale_, which was to be completed in ten folio volumes, the first +of which, just out, he was showing me. He complained of the extreme +slowness of the Government presses in getting on with the work. This +he attributed to the absurd costliness, as he considered it, of the +style in which the work was brought out. The cost of producing that +first volume he told me had been over 1,600_l_. sterling. It was to be +sold at a little less than a hundred francs. Something was said (by +me, I think) of the possibility of obtaining assistance from the King, +who was generally supposed to be immensely wealthy. Mohl said that he +did not believe Louis Philippe to be nearly so rich a man as he was +supposed to be. He had spent, he said, enormous sums on the châteaux +he had restored, and was affirmed by those who had the means of +knowing the fact, to be at that time twelve millions of francs in +debt. + +My liking for Mohl seems to have been fully justified by the +estimation he was generally held in. I find in a recently published +volume by Kathleen O'Meara on the life of my old friend, Miss Clarke, +who afterwards became his wife, the following passage quoted from +Sainte-Beuve, who describes him as "a man who was the very embodiment +of learning and of inquiry, an oriental _savant_--more than a +_savant_--a sage, with a mind clear, loyal, and vast; a German mind +passed through an English filter, a cloudless, unruffled mirror, open +and limpid; of pure and frank morality; early disenchanted with all +things; with a grain of irony devoid of all bitterness, the laugh of a +child under a bald head; a Goethe-like intelligence, but free from all +prejudice." "A charming and _spirituelle_ Frenchwoman," Miss O'Meara +goes on to say, "said of Julius Mohl that Nature in forming his +character had skimmed the cream of the three nationalities to which he +belonged by birth, by adoption and by marriage, making him deep as a +German, _spirituel_ as a Frenchman, and loyal as an Englishman." + +I may insert here the following short note from Madame Mohl, because +the manner of it is very characteristic of her. It is, as was usual +with her, undated. + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR MR. TROLLOPE,--By accident I have just learned that you are +in London. If I could see you and talk over my dear old friend (Madame +Récamier) I should be so much obliged and so glad. I live 68 Oxford +Terrace, Hyde Park. If you would write me a note to say when I should +be at home for the purpose. But if you can't, I am generally, not +always, found after four. But if you could come on the 10th or 12th +after nine we have a party. I am living at Mrs. Schwabe's just now +till 16th this month. Pray write me a note, even If you can't come. + +"Yours ever, + +"MARY MOHL." + + * * * * * + +All the capital letters in the above transcript, except those in her +name are mine, she uses none. The note is written in headlong hurry. + +Mignet, whom I met at the house of Thiers, I liked too, but Mohl was +my favourite. + +It was all very amusing, with as much excitement and interest of +all kinds crammed into a few weeks as might have lasted one for a +twelvemonth. And I liked it better than teaching Latin to the youth of +Birmingham. But it would seem that there was something that I liked +better still. For on March 30th, leaving my mother in the full swing +of the Parisian gaieties, I bade adieu to them all and once again +"took to the road," bound on an excursion through Central France. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +My journey through central France took me by Chartres, Orleans, down +the Loire to Nantes, then through La Vendée to Fontenay, Niort, +Poitiers, Saintes, Rochefort, La Rochelle, Bordeaux, Angouleme, +Limoges, and thence back to Paris. On looking at the book for the +first time since I read the proof-sheets I find it amusing. The fault +of it, as an account of the district traversed, is, that it treats +of the localities described on a scale that would have needed twenty +volumes, instead of two, to complete the story of my tour in the same +proportion. I do not remember that any of my critics noted this fault. +Perhaps they feared that on the first suggestion of such an idea I +should have set about mending the difficulty by the production of a +score of other volumes on the subject! I could easily have done so. I +was in no danger of incurring the anathema launched by Sterne--I think +it was Sterne--against the man who went from Dan to Beersheba and +found all barren. I found matter of interest everywhere, and could +have gone on doing so, as it seemed to me in those days, for ever. + +The part of France I visited is not much betravelled by Englishmen, +and the general idea is that it is not an interesting section of the +country. I thought, and still think, otherwise. My notion is, that +if a line were drawn through France from Calais to the centre of the +Pyrenean chain, by far the greater part of the prettiest country and +most interesting populations, as well as places, would be found to the +westward of it. I do not think that my bill of fare excited any great +interest in the reading world. But I suppose that I contrived to +interest a portion of it; for the book was fairly successful. + +I wrote a book in many respects of the same kind many years +subsequently, giving an account of a journey through certain +little-visited districts of central Italy, under the title of a +_Lenten Journey_. It is not, I think, so good a book as my French +journeys furnished, mainly to my mind because it was in one small +volume instead of two big ones, and both for want of space and want of +time was done hurriedly and too compendiously. The true motto for the +writer of such a book is _nihil a me alienum puto_, whether _humanum_ +or otherwise. My own opinion is, to make a perfectly clean breast of +it, that I could now write a fairly amusing book on a journey from +Tyburn turnpike to Stoke Pogis. But then such books should be +addressed to readers who are not in such a tearing hurry as the +unhappy world is in these latter days. + +It would seem that I found my two octavo volumes did not afford me +nearly enough space to say my say respecting the country traversed, +for they are brought to an end somewhat abruptly by a hurried return +from Limoges to Paris; whereas my ramble was much more extended, +including both the upper and lower provinces of Auvergne and the +whole of the Bourbonnais. My voluminous notes of the whole of these +wanderings are now before me. But I will let my readers off easy, +recording only that I walked from Murat to St. Flour, a distance of +fifteen miles, in five minutes under three hours. Not bad! My diary +notes that it was frequently very difficult to find my way in walking +about Auvergne, from the paucity of people I could find who could +speak French, the _langue du pays_ being as unintelligible as Choctaw. +This would hardly be the case now. + +I don't know whether a knot of leading tradesmen at Bordeaux could +now be found to talk, as did such a party with whom I got into +conversation in that year, 1840. It was explained to me that England, +as was well known, had liberated her slaves in the West Indies +perfectly well knowing that the colonies would be absolutely ruined by +the measure, but expecting to be amply compensated by the ruin of +the French colonies, which would result from the example, and the +consequent extension of trade with the East Indies, from which France +would be compelled to purchase all the articles her own colonies now +supplied her with. One of these individuals told me and the rest of +his audience, that he had the means of _knowing_ that the interest of +the English national debt was paid every year by fresh borrowing, and +that bankruptcy and absolute smash must occur within a few years. +"Ah!" said a much older, grey-headed man, who had been listening +sitting with his hands reposing on his walking-stick before him, and +who spoke with a sort of patient, long-expecting hope and a deep sigh, +"ah! we have been looking for that many a year; but I am beginning to +doubt whether I shall live to see it." My assurances that matters were +not altogether so bad as they supposed in England of course met with +little credence. Still, they listened to me, and did not show angry +signs of a consciousness that I was audaciously befooling them, till +the talk having veered to London, I ventured to assure them that +London was not surrounded by any _octroi_ boundary, and that no impost +of that nature was levied there.[1] Then in truth I might as well have +assured them that London streets were literally paved with gold. + +[Footnote 1: It may possibly be necessary to tell untravelled +Englishmen that the _octroi_, universal on the Continent, is an impost +levied on all articles of consumption at the gates of a town.] + +On the 30th of May, 1840, I returned with my mother from Paris to +her house in York Street. Life had been very pleasant there to her +I believe, and certainly to me during those periods of it which my +inborn love of rambling allowed me to pass there. But in the following +June it was determined that the house in York Street should be given +up. Probably the _causa causans_ of this determination was the fact of +my sister's removal to far Penrith. But I think too, that there was +a certain unavowed feeling, that we had eaten up London, and should +enjoy a move to new pastures. + +I remember well a certain morning in York Street when we--my mother +and I--held a solemn audit of accounts. It was found that during her +residence in York Street she had spent a good deal more than she had +supposed. She had entertained a good deal, giving frequent "little +dinners." But dinners, however little, are apt in London to leave +tradesmen's bills not altogether small in proportion to their +littleness. "The fact is," said my mother, "that potatoes have been +quite exceptionally dear." For a very long series of years she never +heard the last of those exceptional potatoes. But despite the alarming +deficit caused by those unfortunate vegetables, I do not think +the abandonment of the establishment in York Street was caused by +financial considerations. She was earning in those years large sums +of money--quite as large as any she had been spending--and might have +continued in London had she been so minded. + +No doubt I had much to do with the determination we came to. But +for my part, if it had at that time been proposed to me, that our +establishment should be reduced to a couple of trunks, and all our +worldly possessions to the contents of them, with an opening vista of +carriages, diligences, and ships _ad libitum_ in prospect, I should +have jumped at the idea. A caravan, which in addition to shirts and +stockings could have carried about one's books and writing tackle +would have seemed the _summum bonum_ of human felicity. + +So we turned our backs on London without a thought of regret and once +again "took the road;" but this time separately, my mother going to +my sister at Penrith and I to pass the summer months in wanderings +in Picardy, Lorraine, and French Flanders, and the ensuing winter in +Paris. + +I hardly know which was the pleasanter time. By this time I was +no stranger to Paris, and had many friends there. It was my first +experiment of living there as a bachelor, as I was going to say, but I +mean "on my own hook," and left altogether to my own devices. I found +of course that my then experiences differed considerably from those +acquired when living _en famille_. But I am disposed to think that the +tolerably intimate knowledge I flatter myself I possessed of the Paris +and Parisians of Louis Philippe's time was mainly the result of this +second residence. I remember among a host of things indicating the +extent of the difference between those days and these, that I lived +in a very good apartment, _au troisième_, in one of the streets +immediately behind the best part of the Rue de Rivoli for one hundred +francs a month! This price included all service (save of course a tip +to the porter), and the preparation of my coffee for breakfast if I +needed it. For dinner, or any other meal, I had to go out. + +"Society" lived in Paris in those days--not unreasonably as the result +soon showed--in perpetual fear of being knocked all to pieces by an +outbreak of revolution, though of course nobody said so. But I lived +mainly (though not entirely) among the _bien pensants_ people, who +looked on all anti-governmental manifestations with horror. Perhaps +the restless discontent which destroyed Louis Philippe's government +is the most disheartening circumstance in the whole course of recent +French history. That the rule of Charles Dix should have occasioned +revolt may be regrettable, but is not a matter for surprise. But that +of Louis Philippe was not a stagnant or retrogressive _régime. "La +carrière_" was very undeniably open to talent and merit of every +description. Material well-being was on the increase. And the door +was not shut against any political change which even very advanced +Liberalism, of the kind consistent with order, might have aspired to. +But the Liberalism which moved France was not of that kind. + +One of my most charming friends of those days, Rosa Stewart, who +afterwards became and was well known to literature as Madame Blaze de +Bury, was both too clever and too shrewd an observer, as well as, to +me at least, too frank to pretend any of the assurance which was then +_de mode_. She saw what was coming, and was fully persuaded that it +must come. I hope that her eye may rest on this testimony to her +perspicacity, though I know not whether she still graces this planet +with her very pleasing presence. For as, alas! in so many scores of +other instances, our lives have drifted apart, and it is many years +since I have heard of her. + +One excursion I specially remember in connection with that autumn was +partly, I think, a pedestrian one, to Amiens and Beauvais, made +in company with the W---- A----, of whom my brother speaks in his +autobiography; which I mention chiefly for the sake of recording my +testimony to the exactitude of his description of that very singular +individual. If it had not been for the continual carefulness +necessitated by the difficulty of avoiding all cause of quarrel, I +should say that he was about the pleasantest travelling companion I +have ever known. + +In the beginning of April, 1841, after a little episode of spring +wandering in the Tyrol and Bavaria (in the course of which I met my +mother at the château of her very old friend the Baroness de Zandt, +who has been mentioned before, and was now living somewhat solitarily +in her huge house in its huge park near Bamberg), my mother and I +started for Italy. Neither of us had at that time conceived the idea +of making a home there. The object of the journey, which had been long +contemplated by my mother, was the writing of a book on Italy, as she +had already done on Paris and on Vienna. + +Our journey was a prosperous one in all respects, and our flying visit +to Italy was very pleasant. My mother's book was duly written, and +published by Mr. Bentley in 1842. But the _Visit to Italy_, as the +work was entitled (with justly less pretence than the titles of either +of its predecessors had put forward), was in truth all too short. And +I find that almost all of the huge mass of varied recollections which +are connected in my mind with Italy and Italian people and things +belong to my second "visit" of nearly half a century's duration! + +We made, however, several pleasant acquaintances and some fast +friends, principally at Florence, and thus paved the way, although +little intending it at the time, for our return thither. + +Our visit was rendered shorter than it would probably otherwise have +been by my mother's strong desire to be with my sister, who was +expecting the birth of her first child at Penrith. And for this +purpose we left Rome in February, 1842, in very severe weather. We +crossed the Mont Cenis in sledges--which to me was a very acceptable +experience, but to my mother was one, which nothing could have induced +her to face, save the determination not to fail her child at her need. + +How well I remember hearing as I sat in the _banquette_ of the +diligence which was just leaving Susa for its climb up the mountain +amid the snow, then rapidly falling, the driver of the descending +diligence, which had accomplished its work and was just about entering +the haven of Susa, sing out to our driver--"_Vous allez vous amuser +joliment là haut, croyez moi_!" + +We did not, however, change the diligence for the sledges till we came +to the descent on the northern side. But as we made our slow way to +the top our vehicle was supported from time to time on either side by +twelve strapping fellows, who put their shoulders to it. + +I appreciated during that journey, though I was glad to see the +mountain in its winter dress, the recommendation not to let your +flight be in the winter. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +I accompanied my mother to Penrith, and forthwith devoted myself heart +and body to the preparation of our new house, and the beautifying +of the very pretty paddock in which it was situated. I put in some +hundreds of trees and shrubs with my own hands, which prospered +marvellously, and have become, I have been told, most luxuriant +shrubberies. I was bent on building a cloistered walk along the entire +top of the field, which would have afforded a charming ambulatory +sheltered from the north winds and from the rain, and would have +commanded the most lovely views, while the pillars supporting the +roof would have presented admirable places for a world of flowering +climbing plants. And doubtless I should have achieved it, had we +remained there. But it would have run into too much money to be +undertaken immediately,--fortunately; for, inasmuch as there was +nothing of the sort in all that country side, no human being would +have given a stiver more for the house when it came to be sold, and +the next owner would probably have pulled it down. There was no +authority for such a thing. Had it been suffered to remain it would +probably have been called "Trollope's folly!" + +Subsequently, but not immediately after we left it, the place--oddly +enough I forget the name we gave it--became the property and the +residence of my brother-in-law. + +Of my life at Penrith I need add nothing to the jottings I have +already placed before the reader on the occasion of my first visit to +that place. + +My brother, already a very different man from what he had been in +London, came from his Irish district to visit us there; and I returned +with him to Ireland, to his head-quarters at Banagher on the Shannon. +Neither of this journey need I say much. For to all who know anything +of Ireland at the present day--and who does not? worse luck!--anything +I might write would seem as _nihil ad rem_, as if I were writing of +an island in the Pacific. I remember a very vivid impression that +occurred to me on first landing at Kingstown, and accompanied me +during the whole of my stay in the island, to the effect, that the +striking differences in everything that fell under my observation from +what I had left behind me at Holyhead, were fully as great as any that +had excited my interest when first landing in France. + +One of my first visits was to my brother's chief. He was a master of +foxhounds and hunted the country. And I well remember my astonishment, +when the door of this gentleman's residence was opened to me by an +extremely dirty and slatternly bare-footed and bare-legged girl. I +found him to be a very friendly and hospitable good fellow, and his +wife and her sister very pleasant women. I found too that my brother +stood high in his good graces by virtue of simply having taken the +whole work and affairs of the postal district on his own shoulders. +The rejected of St. Martin's-le-Grand was already a very valuable and +capable officer. + +My brother gave me the choice of a run to the Killeries, or to +Killarney. We could not manage both. I chose the former, and a most +enjoyable trip we had. He could not leave his work to go with me, but +was to join me subsequently, I forget where, in the west. Meantime +he gave me a letter to a bachelor friend of his at Clifden. This +gentleman immediately asked me to dinner, and he and I dined +_tête-à-tête._ Nevertheless, he thought it necessary to apologise for +the appearance of a very fine John Dory on the table, saying, that he +had been himself to the market to get a turbot for me, but that he had +been asked half-a-crown for a not very large one, and really he could +not give such absurd prices as that! + +Anthony duly joined me as proposed, and we had a grand walk over +the mountains above the Killeries. I don't forget and never shall +forget--nor did Anthony ever forget; alas! that we shall never more +talk over that day again--the truly grand spectacular changes from +dark thick enveloping cloud to brilliant sunshine, suddenly revealing +all the mountains and the wonderful colouring of the intertwining +sea beneath them, and then back to cloud and mist and drifting sleet +again. It was a glorious walk. We returned wet to the skin to "Joyce's +Inn," and dined on roast goose and whisky punch, wrapped in our +blankets like Roman senators! + +One other scene I must recall. The reader will hardly believe that it +occurred in Ireland. There was an election of a member for I forget +what county or borough, and my brother and I went to the hustings--the +only time I ever was at an election in Her Majesty's dominions. What +were the party feelings, or the party colours, I utterly forget. It +was merely for the fun of the thing that we went there. The fun indeed +was fast and furious. The whole scene on the hustings, as well +as around them, seemed to me one seething mass of senseless but +good-humoured hustling and confusion. Suddenly in the midst of the +uproar an ominous cracking was heard, and in the next minute the +hustings swayed and came down with a crash, heaping together in a +confused mass all the two or three hundreds of human beings who were +on the huge platform. Some few were badly hurt. But my brother and I +being young and active, and tolerably stout fellows, soon extricated +ourselves, regained our legs, and found that we were none the worse. +Then we began to look to our neighbours. And the first who came to +hand was a priest, a little man, who was lying with two or three +fellows on the top of him, horribly frightened and roaring piteously +for help. So Anthony took hold of one of his arms and I of the other, +and by main force dragged him from under the superincumbent mass of +humanity. When we got him on his legs his gratitude was unbounded. +"Tell me your names," he shouted, "that I'll pray for ye!" We told him +laughingly that we were afraid it was no use, for we were heretics. +"Tell me your names," he shouted again, "that I'll pray for ye all the +more!" + +I wonder whether he ever did! He certainly was very much in earnest +while the fright was on him. + +Not very long after my return from this Irish trip, we finally left +Penrith on the 3rd of April, 1843; and I trust that the nymph of the +holy well, whose spring we had disturbed, was appeased. + +My mother and I had now "the world before us where to choose." She had +work in hand, and more in perspective. I also had some in hand and +very much more in perspective, but it was work of a nature that might +be done in one place as well as another. So when "Carlton Hill" (all +of a sudden the name comes back to my memory!) was sold, we literally +stood with no _impedimenta_ of any sort save our trunks, and +absolutely free to turn our faces in whatsoever direction we pleased. + +What we did in the first instance was to turn them to the house of our +old and well-beloved cousin, Fanny Bent, at Exeter. There after a few +days we persuaded her to accompany us to Ilfracombe, where we +spent some very enjoyable summer weeks. What I remember chiefly in +connection with that pleasant time, was idling rambles over the rocks +and the Capstone Hill, in company with Mrs. Coker and her sister Miss +Aubrey, the daughters of that Major A. who needs to the whist-playing +world no further commemoration. The former of them was the wife and +mother of Wykehamists (founder's kin), and both were very charming +women. Ilfracombe was in those days an unpretending sort of fishing +village. There was no huge "Ilfracombe Hotel," and the Capstone Hill +was not strewed with whitey-brown biscuit bags and the fragments of +bottles, nor continually vocal with nigger minstrels and ranting +preachers. The "Royal Clarence" did exist in the little town, whether +under that name or not, I forget. But I can testify from experience, +acquired some forty years afterwards, that Mr. and Mrs. Clemow now +keep there one of the best inns of its class, that I, no incompetent +expert in such matters, know in all England. + +Then, when the autumn days began to draw in, we returned to Exeter, +and many a long consultation was held by my mother and I, sallying +forth from Fanny Bent's hospitable house for a _tête-à-tête_ stroll on +Northernhay, on the question of "What next?" + +It turned out to be a more momentous question than we either of us +imagined it to be at the time; for the decision of it involved the +shape and form of the entire future life of one of us, and still more +important modification of the future life of the other. Dresden was +talked of. Rome was considered. Paris was thought of. Venice was +discussed. No one of them was proposed as a future permanent home. +Finally Florence came on the _tapis_. We had liked it much, and had +formed some much valued friendships there. It was supposed to be +economical as a place to live in, which was one main point. For our +plan was to make for ourselves for two or three years a home and way +of living sufficiently cheap to admit of combining with it large plans +of summer travel. And eventually Florence was fixed on. + +As for my mother, it turned out that she was then selecting her last +and final home--though the end was not, thank God, for many a long +year yet. As for me, the decision arrived at during those walks on +Exeter Northernhay, was more momentous still. For I was choosing the +road that led not only to my home for the next half century nearly, +but to two marriages, both of them so happy in all respects as rarely +to have fallen to the lot of one and the same man! + +How little we either of us, my mother and I, saw into the +future--beyond a few immediate inches before our noses! Truly _prudens +futuri temporis exitum caliginosâ nocte premit Deus!_ And when I hear +talk of "conduct making fate," I often think--humbly and gratefully, I +trust; marvelling, certainly,--how far it could have _à priori_ seemed +probable, that the conduct of a man who, without either _oes in +presenti_, or any very visible prospect of _oes in futuro_, turns +aside from all the beaten paths of professional industry should +have led him to a long life of happiness and content, hardly to be +surpassed, and, I should fear, rarely equalled. _Deus nobis haec otia +fecit!--Deus_, by the intromission of one rarely good mother, and two +rarely good, and I may add rarely gifted, wives! + +Not that I would have the reader translate "_otia_" by idleness. I +have written enough to show that my life hitherto had been a full +and active one. And it continued in Italy to be an industrious one. +Translate the word rather into "independence." For I worked at work +that I liked, and did no taskwork. Nevertheless, I would not wish to +be an evil exemplar, _vitiis imitabile_, and I don't recommend you, +dear boys, to do as I did. I have been quite abnormally fortunate. + +Well, we thought that we were casting the die of fate on a very +subordinate matter, while, lo! it was cast for us by the Supernal +Powers after a more far-reaching and over-ruling fashion. + +So on the 2nd of September, 1843, we turned our faces southwards and +left London for Florence. + +We became immediately on arriving in Firenze la gentile (after a +little tour in Savoy, introduced as an interlude after our locomotive +rambling fashion) the guests of Lady Bulwer, who then inhabited in the +Palazzo Passerini an apartment far larger than she needed, till we +could find a lodging for ourselves. + +We had become acquainted with Lady Bulwer in Paris, and a considerable +intimacy arose between her and my mother, whose nature was especially +calculated to sympathise with the good qualities which Lady Bulwer +unquestionably possessed in a high degree. She was brilliant, witty, +generous, kind, joyous, good-natured, and very handsome. But she +was wholly governed by impulse and unreasoning prejudice; though +good-natured, was not always good-humoured; was totally devoid of +prudence or judgment, and absolutely incapable of estimating men +aright. She used to think me, for instance, little short of an +admirable Crichton! + +Of course all the above rehearsed good qualities were, or were +calculated to be, immediately perceived and appreciated, while the +less pleasant specialties which accompanied them were of a kind to +become more perceptible only in close intimacy. And while no intimacy +ever lessened that regard of my mother and myself that had been won by +the first, it was not long before we were both, my mother especially, +vexed by exhibitions of the second. + +As, for instance:--Lady Bulwer had for some days been complaining of +feeling unwell, and was evidently suffering. My mother urged her to +have some medical advice, whereupon she turned on her very angrily, +while the tears started to her beautiful eyes, and said, "How _can_ +you tell me to do any such thing, when you know that I have not a +guinea for the purpose?" (She was frequently wont to complain of her +poverty.) But she had hardly got the words out of her mouth when the +servant entered the room saying that the silversmith was at the door +asking that the account which he laid on the table might be paid. The +account (which Lady Bulwer made no attempt to conceal, for concealment +of anything was not at all in her line) was for a pair of small silver +spurs and an ornamented silver collar which she had ordered a week or +two previously for the _ceremonial knighting of her little dog Taffy_! + +On another occasion a large party of us were to visit the Boboli +Gardens. It was a very hot day, and we had to climb the hill to the +upper part of the gardens, from whence the view over Florence and the +Val d'Arno is a charming one. But the hill, as those who have been at +Florence will not have forgotten, is not only an extremely steep, but +a shadeless one. The broad path runs between two wide margins of +turf, which are enclosed on either side by thick but not very high +shrubberies. The party sorted themselves into couples, and the men +addressed themselves to facilitating as best they might the not +slightly fatiguing work before the ladies. It fell to my lot to give +Lady Bulwer my arm. Before long we were the last and most lagging +couple on the path. It was hard work, but I did my best, and flattered +myself that my companion, despite the radical moisture which she was +copiously losing, was in high good humour, as indeed she seemed to be, +when suddenly, without a word of warning, she dashed from the path, +threw herself prone among the bushes, and burst into an uncontrollable +fit of sobs and weeping. I was horrified with amazement. What had I +done, or what left undone? It was long before I could get a word out +of her. At last she articulated amidst her sobs, "It is TOO hot! It +is cruel to bring one here!" Yes, it was _too_ hot; but that was all. +Fortunately I was not the cruel bringer. I consoled her to the best of +my power, and induced her to wipe her eyes. I dabbled a handkerchief +in a neighbouring fountain for her to wash her streaked face, and +eventually I got her to the top of the hill, where all the others had +long since arrived. + +The incident was entirely characteristic of her. She was furiously +angry with all things in heaven above and on the earth below because +she was at the moment inconvenienced. + +Here is the beginning of a letter from her of a date some months +anterior to the Boboli adventure: + +"Illustrissimo Signor Tommaso" (that was the usual style of her +address to me), "as your book is just out you must feel quite _en +train_ for puffs of any description. Therefore I send you the best I +have seen for a long while, _La Physiologie du Fumeur_. But even if +you don't like it, _don't_ put it in your pipe and smoke it. _Vide_ +Joseph Fume." + +A little subsequently she writes: "Signor Tommaso, the only revenge +I shall take for your lecture" (probably on the matter of some +outrageous extravagance) "is not to call you _illustrissimo_ and not +to send you an illuminated postillion" (a previous letter having been +ornamented with such a decoration at the top of the sheet), "but let +you find your way to Venice in the dark as you can, and then and +there, 'On the Rialto I will rate you,' and, being a man, you know +there is no chance of my _over-rating_ you." + +The following passage from the same letter refers to some negotiations +with which she had entrusted me relative to some illustrations she was +bent on having in a forthcoming book she was about to publish:--"As +for the immortal Cruikshank, tell him that I am sure the mighty genius +which conceived Lord Bateman could not refuse to give any lady +the _werry best_, and if he does I shall pass the rest of my +life registering a similar _wow_ to that of the fair Sophia, and +exclaiming, 'I vish, George Cruikshank, as you vas mine.'" + +The rest of the long, closely-written four-paged letter is an +indiscriminate and bitter, though joking attack, upon the race of +publishers. She calls Mr. Colburn an "embodied shiver," which will +bring a smile to the lips of those--few, I fear--who remember the +little man. + +Here are some extracts from a still longer letter written to my mother +much about the same time: "I hear Lady S---- has committed another +novel, called _The Three Peers_, no doubt _l'un pire que l'autre_!... +I have a great many kind messages to you from that very charming +person Madame Récamier, who fully intends meeting you at Venice with +Chateaubriand in October, for so she told me on Sunday. I met her at +Miss Clarke's some time ago, and as I am a bad _pusher_ I am happy to +say she asked to be introduced to me, and was, thanks to you, my kind +friend! She pressed me to go and see her, which I have done two or +three times, and am going to do again at her amiable request on +Thursday. I think that her fault is that she flatters a little too +much. And flattery to one whose ears have so long been excoriated by +abuse does not sound safe. However, all is right when she speaks of +you. And the point she most eulogised in you is that which I have +heard many a servile coward who could never go and do likewise" [no +indication is to be found either in this letter or elsewhere to +whom she alludes], "select for the same purpose, namely, your +straightforward, unflinching, courageous integrity.... Balzac is +furious at having his new play suppressed by Thiers, in which Arnauld +acted Louis Philippe, wig and all, to the life; but, as I said to M. +Dupin, '_Cest tout naturel que M. Thiers ne permetterait à personne de +jouer Louis Philippe que lui-même._' ... There is a wonderful pointer +here that has been advertised for sale for twelve hundred francs. A +friend of mine went to see him, and after mounting up to a little +garret about the size of a chessboard, _au vingt-septième_, he +interrogated the owner as to the dog's education and acquirements, to +which the man replied, '_Pour ca, monsieur, c'est un chien parfait. Je +lui ai tout appris moi-même dans ma chambre_'[1] After this my friend +did not sing 'Together let us range the fields!' ... Last week I met +Colonel Potter M'Queen, who was warm in his praises of you, and the +great good your _Michael Armstrong_" (the factory story) "had done.... +Last Thursday despatches arrived and Lord Granville had to start for +London at a moment's notice. I was in hopes this beastly ministry +were out! But no such luck! For they are a compound of glue, +sticking-plaister, wax, and vice--the most adhesive of all known +mixtures." + +[Footnote 1: "As for that, sir, the dog is perfect. I have myself +taught him everything _in my own room_!"] + +Before concluding my recollections of Rosina, Lady Lytton Bulwer, +I think it right to say that I consider myself to have perfectly +sufficient grounds for feeling certain that the whispers which were +circulated in a cowardly and malignant fashion against the correctness +of her conduct as a woman were wholly unfounded. Her failings and +tendency to failings lay in a quite different direction. I knew +perfectly well the person whose name was mentioned scandalously in +connection with hers, and knew the whole history of the relationship +that existed between them. The gentleman in question was for years +Lady Bulwer's constant and steadfast friend. It is quite true that he +would fain have been something more, but true also that his friendship +survived the absolute rejection of all warmer sentiments by the object +of it. It was almost a matter of course that such a woman as Lady +Bulwer, living unprotected in the midst of such a society as that of +Florence in those days, should be so slandered. And were it not that +there were very few if any persons at the time, and I think certainly +not one still left, able to speak upon the subject with such +_connaissance de cause_ as I can, I should not have alluded to it. + +She was an admirably charming companion before the footlights of the +world's stage--not so uniformly charming behind its scenes, for +her unreasonableness always and her occasional violence were very +difficult to deal with. But she was, as Dickens's poor Jo says in +_Bleak House_, "werry good to me!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +After some little time and trouble we found an apartment in the +Palazzo Berti, in the ominously named Via dei Malcontenti. It was so +called because it was at one time the road to the Florentine Tyburn. +Our house was the one next to the east end of the church of Santa +Croce. Our rooms looked on to a large garden, and were pleasant +enough. We witnessed from our windows the building of the new steeple +of Santa Croce, which was completed before we left the house. + +It was built in great measure by an Englishman, a Mr. Sloane, a +fervent Catholic, who was at that time one of the best-known figures +in the English colony at Florence. + +He was a large contributor to the recently completed façade of the +Duomo in Florence, and to many other benevolent and pietistic good +works. He had been tutor in the Russian Boutourlin family, and when +acting in that capacity had been taken, by reason of his geological +acquirements, to see some copper mines in the Volterra district, which +the Grand Duke had conceded to a company under whose administration +they were going utterly to the bad. Sloane came, saw, and eventually +conquered. In conjunction with Horace Hall, the then well known and +popular partner in the bank of Signor Emanuele Fenzi (one of whose +sons married an English wife, and is still my very good and forty +years old friend), he obtained a new concession of the mines from +the Grand Duke on very favourable terms, and by the time I made his +acquaintance had become a wealthy man. I fancy the Halls, Horace and +his much esteemed brother Alfred (who survived him many years, and was +the father of a family, one of the most respected and popular of the +English colony during the whole of my Florence life), subsequently +considered themselves to have been shouldered out of the enterprise +by a certain unhandsome treatment on the part of the fortunate tutor. +What may have been the exact history of the matter I do not know. But +I do know that Sloane always remained on very intimate terms with the +Grand Duke, and was a power in the inmost circles of the ecclesiastic +world. + +He used to give great dinners on Friday, the principal object of which +seemed to be to show how magnificent a feast could be given without +infringing by a hair's breadth the rule of the Church. And admirably +he succeeded in showing how entirely the spirit and intention of +the Church in prescribing a fast could be made of none effect by a +skilfully-managed observance of the letter of its law. + +The only opportunity I ever had of conversing with Cardinal Wiseman +was in Casa Sloane. And what I chiefly remember of His Eminence was +his evident annoyance at the ultra-demonstrative zeal of the female +portion of the mixed Catholic and Protestant assembly, who _would_ +kneel and kiss his hand. A schoolmaster meeting boys in society, who, +instantly on his appearance should begin unbuttoning their brace +buttons behind, would hardly appreciate the recognition more +gratefully. + +Within a very few weeks of our establishment in Casa Berti my +mother's home became, as usual, a centre of attraction and pleasant +intercourse, and her weekly Friday receptions were always crowded. If +I were to tell everything of what I remember in connection with those +days, I should produce such a book as _non dî, non homines, non +concessere columnae_--a book such as neither publishers, nor readers, +nor the _columns_ of the critical journals would tolerate, and should +fill my pages with names, which, however interesting they may still be +for me, would hardly have any interest for the public, however gentle +or pensive. + +One specialty, and that not a pleasant one, of a life so protracted as +mine has been in the midst of such a society as that of Florence in +those days, is the enormous quantity of the names which turn the +tablets of memory into palimpsests, not twice, but fifty times written +over!--unpleasant, not from the thronging _in_ of the motley company, +but from the inevitable passing _out_ of them from the field of +vision. One's recollections come to resemble those of the spectator of +a phantasmagoric show. Processions of heterogeneous figures, almost +all of them connected in some way or other with more or less pleasant +memories, troop across the magic circle of light, only, alack! to +vanish into uttermost night when they pass beyond its limit. Of course +all this is inevitable from the migratory nature of such a society as +that which was gathered together on the banks of the Arno. + +Some fixtures--comparatively fixtures--of course there were, who gave +to our moving quicksand-like society some degree of cohesion. + +Chief among these was of course the British minister--at the time of +our arrival in Florence, and many years afterwards--Lord Holland. A +happier instance of the right man in the right place could hardly be +met with. At his great _omnium-gatherum_ dinners and receptions--his +hospitality was of the most catholic and generous sort--both he +and Lady Holland (how pretty she then was there is her very clever +portrait by Watts to testify) never failed to win golden opinions from +all sorts and conditions of men and women. And in the smaller circle, +which assembled in their rooms yet more frequently, they showed to +yet greater advantage, for Lord Holland was one of the most amusing +talkers I ever knew. + +Of course many of those who ought to have been grateful for their +admission to the minister's large receptions were discontented at +not being invited to the smaller ones. And it was by some of these +malcontents with more wit than reason, that Lady Holland was accused +of receiving in two very distinct fashions--_en ménage_ and _en +ménagerie_. The _mot_ was a successful one, and nobody was more amused +by it than the _spirituelle_ lady of whom it was said. It was too +happy a _mot_ not to have been stolen by divers pilferers of such +articles, and adapted to other persons and other occasions. But it was +originally spoken of the time, place, and person here stated to have +been the object of it. + +Generally, in such societies in foreign capitals, a fruitful source of +jealousy and discord is found in the necessary selection of those to +be presented at the court of the reigning sovereign. But this, as +far as I remember, was avoided in those halcyon days by the simple +expedient of presenting all who desired it. And that Lord Holland +_was_ the right man in the right place as regards this matter the +following anecdote will show. + +When Mr. Hamilton became British minister at Florence, it was +announced that his intention was, for the avoiding of all trouble +and jealousy on the subject, to adhere strictly to the proper and +recognised rule. He would present everybody and anybody who had been +presented at home, and nobody who had not been so presented. And he +commenced his administration on these lines, and the Grand Duke's +receptions at the Pitti became notably weeded. But this had not gone, +on for more than two or three weeks before it was whispered in the +minister's ear that the Grand Duke would be pleased if he were less +strict in the matter of his presentations. "Oh!" said Hamilton, +"that's what he wants! _A la bonne heure!_ He shall have them all, +rag, tag, and bobtail." And so we returned to the _Saturnia regna_ of +"the good old times," and the Duke was credibly reported to have said +that he "kept the worst drawing-room in Europe." But, of course, His +Highness was thinking of the pockets of his liege Florentine letters +of apartments and tradesmen, and was anxious only to make his city a +favourite place of resort for the gold-bringing foreigners from that +distant and barbarous western isle. The Pope, you see, had the pull +in the matter of gorgeous Church ceremonies, but he couldn't have the +fertilising barbarians dancing in the Vatican once a week! + +One more anecdote I must find room for, because it is curiously +illustrative in several ways of those _tempi passati, che non tornano +piu_. Florence was full of refugees from the political rigours of the +papal government, who had for some time past found there an unmolested +refuge. But the aspect of the times was becoming more and more +alarming to Austria, and the _Duchini_, as we called the Sovereigns of +Modena and Parma; and pressure was put on the Duke by the pontifical +government insisting on the demand that these refugees should be given +up by Tuscany. Easy-going Tuscany, not yet in anywise alarmed for +herself, fought off the demand for a while, but was at last driven to +notify her intention of acceding to it. It was in these circumstances +that Massino d'Azeglio came to me one morning, in the garden of our +house in the Via del Giglio--the same in which the poet Milton lodged +when he was in Florence--to which we had by that time moved, and told +me that he wanted me to do something for him. Of course I professed +all readiness, and he went on to tell me of the critical and dangerous +position in which the refugees of whom I have spoken were placed, and +said that I must go to Lord Holland and ask him to give them British +passports. He urged that nothing could be easier, that no objection +could possibly be taken to it; that the Tuscan government was by no +means desirous of giving up these men, and would only be too glad to +get out of it; that England both at Malta and in the Ionian Islands +had plenty of Italian subjects--and in short, I undertook the mission, +I confess with very small hopes of success. Lord Holland laughed +aloud when I told my tale, and said he thought it was about the most +audacious request that had ever been made to a British minister. But +he ended by granting it. Doubtless he knew very well the truth of what +d'Azeglio had stated--that the Tuscan government would be much too +well pleased to ask any questions; and the passports were given. + +It was not long after our establishment in the Via dei Malcontenti +that a great disaster came upon Florence and its inhabitants and +guests. Arno was not in the habit of following the evil example of the +Tiber by treating Florence as the latter so frequently did Rome. But +in the winter of the year 1844 a terrible and unprecedented flood +came. The rain fell in such torrents all one night that it was feared +that the Arno, already much swollen, would not be able to carry off +the waters with sufficient rapidity. I went out early in the morning +before breakfast, in company with a younger brother of the Dr. +Nicholson of Penrith whom I have mentioned, who happened to be +visiting us. We climbed to the top of Giotto's tower, and saw at once +the terrible extent and very serious character of the misfortune. +One-third, at least, of Florence, was under water, and the flood was +rapidly rising. Coming down from our lofty observatory, we made our +way to the "Lung' Arno," as the river quays are called. And there the +sight was truly a terrible and a magnificent one. The river, extending +in one turbid, yellow, swirling mass from the walls of the houses on +the quay on one side, to those of the houses opposite, was bringing +down with it fragments of timber, carcases of animals, large +quantities of hay and straw;--and amid the wreck we saw a cradle with +a child in it, safely navigating the tumbling waters! It was drawn +to the window of a house by throwing a line over it, and the infant +navigator was none the worse. + +But very great fears were entertained for the very ancient Ponte +Vecchio, with its load of silversmiths' and jewellers' shops, turning +it from a bridge into a street--the only remaining example in Europe, +I believe, of a fashion of construction once common. The water +continued to rise as we stood watching it. Less than a foot of space +yet remained between the surface of the flood and the keystone of the +highest arch; and it was thought that if the water rose sufficiently +to beat against the solid superstructure of the bridge, it must have +been swept away. But at last came the cry from those who were watching +it close at hand, that for the last five minutes the surface had +been stationary; and in another half hour it was followed by the +announcement that the flood had begun to decrease. Then there was +an immense sensation, of relief; for the Florentines love their old +bridge; and the crowd began to disperse. + +All this time I had had not a mouthful of breakfast, and we betook +ourselves to Doney's _bottega_ to get a cup of coffee before going +home. But when we attempted this we found that it was more easily said +than done. The Via dei Malcontenti as well as the whole of the Piazza +di Santa Croce was some five feet under water! We succeeded, however, +in getting aboard a large boat, which was already engaged in carrying +bread to the people in the most deeply flooded parts of the town. But +all difficulty was not over. Of course the street door of the Palazzo +Berti was shut, and no earthly power could open it. Our apartment was +on the second floor. Our landlord's family occupied the _primo_. Of +course I could get in at their windows and then go up stairs. And we +had a ladder in the boat; but the mounting to the first floor by this +ladder, placed on the little deck of the boat, as she was rocked by +the torrent, was no easy matter, especially for me, who went first. +Eventually, however, Nicholson and I both entered the window, +hospitably opened to receive us, in safety. + +But it was one or two days before the flood subsided sufficiently for +us to be provisioned in any other manner than by the boat; and for +long years afterwards social events were dated in Florence as having +happened "before or after the flood." In those days, and for many days +subsequently to them, Florence did indeed--as I have observed when +speaking of the motives which induced us to settle there--join to its +other attractions that of being an economical place of residence. Our +money consisted of piastres, pauls, and crazie. Eight of the latter +were equal to a paul, ten of which were equivalent to a piastre. +The value of the paul was, as nearly as possible, equal to +fivepence-halfpenny English. The lira--the original representative +of the leading denomination of our own _l.s.d._--no longer existed +in--the flesh I was going to say, but rather in--the metal. And it is +rather curious, that just as the guinea remained, and indeed remains, +a constantly-used term of speech after it has ceased to exist as +current coin, so the scudo remained, in Tuscany, no longer visible or +current, but retained as an integer in accounts of the larger sort. If +you bought or sold house or land, for instance, you talked of scudi. +In more every-day matters piastre or "francesconi" were the integers +used, the latter being only a synonym for the former. And the +proportion in value of the scudo and the piastre was exactly the same +as that of the guinea and the sovereign, the former being worth +ten and a half pauls, and the latter ten. The handsomest and best +preserved coin ordinarily current was the florin, worth two pauls and +a half. Gold we rarely saw, but golden sequins (_zecchini_) were in +existence, and were traditionally used, as it was said, for I have no +experience in the matter, in the payment by the government of prizes +won in the lottery. + +Now, after this statement the reader will be in a position to +appreciate the further information that a flask of excellent Chianti, +of a quality rarely met with nowadays, was ordinarily sold for one +paul. The flask contained (legal measure) seven troy pounds weight of +liquid, or about three bottles. The same sum purchased a good fowl +in the market. The subscription (_abbuonamento_) to the Pergola, the +principal theatre, came to exactly two crazie and a half for each +night of performance. This price admitted you only to the pit, but as +you were perfectly free to enter any box in which there were persons +of your acquaintance, the admission in the case of a bachelor, +permanently or temporarily such, was all that was necessary to him. +And the price of the boxes was small in proportion. + +These boxes were indeed the drawing-rooms in which very much of +the social intercourse of the _beau monde_ was carried on. The +performances were not very frequently changed (two operas frequently +running through an entire season), and people went four or five times +a week to hear, or rather to be present at, the same representation. +And except on first nights or some other such occasion, or during the +singing of the well-known tit-bits of any opera, there was an amount +of chattering in the house which would have made the hair of a +_fanatico per la musica_ stand on end. There was also an exceedingly +comfortable but very parsimoniously-lighted large room, which was +a grand flirting place, where people sat very patiently during the +somewhat long operation of having their names called aloud, as their +carriages arrived, by an official, who knew the names and addresses of +us all. We also knew _his_ mode of adapting the names of foreigners to +his Italian organs. "Hasa" (Florentine for _casa_) "Tro-lo-pé," with +a long-drawn-out accent on the last vowel, was the absolutely fatal +signal for the sudden breaking up of many a pleasant chat. + +Florence was also, in those days, an especially economical place for +those to whom it was pleasant to enjoy during the whole of the gay +season as many balls, concerts, and other entertainments as they could +possibly desire, without the necessity, or indeed the possibility, of +putting themselves to the expense of giving anything in return. There +was a weekly ball at the Pitti Palace, and another at the Casino +dei Nobili, which latter was supported entirely by the Florentine +aristocracy. There were two or three balls at the houses of the +foreign ministers, and generally one or two given by two or three +wealthy Florentine nobles--there were a few, but very few such. + +Perhaps the pleasantest of all these were the balls at the Pitti. They +were so entirely _sans gêne_. No court dress was required save on the +first day of the year, when it was _de rigueur_. But absence on that +occasion in no way excluded the absentee from the other balls. Indeed, +save to a new comer, no invitations to foreigners were issued, it +being understood that all who had been there once were welcome ever +after. The Pitti balls were not by any means concluded by, but rather +divided into two, by a very handsome and abundant supper, at which, to +tell tales out of school (but then the offenders have no doubt mostly +gone over to the majority), the guests used to behave abominably. The +English would seize the plates of _bonbons_ and empty the contents +bodily into their coat pockets. The ladies would do the same with +their pocket-handkerchiefs. But the Duke's liege subjects carried on +their depredations on a far bolder scale. I have seen large portions +of fish, sauce and all, packed up in a newspaper, and deposited in a +pocket. I have seen fowls and ham share the same fate, without any +newspaper at all. I have seen jelly carefully wrapped in an Italian +countess's laced _mouchoir_! I think the servants must have had orders +not to allow entire bottles of wine to be carried away, for I never +saw that attempted, and can imagine no other reason why. I remember +that those who affected to be knowing old hands used to recommend +one to specially pay attention to the Grand Ducal Rhine wine, +and remember, too, conceiving a suspicion that certain of these +connoisseurs based their judgment in this matter wholly on their +knowledge that the Duke possessed estates in Bohemia! + +The English were exceedingly numerous in Florence at that time, and +they were reinforced by a continually increasing American contingent, +though our cousins had not yet begun to come in numbers rivalling our +own, as has been the case recently. By the bye, it occurs to me, that +I never saw an American pillaging the supper table; though, I may add, +that American ladies would accept any amount of _bonbons_ from English +blockade runners. + +And the mention of American ladies at the Pitti reminds me of a really +very funny story, which may be told without offence to any one now +living. I have a notion that I have seen this story of mine told +somewhere, with a change of names and circumstances that spoil it, +after the fashion of the people "who steal other folks' stories and +disfigure them, as gipsies do stolen children to escape detection." + +I had one evening at the Pitti, some years however after my first +appearance there, a very pretty and naively charming American lady on +my arm, whom I was endeavouring to amuse by pointing out to her all +the personages whom I thought might interest her, as we walked through +the rooms. Dear old Dymock, the champion, was in Florence that winter, +and was at the Pitti that night.--I dare say that there may be +many now who do not know without being told, that Dymock, the last +champion, as I am almost afraid I must call him--though doubtless +Scrivelsby must still be held by the ancient tenure--was a very small +old man, a clergyman, and not at all the sort of individual to answer +to the popular idea of a champion. He was sitting in a nook all by +himself, and not looking very heroic or very happy as we passed, and +nudging my companion's arm, I whispered, "That is the champion." The +interest I excited was greater than I had calculated on, for the lady +made a dead stop, and facing round to gaze at the old gentleman, said +"Why, you don't tell me so! I should never have thought that that +could be the fellow who licked Heenan! _But he looks a plucky little +chap!_" + +Perhaps the reader may have forgotten, or even never known, that the +championship of the pugilistic world had then recently been won by +Sayers--I think that was the name--in a fight with an antagonist of +the name of Heenan. In fact it was I, and not my fair companion, who +was a muff, for having imagined that a young American woman, nearly +fresh from the other side of the Atlantic, was likely to know or ever +have heard anything about the Champion of England. + +There happened to be several Lincolnshire men that year in Florence, +and there was a dinner at which I, as one of the "web-footed," by +descent if not birth, was present, and I told them the story of my +Pitti catastrophe. The lady's concluding words produced an effect +which may be imagined more easily than described. + +The Grand Duke at these Pitti balls used to show himself, and take +part in them as little as might be. The Grand Duchess used to walk +through the rooms sometimes. The Grand Duchess, a Neapolitan princess, +was not beloved by the Tuscans; and I am disposed to believe that she +did not deserve their affection. But there was at that time another +lady at the Pitti, the Dowager Grand Duchess, the widow of the late +Grand Duke. She had been a Saxon princess, and was very favourably +contrasted with the reigning Duchess in graciousness of manner, +in appearance--for though a considerably older, she was still an +elegant-looking woman--and, according to the popular estimate, in +character. She also would occasionally walk through the rooms; but her +object, and indeed that of the Duke, seemed to be to attract as little +attention as possible. + +Only on the first night of the year, when we were all in _gran gala_, +_i.e._ in court suits or uniform, did any personal communication with +the Grand Duke take place. His manner, when anybody was presented to +him on these or other occasions, was about as bad and imprincely +as can well be conceived. His clothes never fitted him. He used to +support himself on one foot, hanging his head towards that side, +and occasionally changing the posture of both foot and head, always +simultaneously. And he always appeared to be struggling painfully with +the consciousness that he had nothing to say. It was on one of these +occasions that an American new arrival was presented to him by Mr. +Maquay, the banker, who always did that office for Americans, the +United States having then no representative at the Grand Ducal court. +Maquay, thinking to help the Duke, whispered in his ear that the +gentleman was connected by descent with the great Washington, upon +which the Duke, changing his foot, said, "_Ah! le grand Vash_!" His +manner was that of a lethargic and not wide-awake man. When strangers +would sometimes venture some word of compliment on the prosperity +and contentment of the Tuscans, his reply invariably was, "_Sono +tranquilli_"--they are quiet. But in truth much more might have been +said; for assuredly Tuscany was a Land of Goshen in the midst of the +peninsula. There was neither want nor discontent (save among a very +small knot of politicians, who might almost have been counted on the +hand), nor crime. There was at Florence next to no police of any kind, +but the streets were perfectly safe by night or by day. + +There was a story, much about that time, which made some noise in +Europe, and was very disingenuously made use of, as such stories are, +of a certain Florentine and his wife, named Madiai, who had been, it +was asserted, persecuted for reading the Bible. It was not so. They +were "persecuted" for, _i.e._ restrained from, preaching to others +that they ought to read it, which is, though doubtless a bad, yet a +very different thing. + +I believe the Grand Duke (_gran ciuco_--great ass--as his irreverent +Tuscans nicknamed him) was a good and kindly man, and under the +circumstances, and to the extent of his abilities, not a bad ruler. +The phrase, which Giusti applied to him, and which the inimitable +talent of the satirist has made more durable than any other memorial +of the poor _gran ciuco_ is likely to be, "_asciuga tasche e +maremme_"--he dries up pockets and marshes--is as unjust as such +_mots_ of satirists are wont to be. The draining of the great marshes +of the Chiana, between Arezzo and Chiusi, was a well-considered and +most beneficent work on a magnificent scale, which, so far from +"drying pockets," added enormously to the wealth of the country, and +is now adding very appreciably to the prosperity of Italy. Nor was +Giusti's reproach in any way merited by the Grand Ducal government. +The Grand Duke personally was a very wealthy man, as well as, in +respect to his own habits, a most simple liver. The necessary expenses +of the little state were small; and taxation was so light that a +comparison between that of the Saturnian days in question and that +under which the Tuscans of the present day not unreasonably groan, +might afford a text for some very far-reaching speculations. The +Tuscans of the present day may preach any theological doctrines they +please to any who will listen to them, or indeed to those who won't, +but it would be curious to know how many individuals among them +consider that, or any other recently-acquired liberty, well bought at +the price they pay for it. + +The Grand Duke was certainly not a great or a wise man. He was one +of those men of whom their friends habitually say that they are "no +fools," or "not such fools as they look," which generally may +be understood to mean that the individual spoken of cannot with +physiological accuracy be considered a _crétin_. Nevertheless, in his +case the expression was doubtless accurately true. He was not such +a fool as he looked, for his appearance was certainly not that of a +wise, or even an intelligent man. + +One story is told of him, which I have reason to believe perfectly +true, and which is so characteristic of the man, and of the time, that +I must not deprive the reader of it. + +It was the custom that on St. John's Day the Duke should visit and +inspect the small body of troops who were lodged in the Fortezza di +San Giovanni, or Fortezza da Basso, as it was popularly called, in +contradistinction from another fort on the high ground above the +Boboli Gardens. And it was expected that on these occasions the +sovereign should address a few words to his soldiers. So the Duke, +resting his person first on one leg and then on the other, after his +fashion, stood in front of the two or three score of men drawn up +in line before him, and after telling them that obedience to their +officers and attachment to duty were the especial virtues of a +soldier, he continued, "Above all, my men, I desire that you should +remember the duties and observances of our holy religion, and--and--" +(here, having said all he had to say, His Highness was at a loss for +a conclusion to his harangue. But looking down on the ground as he +strove to find a fitting peroration, he observed that the army's shoes +were sadly in want of the blacking brush, so he concluded with more of +animation and significance than he had before evinced) "and keep your +shoes clean!" + +I may find room further on to say a few words of what I remember of +the revolution which dethroned poor _gran ciuco_. But I may as well +conclude here what I have to say of him by relating the manner of his +final exit from the soil of Tuscany, of which the malicious among the +few who knew the circumstances were wont to say--very unjustly--that +nothing in his reign became him like the leaving of it. I saw him pass +out from the Porta San Gallo on his way to Bologna among a crowd of +his late subjects, who all lifted their hats, though not without some +satirical cries of "_Addio, sai" "Buon viaggio_!" But a few, a very +few, friends accompanied his carriage to the papal frontier, an +invisible line on the bleak Apennines, unmarked by any habitation. +There he descended from his carriage to receive their last adieus, and +there was much lowly bowing as they stood on the highway. The Duke, +not unmoved, bowed lowly in return, but unfortunately backing as +he did so, tripped himself up with characteristic awkwardness, and +tumbled backwards on a heap of broken stones prepared for the road, +with his heels in the air, and exhibiting to his unfaithful Tuscans +and ungrateful Duchy, as a last remembrance of him, a full view of a +part of his person rarely put forward on such occasions. + +And so _exeunt_ from the sight of men and from history a Grand Duke +and a Grand Duchy. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +It was not long after the flood in Florence--it seems to me, as I +write, that I might almost leave out the two last words!--that I saw +Dickens for the first time. One morning in Casa Berti my mother was +most agreeably surprised by a card brought in to her with "Mr. and +Mrs. Charles Dickens" on it. We had been among his heartiest admirers +from the early days of _Pickwick_. I don't think we had happened to +see the _Sketches by Boz_. But my uncle Milton used to come to +Hadley full of "the last _Pickwick_," and swearing that each number +out-Pickwicked Pickwick. And it was with the greatest curiosity and +interest that we saw the creator of all this enjoyment enter in the +flesh. + +We were at first disappointed, and disposed to imagine there must be +some mistake! No! _that_ is not the man who wrote _Pickwick_! What we +saw was a dandified, pretty-boy-looking sort of figure, singularly +young looking, I thought, with a slight flavour of the whipper-snapper +genus of humanity. + +Here is Carlyle's description of his appearance at about that period +of his life, quoted from Froude's _History of Carlyle's Life in +London_: + +"He is a fine little fellow--Boz--I think. Clear blue, intelligent +eyes, eyebrows that he arches amazingly, large, protrusive, rather +loose mouth, a face of most extreme mobility, which he shuttles +about--eyebrows, eyes, mouth and all--in a very singular manner when +speaking. Surmount this with a loose coil of common-coloured hair, +and set it on a small compact figure, very small, and dressed _à la_ +D'Orsay rather than well--this is Pickwick. For the rest, a quiet, +shrewd-looking little fellow, who seems to guess pretty well what he +is and what others are." + +One may perhaps venture to suppose that had the second of these +guesses been less accurate, the description might have been a less +kindly one. + +But there are two errors to be noted in this sketch, graphic as it +is. Firstly, Dickens's eyes were not blue, but of a very distinct and +brilliant hazel--the colour traditionally assigned to Shakspeare's +eyes. Secondly, Dickens, although truly of a slight, compact figure, +was _not a very_ small man. I do not think he was below the average +middle height. I speak from my remembrance of him at a later day, +when I had become intimate with him; but curiously enough, I find on +looking back into my memory, that if I had been asked to describe him, +as I first saw him, I too should have said that he was very small. +Carlyle's words refer to Dickens's youth soon after he had published +_Pickwick_; and no doubt at this period he had a look of delicacy, +almost of effeminacy, if one may accept Maclise's well-known portrait +as a truthful record, which might give those who saw him the +impression of his being smaller and more fragile in build than was +the fact. In later life he lost this D'Orsay look completely, and was +bronzed and reddened by wind and weather like a seaman. + +In fact, when I saw him subsequently in London, I think I should have +passed him in the street without recognising him. I never saw a man so +changed. + +Any attempt to draw a complete pen-and-ink portrait of Dickens has +been rendered for evermore superfluous, if it were not presumptuous, +by the masterly and exhaustive life of him by John Forster. But one +may be allowed to record one's own impressions, and any small incident +or anecdote which memory holds, on the grounds set forth by the great +writer himself, who says in the introduction to the _American Notes_ +(first printed in the biography)--"Very many works having just the +same scope and range have been already published. But I think that +these two volumes stand in need of no apology on that account. The +interest of such productions, if they have any, lies in the varying +impressions made by the same novel things on different minds, and not +in new discoveries or extraordinary adventures." + +At Florence Dickens made a pilgrimage to Landor's villa, the owner +being then absent in England, and gathered a leaf of ivy from Fiesole +to carry back to the veteran poet, as narrated by Mr. Forster. Dickens +is as accurate as a topographer in his description of the villa, as +looked down on from Fiesole. How often--ah, _how_ often!--have I +looked down from that same dwarf wall over the matchless view where +Florence shows the wealth of villas that Ariosto declares made it +equivalent to two Romes! + +Dickens was only thirty-three when I first saw him, being just two +years my junior. I have said what he appeared to me then. As I knew +him afterwards, and to the end of his days, he was a strikingly manly +man, not only in appearance but in bearing. The lustrous brilliancy of +his eyes was very striking. And I do not think that I have ever seen +it noticed, that those wonderful eyes which saw so much and so keenly, +were appreciably, though to a very slight degree, near-sighted eyes. +Very few persons, even among those who knew him well, were aware of +this, for Dickens never used a glass. But he continually exercised his +vision by looking at distant objects, and making them out as well as +he could without any artificial assistance. It was an instance of that +force of will in him, which compelled a naturally somewhat delicate +frame to comport itself like that of an athlete. Mr. Forster somewhere +says of him, "Dickens's habits were robust, but his health was not." +This is entirely true as far as my observation extends. + +Of the general charm of his manner I despair of giving any idea to +those who have not seen or known him. This was a charm by no means +dependent on his genius. He might have been the great writer he was +and yet not have warmed the social atmosphere wherever he appeared +with that summer glow which seemed to attend him. His laugh was +brimful of enjoyment. There was a peculiar humorous protest in it when +recounting or hearing anything specially absurd, as who should say +"'Pon my soul this is _too_ ridiculous! This passes all bounds!" and +bursting out afresh as though the sense of the ridiculous overwhelmed +him like a tide, which carried all hearers away with it, and which +I well remember. His enthusiasm was boundless. It entered into +everything he said or did. It belonged doubtless to that amazing +fertility and wealth of ideas and feeling that distinguished his +genius. + +No one having any knowledge of the profession of literature can read +Dickens's private letters and not stand amazed at the unbounded +affluence of imagery, sentiment, humour, and keen observation which +he poured out in them. There was no stint, no reservation for trade +purposes. So with his conversation--every thought, every fancy, every +feeling was expressed with the utmost vivacity and intensity, but a +vivacity and intensity compatible with the most singular delicacy and +nicety of touch when delicacy and nicety of touch were needed. + +What were called the exaggerations of his writing were due, I have no +doubt, to the extraordinary luminosity of his imagination. He saw and +rendered such an individuality as Mr. Pecksniff's or Mrs. Nickleby's +for instance, something after the same fashion as a solar microscope +renders any object observed through it. The world in general beholds +its Pecksniffs and its Mrs. Nicklebys through a different medium. And +at any rate Dickens got at the quintessence of his creatures, and +enables us all, in our various measures, to perceive it too. The proof +of this is that we are constantly not only quoting the sayings and +doings of his immortal characters, but are recognising other sayings +and doings as what _they_ would have said or done. + +But it is impossible for one who knew him as I did to confine what +he remembers of him either to traits of outward appearance or to +appreciations of his genius. I must say a few, a very few words of +what Dickens appeared to me as a man. I think that an epithet, which, +much and senselessly as it has been misapplied and degraded, is yet, +when rightly used, perhaps the grandest that can be applied to a human +being, was especially applicable to him. He was a _hearty_ man, a +large-hearted man that is to say. He was perhaps the largest-hearted +man I ever knew. I think he made a nearer approach to obeying the +divine precept, "Love thy neighbour as thyself," than one man in a +hundred thousand. His benevolence, his active, energising desire for +good to all God's creatures, and restless anxiety to be in some way +active for the achieving of it, were unceasing and busy in his heart +ever and always. + +But he had a sufficient capacity for a virtue, which, I think, seems +to be moribund among us--the virtue of moral indignation. Men and +their actions were not all much of a muchness to him. There was none +of the indifferentism of that pseudo-philosophic moderation, which, +when a scoundrel or a scoundrelly action is on the _tapis_, hints that +there is much to be said on both sides. Dickens hated a mean action or +a mean sentiment as one hates something that is physically loathsome +to the sight and touch. And he could be angry, as those with whom he +had been angry did not very readily forget. + +And there was one other aspect of his moral nature, of which I am +reminded by an observation which Mr. Forster records as having been +made by Mrs. Carlyle. "Light and motion flashed from every part of it +[his face]. It was as if made of steel." The first part of the phrase +is true and graphic enough, but the image offered by the last words +appears to me a singularly infelicitous one. There was nothing of the +hardness or of the (moral) sharpness of steel about the expression of +Dickens's face and features. Kindling mirth and genial fun were +the expressions which those who casually met him in society were +habituated to find there, but those who knew him well knew also well +that a tenderness, gentle and sympathetic as that of a woman, was a +mood that his surely never "steely" face could express exquisitely, +and did express frequently. + +I used to see him very frequently in his latter years. I generally +came to London in the summer, and one of the first things on my list +was a visit to 20, Wellington Street. Then would follow sundry other +visits and meetings--to Tavistock House, to Gadshill, at Verey's in +Regent Street, a place he much patronised, &c., &c. I remember one day +meeting Chauncy Hare Townsend at Tavistock House and thinking him a +very singular and not particularly agreeable man. Edwin Landseer I +remember dined there the same day. But he had been a friend of my +mother's, and was my acquaintance of long long years before. + +Of course we had much and frequent talk about Italy, and I may say +that our ideas and opinions, and especially feelings on that subject, +were always, I think, in unison. Our agreement respecting English +social and political matters was less perfect. But I think that it +would have become more nearly so had his life been prolonged as mine +has been. And the approximation would, if I am not much mistaken, have +been brought about by a movement of mind on his part, which already +I think those who knew him best will agree with me in thinking had +commenced. We differed on many points of politics. But there is one +department of English social life--one with which I am probably more +intimately acquainted than with any other, and which has always been +to me one of much interest--our public school system, respecting which +our agreement was complete. And I cannot refrain from quoting. The +opinion which he expresses is as true as if he had, like me, an eight +years' experience of the system he is speaking of. And the passage, +which I am about to give, is very remarkable as an instance of the +singular acumen, insight, and power of sympathy which enabled him to +form so accurately correct an opinion on a matter of which he might be +supposed to know nothing. + +"In July," says Mr. Forster, writing of the year 1858-9, "he took +earnest part in the opening efforts on behalf of the Royal Dramatic +College, which he supplemented later by a speech for the establishment +of schools for actors' children, in which he took occasion to declare +his belief that there were no institutions in England so socially +liberal as its public schools, and that there was nowhere in the +country so complete an absence of servility to mere rank, position, +and riches. 'A boy there'" (Mr. Forster here quotes Dickens's own +words) "'is always what his abilities and personal qualities make +him. We may differ about the curriculum and other matters, but of the +frank, free, manly, independent spirit preserved in our public schools +I apprehend there can be no kind of question.'" + +I have in my possession a great number of letters from Dickens, some +of which might probably have been published in the valuable collection +of his letters published by his sister-in-law and eldest daughter had +they been get-at-able at the time when they might have been available +for that publication.[1] But I was at Rome, and the letters were +safely stowed away in England in such sort that it would have needed a +journey to London to get at them. + +[Footnote 1: Some of the letters in question--such as I had with +me--were sent to London for that purpose. I do not remember now which +were and which were not. But if it should be the case that any of +those printed here have been printed before, I do not think any reader +will object to having them again brought under his eye.] + +I was for several years a frequent contributor to _Household Words_, +my contributions for the most part consisting of what I considered +tit-bits from the byways of Italian history, which the persevering +plough of my reading turned up from time to time. + +In one case I remember the article was sent "to order," I was dining +with him after I had just had all the remaining hairs on my head made +to stand on end by the perusal of the officially published _Manual for +Confessors_, as approved by superior authority for the dioceses of +Tuscany. I was full of the subject, and made, I fancy, the hairs of +some who sat at table with me stand on end also. Dickens said, with +nailing forefinger levelled at me, "Give us that for _Household +Words_. Give it us just as you have now been telling it to us"--which +I accordingly did. Whether the publication of that article was in +anywise connected with the fact that when I wished to purchase a +second copy of that most extraordinary work I was told that it was out +of print, and not to be had, I do not know. Of course it was kept as +continually in print as the _Latin Grammar_, for the constant use of +the class for whom it was provided, and who most assuredly could not +have found their way safely through the wonderful intricacies of the +Confessional without it. And equally, of course, the publishers of +so largely-circulated a work did not succeed in preventing me from +obtaining a second copy of it. + +Many of the letters addressed to me by Dickens concerned more or less +my contributions to his periodical, and many more are not of a nature +to interest the public even though they came from him. But I may give +a few extracts from three or four of them.[1] + +[Footnote 1: I wish it to be observed that any letters, or parts of +letters, from Dickens here printed are published with the permission +and authorisation of his sister-in-law, Miss Georgina Hogarth.] + +Here is a passage from a letter dated 3rd December, 1861, which my +vanity will not let me suppress. + +"Yes; the Christmas number _was_ intended as a conveyance of all +friendly greetings in season and out of season. As to its lesson, you +need it almost as little as any man I know; for all your study and +seclusion conduce to the general good, and disseminate truths that men +cannot too earnestly take to heart. Yes, a capital story that of 'The +Two Seaborn Babbies,' and wonderfully droll, I think. I may say so +without blushing, for it is not by me. It was done by Wilkie Collins." + +Here is another short note, not a little gratifying to me personally, +but not without interest of a larger kind to the reader:-- + + * * * * * + +"_Tuesday, 15th November, 1859._ + +"MY DEAR TROLLOPE,--I write this hasty word, just as the post leaves, +to ask you this question, which this moment occurs to me. + +"Montalembert, in his suppressed treatise, asks, 'What wrong has Pope +Pius the Ninth done?' Don't you think you can very pointedly answer +that question in these pages? If you cannot, nobody in Europe can. +Very faithfully yours always, + +"CHARLES DICKENS" + + * * * * * + +Some, some few, may remember the interest excited by the treatise to +which the above letter refers. No doubt I could, and doubtless did, +though I forget all about it, answer the question propounded by the +celebrated French writer. But there was little hope of my doing it +as "pointedly" as my correspondent would have done it himself. The +answer, which might well have consisted of a succinct statement of all +the difficulties of the position with which Italy was then struggling, +had to confine itself to the limits of an article in _All The Year +Round_, and needed in truth to be pointed. I have observed that, in +all our many conversations on Italian matters, Dickens's views and +opinions coincided with my own, without, I think, any point of +divergence. Very specially was this the case as regards all that +concerned the Vatican and the doings of the Curia. How well I remember +his arched eyebrows and laughing eyes when I told him of Garibaldi's +proposal that all priests should be summarily executed! I think +it modified his ideas of the possible utility of Garibaldi as a +politician. + +Then comes an invitation to "my Falstaff house at Gadshill." + +Here is a letter of the 17th February, 1866, which I will give _in +extenso_, bribed again by the very flattering words in which the +writer speaks of our friendship:-- + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR TROLLOPE,--I am heartily glad to hear from you. It was such +a disagreeable surprise to find that you had left London" [I had been +called away at an hour's notice] "on the occasion of your last visit +without my having seen you, that I have never since got it out of my +mind. I felt as if it were my fault (though I don't know how that can +have been), and as if I had somehow been traitorous to the earnest and +affectionate regard with which you have inspired me. + +"The lady's verses are accepted by the editorial potentate, and shall +presently appear." [I am ashamed to say that I totally forget who the +lady was.] + +"I am not quite well, and am being touched up (or down) by the +doctors. Whether the irritation of mind I had to endure pending the +discussions of a preposterous clerical body called a Convocation, and +whether the weakened hopefulness of mankind which such a dash of the +middle ages in the colour and pattern of 1866 engenders, may have +anything to do with it, I don't know. + +"What a happy man you must be in having a new house to work at. When +it is quite complete, and the roc's egg hung up, I suppose you will +get rid of it bodily and turn to at another." [_Absit omen!_ At this +very moment, while I transcribe this letter, I _am_ turning to at +another.] + +"_Daily News_ correspondent" [as I then for a short time was], "Novel, +and Hospitality! Enough to do indeed! Perhaps the day _might_ be +advantageously made longer for such work--or say life." [Ah! if the +small matters rehearsed had been all, I could more contentedly have +put up with the allowance of four-and-twenty hours.] "And yet I don't +know. Like enough we should all do less if we had time to do more in. + +"Layard was with us for a couple of days a little while ago, and +brought the last report of you, and of your daughter, who seems to +have made a great impression on him. I wish he had had the keepership +of the National Gallery, for I don't think his Government will hold +together through many weeks. + +"I wonder whether you thought as highly of Gibson's art as the lady +did who wrote the verses. I must say that I did _not_, and that I +thought it of a mechanical sort, with no great amount of imagination +in it. It seemed to me as if he 'didn't find me' in that, as the +servants say, but only provided me with carved marble, and expected me +to furnish myself with as much idea as I could afford. + +"Very faithfully yours, + +"CHARLES DICKENS." + + * * * * * + +I do not remember the verses, though I feel confident that the lady +who sent them through me must have been a very charming person. As to +Gibson, no criticism could be sounder. I had a considerable liking for +Gibson as a man, and admiration for his character, but as regards his +ideal productions I think Dickens hits the right nail on the head. + +In another letter of the same year, 25th July, after a page of remarks +on editorial matters, he writes:-- + + * * * * * + +"If Italy could but achieve some brilliant success in arms! That she +does not, causes, I think, some disappointment here, and makes her +sluggish friends more sluggish, and her open enemies more powerful. I +fear too that the Italian ministry have lost an excellent opportunity +of repairing the national credit in London city, and have borrowed +money in France for the poor consideration of lower interest, which" +_[sic_, but I suspect _which_ must be a slip of the pen for _than_] +"they could have got in England, greatly to the re-establishment of a +reputation for public good faith. As to Louis Napoleon, his position +in the whole matter is to me like his position in Europe at all times, +simply disheartening and astounding. Between Prussia and Austria there +is, in my mind (but for Italy), not a pin to choose. If each could +smash the other I should be, as to those two Powers, perfectly +satisfied. But I feel for Italy almost as if I were an Italian born. +So here you have in brief my confession of faith. + +"Mr. Home" [as he by that time called himself,--when he was staying in +my house his name was Hume], "after trying to come out as an actor, +first at Fechter's (where I had the honour of stopping him short), and +then at the St. James's Theatre under Miss Herbert (where he was +twice announced, and each time very mysteriously disappeared from the +bills), was announced at the little theatre in Dean Street, Soho, as +a 'great attraction for one night only,' to play last Monday. An +appropriately dirty little rag of a bill, fluttering in the window of +an obscure dairy behind the Strand, gave me this intelligence last +Saturday. It is like enough that even that striking business did not +come off, for I believe the public to have found out the scoundrel; in +which lively and sustaining hope this leaves me at present. + +"Ever faithfully yours, + +"CHARLES DICKENS." + + * * * * * + +Here is a letter which, as may be easily imagined, I value much. It +was written on the 2nd of November, 1866, and reached me at Brest. It +was written to congratulate me on my second marriage, and among the +great number which I received on that occasion is one of the most +warm-hearted:-- + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR TROLLOPE,--I should have written immediately to congratulate +you on your then approaching marriage, and to assure you of my most +cordial and affectionate interest in all that nearly concerns you, had +I known how best to address you. + +"No friend that you have can be more truly attached to you than I am. +I congratulate you with all my heart, and believe that your marriage +will stand high upon the list of happy ones. As to your wife's winning +a high reputation out of your house--if you care for that; it is not +much as an addition to the delights of love and peace and a suitable +companion for life--I have not the least doubt of her power to make +herself famous. + +"I little thought what an important master of the ceremonies I was +when I first gave your present wife an introduction to your mother. +Bear me in your mind then as the unconscious instrument of your having +given your best affection to a worthy object, and I shall be the best +paid master of the ceremonies since Nash drove his coach and six +through the streets of Bath. + +"Faithfully yours, + +"CHARLES DICKENS." + + * * * * * + +Among a heap of others I find a note of invitation written on the 9th +of July, 1867, in which he says: "My 'readings' secretary, whom I am +despatching to America at the end of this week, will dine with me at +Verey's in Regent Street at six exact to be wished God-speed. There +will only be besides, Wills, Wilkie Collins, and Mr. Arthur Chappell. +Will you come? No dress. Evening left quite free." + +I went, and the God-speed party was a very pleasant one. But I liked +best to have him, as I frequently had, all to myself. I suppose I +am not, as Johnson said, a "clubbable" man. At all events I highly +appreciate what the Irishman called a tatur-tatur dinner, whether the +gender in the case be masculine or feminine; and I incline to give +my adherence to the philosophy of the axiom that declares "two to +be company, and three none." But then I am very deaf, and that has +doubtless much to do with it. + +On the 10th of September, 1868, Dickens writes:-- + + * * * * * + +"The madness and general political bestiality of the General Elections +will come off in the appropriate Guy Fawkes days. It was proposed to +me, under very flattering circumstances indeed, to come in as the +third member for Birmingham; I replied in what is now my stereotyped +phrase, 'that no consideration on earth would induce me to become +a candidate for the representation of any place in the House of +Commons.' Indeed it is a dismal sight, is that arena altogether. Its +irrationality and dishonesty are quite shocking." [What would he have +said now!] "How disheartening it is, that in affairs spiritual or +temporal mankind will not begin at the beginning, but _will_ begin +with assumptions. Could one believe without actual experience of the +fact, that it would be assumed by hundreds of thousands of pestilent +boobies, pandered to by politicians, that the Established Church in +Ireland has stood between the kingdom and Popery, when as a crying +grievance it has been Popery's trump-card! + +"I have now growled out my growl, and feel better. + +"With kind regards, my dear Trollope, + +"Faithfully yours, + +"CHARLES DICKENS." + + * * * * * + +In the December of that year came another growl, as follows:-- + + * * * * * + +"KENNEDY'S HOTEL, EDINBURGH. + +"MY DEAR TROLLOPE,--I am reading here, and had your letter forwarded +to me this morning. The MS. accompanying it was stopped at _All The +Year Round_ office (in compliance with general instructions referring +to any MS. from you) and was sent straight to the printer. + +"Oh dear no! Nobody supposes for a moment that the English Church +will follow the Irish Establishment. In the whole great universe of +shammery and flummery there is no such idea floating. Everybody knows +that the Church of England as an endowed establishment is doomed, and +would be, even if its hand were not perpetually hacking at its own +throat; but as was observed of an old lady in gloves in one of my +Christmas books, 'Let us be polite or die!' + +"Anthony's ambition" [in becoming a candidate for Beverley] "is +inscrutable to me. Still, it is the ambition of many men; and the +honester the man who entertains it, the better for the rest of us, I +suppose. + +"Ever, my dear Trollope, + +"Most cordially yours, + +"CHARLES DICKENS." + + * * * * * + +Here is another "growl," provoked by a species of charlatan, which +he, to whom all charlatans were odious, especially abominated--the +pietistic charlatan:-- + + * * * * * + +"Oh, we have such a specimen here! a man who discourses +extemporaneously, positively without the power of constructing one +grammatical sentence; but who is (ungrammatically) deep in Heaven's +confidence on the abstrusest points, and discloses some of his private +information with an idiotic complacency insupportable to behold. + +"We are going to have a bad winter in England too probably. What with +Ireland, and what with the last new Government device of getting in +the taxes before they are due, and what with vagrants, and what with +fever, the prospect is gloomy." + +The last letter I ever received from him is dated the 10th of +November, 1869. It is a long letter, but I will give only one passage +from it, which has, alas! a peculiarly sad and touching significance +when read with the remembrance of the catastrophe then hurrying on, +which was to put an end to all projects and purposes. I had been +suggesting a walking excursion across the Alps. He writes:-- + +"Walk across the Alps? Lord bless you, I am 'going' to take up my +alpenstock and cross all the passes. And, I am 'going' to Italy. I am +also 'going' up the Nile to the second cataract; and I am 'going' to +Jerusalem, and to India, and likewise to Australia. My only dimness +of perception in this wise is, that I don't know _when_. If I did but +know when, I should be so wonderfully clear about it all! At present +I can't see even so much as the Simplon in consequence of certain +farewell readings and a certain new book (just begun) interposing +their dwarfish shadow. But whenever (if ever) I change 'going' into +'coming,' I shall come to see you. + +"With kind regards, ever, my dear Trollope, + +"Your affectionate friend, + +"CHARLES DICKENS." + + * * * * * + +And those were the last words I ever had from him! + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +In those days--_temporibus illis_, as the historians of long-forgotten +centuries say--there used to be a very general exodus of the English +colony at Florence to the baths of Lucca during the summer months. +Almost all Italians, who can in anywise afford to do so, leave the +great cities nowadays for the seaside, even as those do who have +preceded them in the path of modern luxurious living. But at the time +of which I am writing the Florentines who did so were few, and almost +confined to that inner circle of the fashionable world which partly +lived with foreigners, and had adopted in many respects their modes +and habits. Those Italians, however, who did leave their Florence +homes in the summer, went almost all of them to Leghorn. The baths of +Lucca were an especially and almost exclusively English resort. + +It was possible to induce the _vetturini_ who supplied carriages and +horses for the purpose, to do the journey to the baths in one day, but +it was a very long day, and it was necessary to get fresh horses +at Lucca. There was no good sleeping-place between Florence and +Lucca--nor indeed is there such now--and the journey from the capital +of Tuscany to that of the little Duchy of Lucca, now done by rail in +less than two hours, was quite enough for a _vetturino's_ pair of +horses. And when Lucca was reached there were still fourteen miles, +nearly all collar work, between that and the baths, so that the plan +more generally preferred was to sleep at Lucca. + +The baths (well known to the ancient Romans, of course, as what warm +springs throughout Europe were not?) consisted of three settlements, +or groups of houses--as they do still, for I revisited the +well-remembered place two or three years ago. There was the "Ponte," a +considerable village gathered round the lower bridge over the Lima, at +which travellers from Florence first arrived. Here were the +assembly rooms, the reading room, the principal baths, _and_ the +gaming-tables--for in those pleasant wicked days the remote little +Lucca baths were little better than Baden subsequently and Monte Carlo +now. Only we never, to the best of my memory, suicided ourselves, +though it might happen occasionally, that some innkeeper lost the +money which ought to have gone to him, because "the bank" had got hold +of it first. + +Then secondly there was the "Villa," about a mile higher up the lovely +little valley of the Lima, so called because the Duke's villa was +situated there. The Villa had more the pretension--a very little +more--of looking something like a little bit of town. At least it had +its one street paved. The ducal villa was among the woods immediately +above it. + +The third little group of buildings and lodging-houses was called the +"Bagni Caldi." The hotter, and, I fancy, the original springs were +there, and it was altogether more retired and countrified, nestling +closely among the chesnut woods. The whole surrounding country indeed +is one great chesnut forest, and the various little villages, most of +them picturesque in the highest degree, which crown the summits of the +surrounding hills, are all of them closely hedged in by the chesnut +woods, which clothe the slopes to the top. These villages burrow in +what they live on like mice in a cheese, for many of the inhabitants +never taste any other than chesnut flour bread from year's end to +year's end. + +The inhabitants of these hills, and indeed those of the duchy +generally, have throughout Italy the reputation of being morally about +the best population in the peninsula. Servants from the Lucchese, and +especially from the district I am here speaking of, were, and are +still, I believe, much prized. Lucca, as many readers will remember, +enjoys among all the descriptive epithets popularly given to the +different cities of Italy, that of _Lucca la industriosa_. + +To us migratory English those singularly picturesque villages which +capped all the hills, and were reached by curiously ancient paved mule +paths zig-sagging up among the chesnut woods, seemed to have been +created solely for artistic and picnic purposes. The Saturnian nature +of the life lived in them may be conceived from the information once +given me by the inhabitants of one of these mountain settlements in +reply to some inquiry about the time of day, that it was always noon +there when the priest was ready for his dinner. + +Such were the summer quarters of the English Florentine colony, +_temporibus illis_. There used to be, I remember, a somewhat amusingly +distinctive character attributed, of course in a general way subject +to exceptions, to the different groups of the English rusticating +world, according to the selection of their quarters in either of the +above three little settlements. The "gay" world preferred the "Ponte," +where the gaming-tables and ballrooms were. The more strictly "proper" +people went to live at the "Villa," where the English Church service +was performed. The invalid portion of the society, or those who wished +quiet, and especially economy, sought the "Bagni Caldi." + +In a general way we all desired economy, and found it. The price at +the many hotels was nine pauls a day for board and lodging, including +Tuscan wine, and was as much a fixed and invariable matter as a penny +for a penny bun. Those who wanted other wine generally brought it with +them, by virtue of a ducal ordinance which specially exempted from +duty all wine brought by English visitors to the Baths. + +I dare say, if I were to pass a summer there now, I should find the +atmosphere damp, or the wine sour, or the bread heavy, or the society +heavier, or indulge in some such unreasonable and unseasonable +grumbles as the near neighbourhood of four-score years is apt to +inspire one with; but I used to find it amazingly pleasant once upon +a time. It is a singular fact, which the remembrance of those days +suggests to me, and which I recommend to the attention of Mr. Galton +and his co-investigators, that the girls were prettier then than they +are in these days, or that there were more of them! The stupid +people, who are always discovering subjective reasons for objective +observations, are as impertinent as stupid! + +The Duke of Lucca used to do his utmost to make the baths attractive +and agreeable. There is no Duke of Lucca now, as all the world knows. +The Congress of Vienna put an end to him by ordaining that, when the +ducal throne of Parma should become vacant, the reigning Duke of Lucca +should succeed to it, while his duchy of Lucca should be united to +Florence. This change took place while I was still a Florentine. +The Duke of Lucca would none of the new dukedom proposed to him. He +abdicated, and his son became Duke of Parma. This son was, in truth, a +great ne'er-do-well, and very shortly got murdered in the streets of +his new capital by an offended husband. + +The change was most unwelcome to Lucca, and especially to the baths, +which had thriven and prospered under the fostering care of the old +Duke. He used to pass every summer there, and give constant very +pleasant, but very little royal, balls at his villa. The Tuscan +satirist Giusti, in the celebrated little poem in which he +characterises the different reigning sovereigns in the peninsula, +calls him the Protestant Don Giovanni, and says that in the roll of +tyrants he is neither fish nor flesh. + +Of the first two epithets I take it he deserved the second more than +the first. His Protestantising tendencies might, I think, have been +more accurately described as non-Catholicising. But people are +very apt to judge in this matter after the fashion of the would-be +dramatist, who, on being assured that he had no genius for tragedy, +concluded that he must therefore have one for comedy. The Duke's +Protestantism, I suspect, limited itself to, and showed itself in, his +dislike and resistance to being bothered by the rulers of neighbouring +states into bothering anybody else about their religious opinions. As +for his place in the "roll of tyrants," he was always accused of (or +praised for) liberalising ideas and tendencies, which would in those +days have very soon put an end to him and his tiny duchy, if he had +attempted to govern it in accordance with them. As matters were, his +"policy," I take it, was pretty well confined to the endeavour to make +his sovereignty as little troublesome to himself or anybody else as +possible. His subjects were _very_ lightly taxed, for his private +property rendered him perfectly independent of them as regarded his +own personal expenditure. + +The "gayer" part of our little world at the baths used, as I have +said, more especially to congregate at the "Ponte," and the more +"proper" portion at the "Villa," for, as I have also said, the English +Church service was performed there, in a hired room, as I remember, +when I first went there. But a church was already in process of being +built, mainly by the exertions of a lady, who assuredly cannot be +forgotten by any one who ever knew the Baths in those days, or for +many years afterwards--Mrs. Stisted. Unlike the rest of the world she +lived neither at the "Ponte," nor at the "Villa," nor at the "Bagni +Caldi," but at "The Cottage," a little habitation on the bank of the +stream about half-way between the "Ponte" and the "Villa." Also unlike +all the rest of the world she lived there permanently, for the place +was her own, or rather the property of her husband, Colonel Stisted. +He was a long, lean, grey, faded, exceedingly mild, and perfectly +gentlemanlike old man; but she was one of the queerest people my +roving life has ever made me acquainted with. + +She was the Queen of the Baths. On one occasion at the ducal villa, +his Highness, who spoke English perfectly, said as she entered the +room, "Here comes the Queen of the Baths!" "He calls me his Queen," +said she, turning to the surrounding circle with a magnificent wave of +the hand and delightedly complacent smile. It was not exactly _that_ +that the Duke had said, but he was immensely amused, as were we all, +for some days afterwards. + +She was a stout old lady, with large rubicund face and big blue eyes, +surrounded by very abundant grey curls. She used to play, or profess +to play, the harp, and adopted, as she explained, a costume for the +purpose. This consisted of a loose, flowing garment, much like a +muslin surplice, which fell back and allowed the arm to be seen when +raised for performance on her favourite instrument. The arm probably +was, or had once been, a handsome one. The large grey head, and +the large blue eyes, and the drooping curls, were also raised +simultaneously, and the player looked singularly like the picture of +King David similarly employed, which I have seen as a frontispiece in +an old-fashioned prayer-book. But the specialty of the performance was +that, as all present always said, no sound whatever was heard to issue +from the instrument! "Attitude is everything," as we have heard in +connection with other matters; but with dear old Mrs. Stisted at her +harp it was absolutely and literally so to the exclusion of all else! + +She and the good old colonel--he _was_ a truly good and benevolent +man, and, indeed, I believe she was a good and charitable woman, +despite her manifold absurdities and eccentricities--used to drive out +in the evening among her subjects--_her_ subjects, for neither I +nor anybody else ever heard him called King of the Baths!--in an +old-fashioned, very shabby and very high-hung phaeton, sometimes with +her niece Charlotte--an excellent creature and universal favourite--by +her side, and the colonel on the seat behind, ready to offer the +hospitality of the place by his side to any mortal so favoured by the +queen as to have received such an invitation. + +The poor dear old colonel used to play the violoncello, and did at +least draw some more or less exquisite sounds from it. But one winter +they paid a visit to Rome, and the old man died there. She wished, in +accordance doubtless with his desire, to bring back his body to be +buried in the place they had inhabited for so many years, and with +which their names were so indissolubly entwined in the memory of all +who knew them--which means all the generations of nomad frequenters of +the Baths for many, many years. The Protestant burial-ground also was +recognised as _quasi_ hers, for it is attached to the church which she +was mainly instrumental in building. The colonel's body therefore was +to be brought back from Rome to be buried at Lucca Baths. + +But such an enterprise was not the simplest or easiest thing in the +world. There were official difficulties in the way, ecclesiastical +difficulties and custom-house difficulties of all sorts. Where there +is a will, however, there is a way. But the way which the determined +will of the Queen of the Baths discovered for itself upon this +occasion was one which would probably have occurred to few people in +the world save herself. She hired a _vetturino_, and told him that he +was to convey a servant of hers to the baths of Lucca, who would be +in charge of goods which would occupy the entire interior of the +carriage. She then obtained, what was often accorded without much +difficulty in those days, from both the Pontifical and the Tuscan +Governments, a _lascia passare_ for the contents of the carriage as +_bonâ fide roba usata_--"used up, or second-hand goods." And under +this denomination the poor old colonel, packed in the carriage +together with his beloved violoncello, passed the gates of Rome and +the Tuscan frontier, and arrived safely at the place of his latest +destination. The servant who was employed to conduct this singular +operation did not above half like the job entrusted to him, and used +to tell afterwards how he was frightened out of his wits, and the +driver exceedingly astonished, by a sudden _pom-m-m_ from the interior +of the carriage, caused by the breaking, in consequence of some +atmospheric change, of one of the strings of the violoncello. + +Malicious people used to say that the Queen of the Baths was innocent +of all deception as regarded the custom-house officials; for that +if any article was ever honestly described as _roba usata_, the old +colonel might be so designated. + +The queen herself shortly followed (by another conveyance), and was +present at the interment, on which occasion she much impressed the +population by causing a superb crimson chair to be placed at the head +of the grave, in order that she might be present without standing +during the service. The chair was well known, because the queen, both +at the Baths and at Florence, was in the habit of sending it about +to the houses at which she visited, since she preferred doing so to +incurring the risk of the less satisfactory accommodation her friends +might offer her! + +If space and the reader's patience would allow of it, I might gossip +on of many more reminiscences of the baths of Lucca, all pleasant or +laughable. But I must conclude by the story of a tragedy, which I will +tell, because it is, in many respects, curiously characteristic of the +time and place. + +The Duke, who, as I have said, spoke English perfectly well, was +fond of surrounding himself with foreign, and specially English, +dependents. He had at the time of which I am speaking, two English--or +rather, one English and one Irish--chamberlains, and a third, who, +though a German, was, from having married an Englishwoman, and +habitually speaking English, and living with Englishmen, much the +same, at least to the Duke, as an Englishman. The Englishman was a +young man; the German an older man, and the father of a family. And +both were good, upright, and honourable men; both long since gone over +to the majority. + +The Irishman, also a young man, was a bad fellow; but he was an +especial favourite with the Duke, who was strongly attached to him. It +is not necessary to print his name. He has gone to his account. But it +might nevertheless happen that the printing of my story with his name +in these pages might still give pain to somebody. + +There was also that year an extremely handsome and attractive lady, a +widow, at the Baths. I will not give her name either. For though there +was no sort of blame or discredit of any kind attached or attachable +to her from any part of my story, as she is, I believe, still living, +and as the memory of that time cannot but be a painful one to her, it +is as well to suppress it. The lady, as I have said, was handsome and +young, and of course all the young fellows who got a chance flirted +with her--_en tout bien tout honneur_. But the Irish chamberlain +attached himself to her, not with any but perfectly avowable +intentions, but more seriously than the other youngsters, and with an +altogether serious eye to her very comfortable dower. + +Now during that same summer there was at the Baths Mr. Plowden, the +banker from Rome. He was then a young man; he has recently died an +old one in the Eternal City. His name I mention in telling my story +because much blame was cast upon him at the time by people in Rome, in +Florence, and at the Baths, who did not know the facts as entirely and +accurately as I knew them; and I am able here to declare publicly what +I have often declared privately, that he behaved well and blamelessly +in the whole matter. + +And probably, though I have no distinct recollection that it was so, +Plowden may have also been smitten by the lady. Now, whether the +Irishman imagined that the young banker was his most formidable rival, +or whether there may have been some previous cause of ill-will between +the two men, I cannot say, but so it was that the chamberlain sent +a challenge to the banker. The latter declined to accept it on the +ground that he _was_ a banker and not a fighting man, and that his +business position would have been materially injured by his fighting a +duel. The Irishman might have made the most of this triumph, such as +it was. But he was not content with doing so, and lost none of the +opportunities, which the social habits of such a place daily afforded +him, for insulting and outraging his enemy. And he was continually +boasting to his friends that before the end of the season he would +compel him to come out and be shot at. + +And before the end of the season came, his persistent efforts were +crowned with success. Plowden finding his life altogether intolerable +under the harrow of the bully's insolence, at length one day +challenged _him_. Then arose the question of the locality where the +duel was to take place. The laws of the duchy were very strict against +duelling, and the Duke himself was personally strongly opposed to it. +In the case of his own favourite chamberlain, too, his displeasure +was likely to be extreme. But in the neighbourhood of the Baths the +frontier line which divides the Duchy of Modena from that of Lucca is +a very irregular and intricate one. A little below the "Ponte" at the +Baths, the Lima falls into the Serchio, and the upper valley of the +latter river is of a very romantic and beautiful character. Now we +all knew that hereabouts there were portions of Modenese territory +interpenetrating that of the Duchy of Lucca, but none of us knew the +exact line of the boundary. And the favourite chamberlain, with true +Irish impudence, undertook to obtain exact information from the Duke +himself. + +There was a ball that night, at which the whole of the society were +present, and, strange as It may seem, I do not think there was a man +there who did not know that the duel was to be fought on the morrow, +except the Duke himself. Many of the women even knew it perfectly +well. The chamberlain getting the Duke into conversation on the +subject of the frontier, learned from him that a certain highly +romantic gorge, opening out from the valley of the Serchio, and called +Turrite Cava, which he pretended to take an interest in as a place +fitted for a picnic, was within the Modenese frontier. + +All was arranged, therefore, for the meeting with pistols on the +following morning; and the combatants proceeded to the spot fixed on, +some five or six miles, I think, from the Baths. Plowden, who, as a +sedate business man was less intimate with the generality of the young +men at the Baths, was accompanied only by his second; his adversary +was attended by a whole cohort of acquaintances--really far more after +the fashion of a party going to a picnic, or some other party of +pleasure, than in the usual guise of men bent on such an errand. + +Plowden had never fired a pistol in his life, and knew about as much +of the management of one as an archbishop. The other was an old +duellist, and a practised performer with the weapon. All this was +perfectly well known, and the young men around the Irishman were +earnest with him during their drive to the ground not to take his +adversary's life, beseeching him to remember how heavy a load on his +mind would such a deed be during the whole future of his own. Not a +soul of the whole society of the Baths, who by this time knew what +was going on to a man, and almost to a woman (my mother, it may be +observed, had not been at the ball, and knew nothing about it), +doubted that Plowden was going out to be shot as certainly as a +bullock goes into the slaughter house to be killed. + +The Irishman, in reply to all the exhortations of his companions, +jauntily told them not to distress themselves; he had no intention of +killing the fellow, but would content himself with "winging" him. He +would have his right arm off as surely as he now had it on! + +In the midst of all this the men were put up. At the first shot the +Irishman's well-directed bullet whistled close to Plowden's head, but +the random shot of the latter struck his adversary full in the groin! + +He was hastily carried to a little _osteria_, which stood (and still +stands) by the side of the road which runs up the valley of the +Serchio, at no great distance from the mouth of the Turrite Cava +gorge. There was a young medical man among those gathered there, who +shook his head over the victim, but did not, I thought, seem very well +up to dealing with the case. + +One of my mother's earliest and most intimate friends at Florence +was a Lady Sevestre, who was then at the Baths with her husband, Sir +Thomas Sevestre, an old Indian army surgeon. He was a very old man, +and was not much known to the younger society of the place. But it +struck me that _he_ was the man for the occasion. So I rushed off to +the Baths in one of the _bagherini_ (as the little light gigs of the +country are called) which had conveyed the parties to the ground, and +knocked up Sir Thomas. Of course all the story came new to him, and +he was very much inclined to wash his hands of it. But on my +representations that a life was at stake, his old professional habits +prevailed, and he agreed to go back with me to Turrite Cava. + +But no persuasions could induce him to trust himself to a _bagherino_. +And truly it would have shaken the old man well-nigh to pieces. There +was no other carriage to be had in a hurry. And at last he allowed me +to get an arm-chair rigged with a couple of poles for bearers, and +placed himself in it--not before he had taken the precaution of +slinging a bottle of pale ale to either pole of his equipage. He wore +a very wide-brimmed straw hat, a suit of professional black, and +carried a large white sunshade. And thus accoutred, and accompanied +by four stalwart bearers, he started, while I ran by the side of the +chair, as queer-looking a party as can well be imagined. I can see it +all now; and should have been highly amused at the time had I not very +strongly suspected that I was taking him to the bedside of a dying +man. + +And when he reached his patient, a very few minutes sufficed for the +old surgeon to pronounce the case an absolutely hopeless one. After a +few hours of agony, the bully, who had insisted on bringing this fate +on himself, died that same afternoon. + +Then came the question who was to tell the Duke. Who it was that +undertook that disagreeable but necessary task, I forget. But the +Duke came out to the little _osteria_ immediately on hearing of the +catastrophe; also the English clergyman officiating at the Baths came +out. And the scene in that large, nearly bare, upper chamber of the +little inn was a strange one. The clergyman began praying by the dying +man's bedside, while the numerous assemblage in the room all kneeled, +and the Duke kneeled with them, interrupting the prayers with his sobs +after the uncontrolled fashion of the Italians. + +He was very, very angry. But in unblushing defiance of all equity and +reason, his anger turned wholly against Plowden, who, of course, had +placed himself out of the small potentate's reach within a very +few minutes after the catastrophe. But the Duke strove by personal +application to induce the Grand Duke of Tuscany to banish Plowden +from his dominions, which, to the young banker, one branch of whose +business was at Florence and one at Rome, would have been a very +serious matter. But this, poor old _ciuco_, more just and reasonable +in this case than his brother potentate, the Protestant Don Giovanni +of Lucca, refused to do. + +So our pleasant time at the Baths, for that season at least, ended +tragically enough; and whenever I have since visited that singularly +romantic glen of Turrite Cava, its deep rock-sheltered shadows have +been peopled for me by the actors in that day's bloody work. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +It was, to the best of my recollection, much about the same time as +that visit of Charles Dickens which I have chronicled in the last +chapter but one, which turned out to be eventually so fateful a one to +me, as the correspondence there given shows, that my mother received +another visit, which was destined to play an equally influential +part in the directing and fashioning of my life. Equally influential +perhaps I ought not to say, inasmuch as one-and-twenty years (with the +prospect I hope of more) are more important than seventeen. But both +the visits I am speaking of, as having occurred within a few days of +each other, were big with fate, to me, in the same department of human +affairs. + +The visit of Dickens was destined eventually to bring me my second +wife, as the reader has seen. The visit of Mr. and Mrs. Garrow to the +Via dei Malcontenti, much about the same time, brought me my first. + +The Arno and the Tiber both take their rise in the flanks of +Falterona. It was on the banks of the first that my first married +life was passed; on those of the more southern river that the largest +portion of my second wedded happiness was enjoyed. + +Why Mr. and Mrs. Garrow called on my mother I do not remember. +Somebody had given them letters of introduction to us, but I forget +who it was. Mr. Garrow was the son of an Indian officer by a high +caste Brahmin woman, to whom he was married. I believe that unions +between Englishmen and native women are common enough. But a marriage, +such as that of my wife's grandfather I am assured was, is rare, +and rarer still a marriage with a woman of high caste. Her name was +Sultana. I have never heard of any other name. Joseph Garrow, my +father-in-law, was sent to England at an early age, and never again +saw either of his parents, who both died young. His grandfather was an +old Scotch schoolmaster at Hadley, near Barnet, and his great-uncle +was the well known Judge Garrow. My father-in-law carried about with +him very unmistakable evidence of his eastern origin in his yellow +skin, and the tinge of the white of his eyes, which was almost that of +an Indian. He had been educated for the bar, but had never practised, +or attempted to do so, having while still a young man married a wife +with considerable means. He was a decidedly clever man, especially in +an artistic direction, having been a very good musician and performer +on the violin, and a draughtsman and caricaturist of considerable +talent. The lady he married had been a Miss Abrams, but was at the +time he married her the widow of (I believe) a naval officer named +Fisher. She had by her first husband one son and one daughter. There +had been three Misses Abrams, Jewesses by race undoubtedly, but +Christians by baptism, whose parent or parents had come to this +country in the suite of some Hanoverian minister, in what capacity I +never heard. They were all three exceptionally accomplished musicians, +and seem to have been well known in the higher social circles of the +musical world. One of the sisters was the authoress of many once well +known songs, especially of one song called "Crazy Jane," which had a +considerable vogue in its day. I remember hearing old John Cramer +say that my mother-in-law could, while hearing a numerous orchestra, +single out any instrument which had played a false note--and this he +seemed to think a very remarkable and exceptional feat. She was past +fifty when Mr. Garrow married her, but she bore him one daughter, and +when they came to Florence both girls, Theodosia, Garrow's daughter, +and Harriet Fisher, her elder half-sister, were with them, and at +their second morning call both came with them. + +The closest union and affection subsisted between the two girls, and +ever continued till the untimely death of Harriet. But never were two +sisters, or half-sisters, or indeed any two girls at all, more unlike +each other. + +Harriet was neither specially clever nor specially pretty, but she +was, I think, perhaps the most absolutely unselfish human being I ever +knew, and one of the most loving hearts. And her position was one, +that, except in a nature framed of the kindliest clay, and moulded by +the rarest perfection of all the gentlest and self-denying virtues, +must have soured, or at all events crushed and quenched, the +individual placed in such circumstances. She was simply nobody in the +family save the ministering angel in the house to all of them. I +do not mean that any of the vulgar preferences existed which are +sometimes supposed to turn some less favoured member of a household +into a Cinderella. There was not the slightest shadow of anything of +the sort. But no visitors came to the house or sought the acquaintance +of the family for _her_ sake. She had the dear, and, to her, priceless +love of her sister. But no admiration, no pride of father or mother +fell to _her_ share. _Her_ life was not made brilliant by the notice +and friendship of distinguished men. Everything was for the younger +sister. And through long years of this eclipse, and to the last, she +fairly worshipped the sister who eclipsed her. Garrow, to do him +justice, was equally affectionate in his manner to both girls, and +entirely impartial in every respect that concerned the material +well-being of them. But Theodosia was always placed on a pedestal on +which there was no room at all for Harriet. Nor could the closest +intimacy with the family discover any faintest desire on her part to +share the pedestal She was content and entirely happy in enjoying the +reflected brightness of the more gifted sister. + +Nor would perhaps a shrewd judge, whose estimate of men and women had +been formed by observation of average humanity, have thought that the +position which I have described as that of the younger of these two +sisters, was altogether a morally wholesome one for her. But the +shrewd judge would have been wrong. There never was a humbler, as +there never was a more loving soul, than that of the Theodosia Garrow +who became, for my perfect happiness, Theodosia Trollope. And it was +these two qualities of humbleness and lovingness that, acting like +invincible antiseptics on the moral nature, saved her from all +"spoiling,"--from any tendency of any amount of flattery and +admiration to engender selfishness or self-sufficiency. Nothing more +beautiful in the way of family affection could be seen than the tie +which united in the closest bonds of sisterly affection those two so +differently constituted sisters. Very many saw and knew what Theodosia +was as my wife. Very few indeed ever knew what she was in her own home +as a sister. + +When I married Theodosia Garrow she possessed just one thousand pounds +in her own right, and little or no prospect of ever possessing any +more; while I on my side possessed nothing at all, save the prospect +of a strictly bread and cheese competency at the death of my mother, +and "the farm which I carried under my hat," as somebody calls it. The +marriage was not made with the full approbation of my father-in-law; +but entirely in accordance with the wishes of my mother, who simply, +dear soul, saw in it, what she said, that "Theo" was of all the girls +she knew, the one she should best like as a daughter-in-law. And here +again the wise folks of the world (and I among them!) would hardly +have said that the step I then took was calculated, according to all +the recognised chances and probabilities of human affairs, to lead to +a life of contentment and happiness. I suppose it ought not to have +done so! But it did! It would be monstrously inadequate to say that I +never repented it. What should I not have lost had I not done it! + +As usual my cards turned up trumps! but they began to do so in a way +that caused me much, and my wife more, grief at the time. Within two +years after my marriage, poor, dear, good, loving Harriet caught +small-pox and died! She was much more largely endowed than her +half-sister, to whom she bequeathed all she had. + +She had a brother, as I have said above. But he had altogether +alienated himself from his family by becoming a Roman Catholic priest +There was no open quarrel. I met him frequently in after years at +Garrow's table at Torquay, and remember his bitter complaints that he +was tempted by the appearance of things at table which he ought not to +eat. It would have been of no use to give or bequeath money to +him, for it would have gone immediately to Romanist ecclesiastical +purposes. He had nearly stripped himself of his own considerable +means, reserving to himself only the bare competence on which a +Catholic priest might live. He was altogether a very queer fish! +I remember his coming to me once in tearful but very angry mood, +because, as he said, I had guilefully spread snares for his soul! I +had not the smallest comprehension of his meaning till I discovered +that his woe and wrath were occasioned by my having sent him as a +present Berington's _Middle Ages_. I had fancied that his course of +studies and line of thought would have made the book interesting to +him, utterly ignorant or oblivious of the fact that it laboured under +the disqualification of appearing in the _Index_. + +I take it I knew little about the _Index_ in those days. In after +years, when three or four of my own books had been placed in its +columns, I was better informed. I remember a very elegant lady who +having overheard my present wife mention the fact that a recently +published book of mine had been placed in the _Index_, asked her, with +the intention of being extremely polite and complimentary, whether +_her_ (my wife's) books had been put in the _Index_. And when the +latter modestly replied that she had not written anything that could +merit such a distinction, her interlocutor, patting her on the +shoulder with a kindly and patronising air, said "Oh! my dear, I am +_sure_ they will be placed there. They certainly ought to be!" + +Mrs. Garrow, my wife's mother, was not, I think, an amiable woman. She +must have been between seventy and eighty when I first knew her; but +she was still vigorous, and had still a pair of what must once have +been magnificent, and were still brilliant and fierce black eyes. She +was in no wise a clever woman, nor was our dear Harriet a clever girl. +Garrow on the other hand and _his_ daughter were both very markedly +clever, and this produced a closeness of companionship and alliance +between the father and daughter which painfully excited the jealousy +of the wife and mother. But it was totally impossible for her to cabal +with her daughter against the object of her jealousy. Harriet always +seeking to be a peacemaker, was ever, if peace could not be made, +stanchly on Theo's side. I am afraid that Mrs. Garrow did not love her +second daughter at all; and I am inclined to suspect that my marriage +was in some degree facilitated by her desire to get Theo out of the +house. She was a very fierce old lady, and did not, I fear, contribute +to the happiness of any member of her family. + +How well I remember the appearance of Mr. and Mrs. Garrow, and those +two girls in my mother's drawing-room in the Via dei Malcontenti. The +two girls, I remember, were dressed exactly alike and very _dowdily_. +They had just arrived in Florence from Tours, I think, where they +had passed a year, or perhaps two, since quitting "The Braddons" at +Torquay; and everything about them from top to toe was provincial, not +to say shabby. It was a Friday, my mother's reception day, and the +room soon filled with gaily dressed and smart people, with more than +one pretty girl among them. But I had already got into conversation +with Theodosia Garrow, and, to the gross neglect of my duties as +master of the house, and to the scandal of more than one fair lady, so +I remained, till a summons more than twice repeated by her father took +her away. + +It was not that I had fallen in love at first sight, as the phrase is, +by any means. But I at once felt that I had got hold of something of a +quite other calibre of intelligence from anything I had been recently +accustomed to meet with in those around me, and with a moral nature +that was sympathetic to my own. And I found it very delightful. It is +no doubt true that, had her personal appearance been other than +it was, I should not probably have found her conversation equally +delightful. But I am sure that it is equally true that had she been in +face, figure, and person all she was, and at the same time stupid, or +even not sympathetic, I should not have been equally attracted to her. + +She was by no means what would have been recognised by most men as a +beautiful girl. The specialties of her appearance, in the first place, +were in a great measure due to the singular mixture of races from +which she had sprung. One half of her blood was Jewish, one quarter +Scotch, and one quarter pure Brahmin. Her face was a long oval, too +long and too lanky towards the lower part of it for beauty. Her +complexion was somewhat dark, and not good. The mouth was mobile, +expressive, perhaps more habitually framed for pathos and the gentler +feelings, than for laughter. The jaw was narrow, the teeth good and +white, but not very regular. She had a magnificent wealth of very dark +brown hair, not without a gleam here and there of what descriptive +writers, of course, would call gold, but which really was more +accurately copper colour. And this grand and luxuriant wealth of hair +grew from the roots on the head to the extremity of it, at her waist, +when it was let down, in the most beautiful ripples. But the great +feature and glory of the face were the eyes, among the largest I +ever saw, of a deep clear grey, rather deeply set, and changing in +expression with every impression that passed over her mind. The +forehead was wide, and largely developed both in those parts of it +which are deemed to indicate imaginative and idealistic power, and +those that denote strongly marked perceptive and artistic faculties. +The latter perhaps were the more prominently marked. The Indian strain +showed itself in the perfect gracefulness of a very slender and +elastic figure, and in the exquisite elegance and beauty of the +modelling of the extremities. + +That is not the description of a beautiful girl. But it is the fact +that the face and figure very accurately so described were eminently +attractive to me physically, as well as the mind and intelligence, +which informed them, were spiritually. They were much more attractive +to me than those of many a splendidly beautiful girl, the immense +superiority of whose beauty nobody knew better than I. Why should this +have been so? That is one of the mysteries to the solution of which no +moral or physical or psychical research has ever brought us an iota +nearer. + +I am giving here an account of the first impression my future wife +made on me. I had no thought of wooing and winning her, for, as I have +said, I was not in a position to marry. Meanwhile she was becoming +acclimatised to Florentine society. She no longer looked _dowdy_ when +entering a room, but very much the reverse; and the little Florentine +world began to recognise that they had got something very much like +a new Corinne among them. But of course I rarely got a chance of +monopolising her as I had done during that first afternoon. We were +however constantly meeting, and were becoming ever more and more close +friends. When the Garrows left Florence for the summer, I visited them +at Lucerne, and subsequently met them at Venice. It was the year of +the meeting of the Scientific Congress in that city. + +That was a pleasant autumn in Venice! By that time I had become +pretty well over head and ears in love with the girl by whose side +I generally contrived to sit in the gondolas, in the Piazza in the +evening, etcaetera. It was lovely September weather--just the time for +Venice. The summer days were drawing in, but there was the moon, quite +light enough on the lagoons; and we were a great deal happier than the +day was long. + +Those Scientific Congresses, of which that at Venice was the seventh +and the last, played a curious part, which has not been much observed +or noted by historians, in the story of the winning of Italian +independence. I believe that the first congress, at Pisa, I think, was +really got up by men of science, with a view to furthering their own +objects and pursuits. It was followed by others in successive autumns +at Lucca, Milan, Genoa, Naples, Florence, and this seventh and last +at Venice. But Italy was in those days thinking of other matters than +science. The whole air was full of ideas, very discordant all of them, +and vague most of them, of political change. The governments of the +peninsula thought twice, and more than twice, before they would grant +permission for the first of these meetings. Meetings of any kind were +objects of fear and mistrust to the rulers. Those of Tuscany, who were +by comparison liberal, and, as known to be such, were more or +less objects of suspicion to the Austrian, Roman, and Neapolitan +Governments, led the way in giving the permission asked for; and +perhaps thought that an assembly of geologists, entomologists, +astronomers, and mathematicians might act as a safety valve, and +divert men's minds from more dangerous subjects. But the current of +the times was running too strongly to be so diverted, and proved too +much for the authorities and for the real men of science, who were, at +least some of them, anxious to make the congresses really what they +professed to be. + +Gradually these meetings became more and more mere social gatherings +in outward appearance, and revolutionary propagandist assemblies in +reality. As regards the former aspect of them, the different cities +strove to outdo each other in the magnificence and generosity of their +reception of their "scientific" guests. Masses of publications were +prepared, especially topographical and historical accounts of the city +which played Amphytrion for the occasion, and presented gratuitously +to the members of the association. Merely little guide-books, of which +a few hundred copies were needed in the case of the earlier meetings, +they became in the case of the latter ones at Naples, Genoa, Milan, +and Venice, large and magnificently printed tomes, prepared by the +most competent authorities and produced at a very great expense. + +Venice especially outdid all her rivals, and printed an account of the +Queen of the Adriatic, embracing history, topography, science in +all its branches, and artistic story, in four huge and magnificent +volumes, which remains to the present day by far the best +topographical monograph that any city of the peninsula possesses. This +truly splendid work, which brought out in the ordinary way could not +have been sold for less than six or eight guineas, was presented, +together with much other printed matter--an enormous lithographed +panorama of Venice and her lagoons some five feet long in a handsome +roll cover, I remember among them--to every "member" on his enrolment +as such. + +Then there were concerts, and excursions, and great daily dinners +the gayest and most enjoyable imaginable, at which both sexes were +considered to be equally scientific and equally welcome. The dinners +were not absolutely gratuitous, but the tickets for them were issued +at a price very much inferior to the real cost of the entertainment. +And all this it must be understood was done not by any subscription of +members scientific or otherwise, but by the city and its municipality; +the motive for such expenditure being the highly characteristic +Italian one, of rivalling and outdoing in magnificence other +cities and municipalities, or in the historical language of Italy, +"communes." + +Old Rome, with her dependent cities, made no sign during all these +autumns of ever increasing festivity. Pity that they should have come +to an end before she did so; for at the rate at which things were +going, we should all at least have been crowned on the Capitol, if not +made Roman senators, _pour l'amour du Grec_, as the _savant_ says in +the _Précieuses Ridicules_, if we had gone to the Eternal City! + +But the fact was, that the _soi-disant_ 'ologists kicked up their +heels a little too audaciously at Venice under Austria's nose; and the +Government thought it high time to put an end to "science." + +For instance, Prince Canino made his appearance in the uniform of the +Roman National Guard! This was a little too much; and the Prince, all +prince and Buonaparte as he was, was marched off to the frontier. +Canino had every right to be there as a man of science; for his +acquirements in many branches of science were large and real; and +specially as an entomologist he was known to be probably the first +in Italy. But he was the man, who, when selling his principality of +Canino, insisted on the insertion in the legal instrument of a claim +to an additional five pauls (value about two shillings), for the title +of prince which was attached to the possessor of the estates he was +selling. He was an out-and-out avowed Republican, and was the blackest +of black sheep to all the constituted governments of the peninsula. +He looked as little as he felt and thought like a prince. He was a +paunchy, oily-looking black haired man, whose somewhat heavy face +was illumined by a brilliant black eye full of humour and a mouth +expressive of good nature and _bonhomie_. His appearance in the +proscribed uniform might have been considered by Austria, if her +police authorities could have appreciated the fun of the thing, as +wholesomely calculated to throw ridicule on the hated institution. He +was utterly unassuming, and good-natured in his manner, and when seen +in his ordinary black habiliments looked more like a well-to-do Jewish +trader than anything else. + +As for the social aspects of these Scientific Congresses, they were +becoming every year more festive, and, at all events to the ignoramus +outsiders who joined them, more pleasant. My good cousin and old +friend, then Colonel, now General, Sir Charles Trollope, was at Venice +that autumn. I said on meeting him, "Now the first thing is to, make +you a member." "Me! a member of a Scientific Congress!" said he. "God +bless you! I am as ignorant as a babe of all possible 'epteras and +'opteras, and 'statics and 'matics!" "Oh! nonsense! we are all men +of science here! Come along!"--_i.e._, to the ducal palace to be +inscribed. "But what do you mean to tell them I am?" he asked. "Well! +let's see! You must have superintended a course of instruction in the +goose-step in your day?" "Rather so!" said he. "Very well, then. You +are Instructor in Military Exercises in her B.M. Forces! You are all +right! Come along!" And if I had said that he was Trumpeter Major of +the 600th Regiment in the British Army, it would doubtless have been +equally all right. So said, so done! And I see his bewildered look +now, as the four huge volumes, about a load for a porter, to which he +had become entitled, together with medals and documents of many kinds, +were put into his arms. + +Ah! those were pleasant days! And while Italy, under the wing of +science, was plotting her independence, I was busy in forging the +chains of that dependence which was to be a more unmixed source of +happiness to me, than the independence which Italy was compassing has +yet proved to her. + +Those chains, however, as regarded at all events the outward and +visible signs of them, had not got forged yet. I certainly had no +"proposed" to Theodosia. In fact, to the very best of my recollection +I never did "propose" to her--or "pop," as the hideous phrase is--any +decisive question at all. We seem, to my recollection, to have come +gradually, insensibly, and mutually to consider it a matter of course +that what we wanted was to be married, and that the only matter +which needed any words or consideration was the question, how the +difficulties in the way of our wishes were to be overcome. + +In the autumn of 1847 my mother and I went to pass the winter in Rome. +My sister Cecilia's health had been failing; and it began to be feared +that there was reason to suspect the approach of the malady which had +already destroyed my brother Henry and my younger sister Emily. It +was decided therefore that she should pass the winter in Rome. Her +husband's avocations made it impossible for him to accompany her +thither, and my mother therefore took an apartment there to receive +her. It was in a small _palazzo_ in that part of the Via delle Quattro +Fontane, which is now situated between the Via Nazionale and the +Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, to the left of one going towards the +latter. There was no Via Nazionale then, and the buildings which now +make the Via delle Quattro Fontane a continuous line of street existed +only in the case of a few isolated houses and convents. It was a very +comfortable apartment, roomy, sunny, and quiet. The house exists +still, though somewhat modernised in outward appearance, and is, I +think, the second, after one going towards Santa Maria Maggiore has +crossed the new Via Nazionale. + +But the grand question was, whether it could be brought about that +Theodosia Garrow should be permitted to be my mother's guest during +that winter. A hint on the matter was quite sufficient for my dear +mother, although I do not think that she had yet any idea that I +was minded to give her a daughter-in-law. Theodosia's parents had +certainly no faintest idea that anything more than ordinary friendship +existed between me and their daughter, or, if they had had such, +she would certainly have never been allowed to accept my mother's +invitation. As for Theodosia herself and her willingness to come, it +seems to me, as I look back, that nothing was said between us at all, +any more than anything was said about making her my wife. I think it +was all taken for granted, _sans mot dire_, by both of us. But there +was one person who knew all about it; knew what was in both our +hearts, and was eagerly anxious that the desire of them should be +fulfilled. This was the good fairy Harriet Fisher. Without the +strenuous exertion of her influence on her mother and Mr. Garrow, the +object would hardly have been accomplished. Of course the plea put +forward was the great desirability of taking advantage of such an +opportunity of seeing Rome. + +My sister, whose health, alas! profited nothing by that visit to Rome, +and could have been profited by no visit to any place on earth, became +strongly attached to Theodosia; and the affection which grew up +between them was the more to the honour of both of them, in that they +were far as the poles asunder in opinions and habits of thought. My +sister was what in those days was called a "Puseyite." Her opinions +were formed on the highest High Church model, and her Church opinions +made the greatest part, and indeed nearly the whole of her life. +Theodosia had no Church opinions at all, High or Low! All her mind and +interests were, at all events at that time, turned towards poetry +and art. Subsequently she interested herself keenly in political and +social questions, but had hardly at that time begun to do so. But she +made a conquest of my sister. + +Indeed it would have been very difficult for any one to live in +the same house with her without loving her. She was so bright, her +sympathies so ready, her intelligence so large and varied, that day +after day her presence and her conversation were a continual delight; +and she was withal diffident of herself, gentle and unassuming to a +fault. My mother had already learned to love her truly as a daughter, +before there was any apparent probability of her becoming one. + +We did not succeed in bearing down all the opposition that in the name +of ordinary prudence was made to our marriage, till the spring of +forty-eight. We were finally married on the 3rd of April in that +year, in the British Minister's chapel in Florence, in the quiet, +comfortable way in which we used to do such things in those days. + +I told my good friend Mr. Plunkett (he had then become the English +representative at the Court of Tuscany), that I wanted to be married +the next day. "All right!" said he; "will ten o'clock do?" "Could not +be better!" "Very good! Tell Robbins [the then English clergyman] I'll +be sure to be there." So at ten the next morning we looked in at the +Palazzo Ximenes, and in about ten minutes the business was done! + +Of Mr. Robbins, who was as kind and good a little man as could be, I +may note, since I have been led to speak of him, the following rather +singular circumstance. He was, as I have been told, the son of a +Devonshire farmer, and his two sisters were the wives of two of the +principal Florentine nobles, one having married the Marchese Inghirami +and the other the Marchese Bartolomei. What circumstances led to the +accomplishment of a destiny apparently so strange for the family of a +Devonshire farmer, I never heard. The clergyman and his sisters were +all much my seniors. + +After the expeditious ceremony we all--about half a score of us--went +off to breakfast at the house of Mr. Garrow in the Piazza di Santa +Maria Novella, and before noon my wife and I were off on a ramble +among the Tuscan cities. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +My very old friend, Colonel Grant--General Grant many years before +he died--used to say that if he wished without changing his place +himself, to see the greatest possible number of his friends and +acquaintances, he should stand perpetually at the foot of the column +in the Place Vendôme. But it seems to me that at least as advantageous +a post of observation for the purpose would be the foot of Giotto's +tower in Florence! Who in these days lives and dies without going to +Florence; and who goes to Florence without going to gaze on the most +perfectly beautiful tower that human hands ever raised? + +Let me tell (quite parenthetically) a really good story of that +matchless building, which yet however will hardly be appreciated at +its full value by those who have never yet seen it. When the Austrian +troops were occupying Florence, one of the white-coated officers had +planted himself in the Piazza in front of the tower, and was gazing at +it earnestly, lost in admiration of its perfect beauty. "_Si svita, +signore_," said a little street urchin, coming up behind him--"It +_unscrews_, sir!" As much as to say, "Wouldn't you like just to take +it off bodily and carry it away?" But, as I said, to apprehend the +aptitude of the _gamin's_ sneer, one must have oneself looked on the +absolute perfection of proportion and harmony of its every part, which +really does suggest the idea that the whole might be lifted bodily in +one piece from its place on the soil Whether the Austrian had the +wit to answer "You are blundering, boy! you are taking me for a +Frenchman," I don't know! + +But I was saying, when the mention of the celebrated tower led me into +telling, before I forgot it, the above story, that Florence was of all +the cities of Europe, that in which one might be likely to see +the greatest number of old, and make the greatest number of new +acquaintances. I lived there for more than thirty years, and the +number of persons, chiefly English, American, and Italian, whom I knew +during that period is astonishing. The number of them was of course +all the greater from the fact that the society, at least so far as +English and Americans were concerned, was to a very great degree a +floating one. They come back to my memory, when I think of those +times, like a long procession of ghosts! Most of them, I suppose, +_are_ ghosts by this time. They pass away out of one's ken, and are +lost! + +Some, thank Heaven, are _not_ lost; and some though lost, will never +pass out of ken! If I were writing only for myself, I should like to +send my memory roving among all that crowd of phantoms, catch them one +after another as they dodge about half eluding one when just on +the point of recovering them, and, fixing them in memory's camera, +photograph them one after another. But I cannot hope that such a +gallery would be as interesting to the reader as it certainly would to +me. And I must content myself with recording my recollections of those +among them in whom the world may be supposed to take an interest. + +Theodosia Garrow, when living with her parents at "The Braddons," at +Torquay, had known Elizabeth Barrett. The latter was very much of an +invalid at the time; so much so, as I think I have gathered from my +wife's talk about those times, as to have prevented her from being a +visitor to "The Braddons." But Theodosia was, I take it, to be very +frequently found by the side of the sofa to which her friend was more +or less confined. I fancy that Mr. Kenyon, who was an old friend +and family connection of Elizabeth Barrett's family, and was also +intimately acquainted with the Garrows and with Theodosia, must have +been the first means of bringing the girls together. There were +assuredly _very_ few young women in England at that day to whom +Theodosia Garrow in social intercourse would have had to look _up_, +as to one on a higher intellectual level than her own. But Elizabeth +Barrett was one of them. I am not talking of _acquirements_. Nor was +my wife thinking of such when she used to speak of the poetess as she +had known her at that time. I am talking, as my wife used to talk, +of pure native intellectual power. And I consider it to have been no +small indication of the capacity of my wife's intelligence, that she +so clearly and appreciatingly recognised and measured the distance +between her friend's intellect and her own. But this appreciation on +the one side was in nowise incompatible with a large and generous +amount of admiration on the other. And many a talk in long subsequent +years left with me the impression of the high estimation which the +gifted poetess had formed of the value of her highly, but not so +exceptionally, gifted admirer. + +Of course this old friendship paved the way for a new one when the +Brownings came to live in Florence. I flatter myself that that would +in any case have found some _raison d'être_. But the pleasure of the +two girls--girls no more in any sense--in meeting again quickened +the growth of an intimacy which might otherwise have been slower in +ripening. + +To say that amid all that frivolous, gay, giddy, and, it must be +owned, for the most part very unintellectual society (in the pleasures +and pursuits of which, to speak honestly, I took, well pleased, my +full share), my visits to Casa Guidi were valued by me as choice +morsels of my existence, is to say not half enough. I was conscious +even then of coming away from those visits a better man, with higher +views and aims. And pray, reader, understand that any such effect was +not produced by any talk or look or word of the nature of preaching, +or anything approaching to it, but simply by the perception and +appreciation of what Elizabeth Barrett Browning was; of the immaculate +purity of every thought that passed through her pellucid mind, and the +indefeasible nobility of her every idea, sentiment, and opinion. I +hope my reader is not so much the slave of conventional phraseology as +to imagine that I use the word "purity" in the above sentence in its +restricted and one may say technical, sense. I mean the purity of the +upper spiritual atmosphere in which she habitually dwelt; the absolute +disseverance of her moral as well as her intellectual nature from all +those lower thoughts as well as lower passions which smirch the human +soul. In mind and heart she was _white_--stainless. That is what I +mean by purity. + +Her most intimate friend at Florence was a Miss Isabella Blagden, who +lived for many years at Bellosguardo, in a villa commanding a lovely +view over Florence and the valley of the Arno from the southern side, +looking across it therefore to Fiesole and its villa-and-cypress-covered +slopes. Whether the close friendship between Mrs. Browning and Isa +Blagden (we all called her Isa always) was first formed in Florence, or +had its commencement at an earlier date, I do not know. But Isa was also +the intimate and very specially highly-valued friend of my wife and +myself. And this also contributed to our common friendship. Isa was +(yes, as usual, "was," alas, though she was very much my junior) a very +bright, very warm-hearted, very clever little woman, who knew everybody, +and was, I think, more universally beloved than any other individual +among us. A little volume of her poems was published after her untimely +death. They are not such as could take by storm the careless ears of the +world, which knows nothing about her, and must, I suppose, be admitted +to be marked by that mediocrity which neither gods nor men can tolerate. +But it is impossible to read the little volume without perceiving how +choice a spirit the authoress must have been, and understanding how it +came to pass that she was especially honoured by the close and warm +attachment of Mrs. Browning. I have scores of letters signed "Isa," or +rather Sibylline leaves scrawled in the vilest handwriting on all sorts +of abnormal fragments of paper, and despatched in headlong haste, +generally concerning some little projected festivity at Bellosguardo, +and advising me of the expected presence of some stranger whom she +thought I should like to meet. Very many of such of these fragmentary +scribblings, as were written before the Brownings left Florence, contain +some word or reference to her beloved "Ba," for such was the pet name +used between them, with what meaning or origin I know not. + +Dear Isa's death was to me an especially sad one, because I thought, +and think, that she need not have died. She lived alone with a couple +of old servants, and though she was rich in troops of friends, and +there were one or two near her during the day or two of her illness, +they did not seem to have managed matters wisely. Our Isa was +extremely obstinate about calling in medical advice. It could not be +done at a moment's notice, for a message had to be sent and a doctor +to come from Florence. And this was not done till the second day of +her illness. And I had good reason for thinking that, had she been +properly attended to on the first day, her life might have been saved. +She would not let her friends send for the doctor, and the friends +were unable to make her do so. Unhappily, I was absent for a few days +at Siena, and returned to be met by the intelligence that she was +dead. It seemed the more sad in that I knew that if I had been there +I could have made her call a doctor before it was too late. Browning +could also have done so; but it was after the death of Mrs. Browning +and his departure from Florence. + +How great her sorrow was for the death of her friend, Browning knew, +doubtless, but nobody else, I think, in the world save myself. + +I have now before me one of her little scraps of letters, in which she +encloses one from Mrs. Browning which is of the highest interest. The +history and genesis of it is as follows. Shortly after the publication +of the well-known and exquisite little poem on the god Pan in the +_Cornhill Magazine_, my brother Anthony wrote me a letter venturing to +criticise it, in which he says: "The lines are very beautiful, and the +working out of the idea is delicious. But I am inclined to think that +she is illustrating an allegory by a thought, rather than a thought +by an allegory. The idea of the god destroying the reed in making the +instrument has, I imagine, given her occasion to declare that in the +sublimation of the poet the man is lost for the ordinary purposes of +man's life. It has been thus instead of being the reverse; and I can +hardly believe that she herself believes in the doctrine which her +fancy has led her to illustrate. A man that can be a poet is so much +the more a man in becoming such, and is the more fitted for a man's +best work. Nothing is destroyed, and in preparing the instrument for +the touch of the musician the gods do nothing for which they need +weep. The idea however is beautiful, and it is beautifully worked." + +Then follows some verbal criticism which need not be transcribed. +Going on to the seventh stanza he says, "In the third line of it, she +loses her antithesis. She must spoil her man, as well as make a poet +out of him--spoil him as the reed is spoilt. Should we not read the +lines thus:-- + + "'Yet one half beast is the great god Pan + Or he would not have laughed by the river. + Making a poet he mars a man; + The true gods sigh,' &c."? + +In justice to my brother's memory I must say that this was not +written to me with any such presumptuous idea as that of offering his +criticism to the poetess. But I showed the letter to Isa Blagden, and +at her request left it with her. A day or two later, she writes to me: +"Dear friend,--I send you back your criticism and Mrs. B.'s rejoinder. +She _made_ me show it to her, and she wishes you to see her answer." +Miss Blagden's words would seem to imply that she thought the +criticism mine. And if she did, Mrs. Browning was doubtless led to +suppose so too. Yet I think this could hardly have been the case. + +Of course my only object in writing all this here is to give the +reader the great treat of seeing Mrs. Browning's "rejoinder." It is +very highly interesting:-- + + * * * * * + +"DEAREST ISA,--Very gentle my critic is; I am glad I got him out of +you. But tell dear Mr. Trollope he is wrong nevertheless" [here it +certainly seems that she supposed the criticism to be mine]; "and +that my 'thought' was really and decidedly _anterior_ [_sic_] to my +'allegory.' Moreover, it is my thought still. I meant to say that the +poetic organisation implies certain disadvantages; for instance an +exaggerated general susceptibility, ...[1] which may be shut up, +kept out of the way in every-day life, and must be (or the man is +'_marred_' indeed, made a Rousseau or a Byron of), but which is +necessarily, for all that, cultivated in the very cultivation of art +itself. There is an inward reflection and refraction of the heats +of life ...[1] doubling pains and pleasures, doubling therefore the +motives (passions) of life. I have said something of this in A.L. +[_Aurora Leigh_]. Also there is a passion for essential truth (as +apprehended) and a necessity for speaking it out at all risks, +inconvenient to personal peace. Add to this and much else the loss of +the sweet unconscious cool privacy among the 'reeds' ...[1] which I +for one care so much for--the loss of the privilege of being glad or +sorry, ill or well, without a 'notice.' That may have its glory to +certain minds. But most people would be glad to 'stir their tea in +silence' when they are grave, and even to talk nonsense (much too +frivolously) when they are merry, without its running the round of the +newspapers in two worlds perhaps. You know I don't _invent_, Isa. In +fact, I am sorely tempted to send Mr. Trollope a letter I had this +morning, as an illustration of my view, and a reply to his criticism. +Only this letter among many begins with too many fair speeches. Still +it seems written by somebody in earnest and with a liking for me. Its +main object is to complain of the cowardly morality in _Pan_. Then a +stroke on the poems before Congress. The writer has heard that I 'had +been to Paris, was _fêted_ by the Emperor, and had had my head turned +by Imperial flatteries,' in consequence of which I had taken to +'praise and flatter the tyrant, and try to help his selfish ambition.' +Well! one should laugh and be wise. But somehow one doesn't laugh. A +letter beginning, 'You are a great teacher of truth,' and ending, 'You +are a dishonest wretch,' makes you cold somehow, and ill disposed +towards the satisfactions of literary distinction. Yes! and be sure, +Isa, that the 'true gods sigh,' and have reason to sigh, for the cost +and pain of it; sigh only ... don't haggle over the cost; don't grudge +a crazia, but.... sigh, sigh ... while they pay honestly. + +"On the other hand, there's much light talking and congratulation, +excellent returns to the pocket from the poem in the _Cornhill_; +pleasant praise from dear Mr. Trollope.... with all drawbacks: a good +opinion from Isa worth its gold--and Pan laughs. + +"But he is a beast up to the waist; yes, Mr. Trollope, a beast. He is +not a true god. + +"And I am neither god nor beast, if you please--only a + +"BA." + + * * * * * + +[Footnote 1: These dots do not indicate any hiatus. They exist in the +MS. as here given.] + +It seems that she certainly imagined me to be the critic; but must +have been subsequently undeceived. I will not venture to say a word on +the question of the marring or making of a man which results from the +creation of a poet; but if my brother had known Mrs. Browning as well +as I knew her, he would not have written that he could "hardly believe +that she herself believes in the doctrine that her fancy has led her +to illustrate." At all events, the divine afflatus had not so marred +the absolutely single-minded truthfulness of the woman in her as +to make it possible that she should, for the sake of illustrating, +however appositely, any fancy however brilliant, put forth a +"doctrine" as believing in it, which she did not believe. It may seem +that this is a foolish making of a mountain out of a molehill; but she +would not have felt it to be so. She had so high a conception of the +poet's office and responsibilities that nothing would have induced her +to play at believing for literary purposes any position, or fancy, or +imagination, which she did not in her heart of hearts accept. + +There was one subject upon which both my wife and I disagreed in +opinion with Mrs. Browning; and it was a subject which sat very near +her heart, and was much occupying all minds at that time--the phases +of Italy's struggle for independence, and especially the part which +the Emperor Napoleon the Third was taking in that struggle, and his +conduct towards Italy. We were all equally "Italianissimi," as the +phrase went then; all equally desirous that Italy should accomplish +the union of her _disjecta membra_, throw off the yoke of the bad +governments which had oppressed her, make herself a nation, and do +well as such. But we differed widely as to the ultimate utility, the +probable results, and, above all, as to the motives of the Emperor's +conduct. Mrs. Browning believed in him and trusted him. We did +neither. Hence the following interesting and curious letter, written +to my wife at Florence by Mrs. Browning, who was passing the summer at +Siena. Mrs. Browning felt very warmly upon this subject--so indeed did +my wife, differing from her _toto coelo_ upon it. But the difference +not only never caused the slightest suspension of cordial feeling +between them, but never caused either of them to doubt for a moment +that the other was with equal sincerity and equal ardour anxious for +the same end. The letter was written, as only the postmark shows, on +September 26th, 1859, and was as follows:-- + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR MRS. TROLLOPE,--I feel doubly ungrateful to you ... for the +music (one of the proofs of your multiform faculty) and for your kind +and welcome letter, which I have delayed to thank you for. My body +lags so behind my soul always, and especially of late, that you must +consider my disadvantages in whatever fault is committed by me trying +to forgive it. + +"Certainly we differ in our estimate of the Italian situation, while +loving and desiring for Italy up to the same height and with the same +heart. + +"For me I persist in looking to _facts_ rather than to words official +or unofficial, and in repeating that, 'whereas we were bound, now we +are free.' + +"'I think, therefore, I am.' _Cogito, ergo sum_, was, you know, an old +formula. Italy thinks (aloud) at Florence and Bologna; therefore she +_is_. And how did that happen? Could it have happened last year, +with the Austrians at Bologna, and ready (at a sign) to precipitate +themselves into Tuscany? Could it have happened previous to the French +intervention? And could it happen _now_ if France used the power she +has in Italy _against_ Italy? Why is it that the _Times_ newspaper, +which declared ... first that the elections were to be prevented +by France, and next that they were to be tampered with ... is not +justified before our eyes? I appeal to your sober judgment ... if +indeed the Emperor Napoleon _desires the restoration of the Dukes!!_ +Is he not all the more admirable for being loyal and holding his hand +off while he has fifty thousand men ready to 'protect' us all and +prevent the exercise of the people's sovereignty? And he a despot (so +called) and accustomed to carry out his desires. Instead of which +Tuscans and Romagnoli, Parma and Modena, have had every opportunity +allowed them to combine, carry their elections, and express their +full minds in assemblies, till the case becomes so complicated and +strengthened that her enemies for the most part despair. + +"The qualities shown by the Italians--the calm, the dignity, the +intelligence, the constancy ... I am as far from not understanding +the weight of these virtues as from not admiring them. But the +_opportunity_ for exercising them comes from the Emperor Napoleon, and +it is good and just for us all to remember this while we admire the +most. + +"So at least I think; and the Italian official bodies have always +admitted it, though individuals seem to me to be too much +influenced by the suspicions and calumnies thrown out by foreign +journals--English, Prussian, Austrian, and others--which traduce the +Emperor's motives in diplomacy, as they traduced them in the war. A +prejudice in the eye is as fatal to sight as mote and beam together. +And there are things abroad _worse_ than any prejudices--yes, worse! + +"It is a fact that the Emperor used his influence with England to +get the Tuscan vote accepted by the English Government. Whatever +wickedness he meant by _that_ the gods know; and English statesmen +suspect ... (or suspected a very short short time ago); but the deed +itself is not wicked, and you and I shall not be severe on it whatever +bad motive may be imputable. + +"So much more I could write ... about Villafranca, but I won't. The +Emperor, great man as he is, could not precisely anticipate the +high qualities given proof of in the late development of Italian +nationality. He made the best terms he could, having had his hand +forced. In consequence of this treaty he has carried out his +engagement to Austria in certain official forms, knowing well that the +free will and choice of the Italians are hindered by none of them; +and knowing besides that every apparent coldness and reserve of his +towards the peninsula removes a jealousy from England, and instigates +her to a more liberal and human bearing than formerly. + +"Forgive me for all these words. I am much better, but still not as +strong as I was before my attack; only getting strength, I hope. + +"Miss Blagden and Miss Field are staying still with us, and are gone +to Siena to-day to see certain pictures (which has helped to expose +you to this attack). We talk of returning to Florence by the first of +October, or soon after, in spite of the revival of fine weather. Mr. +Landor is surprisingly improved by the good air here and the repose of +mind; walks two miles, and writes alcaics and pentameters on most days +... on his domestic circumstances, and ... I am sorry to say ... Louis +Napoleon. But I tell him that I mean him to write an ode on my side of +the question before we have done. + +"I honour you and your husband for the good work you have both done on +behalf of this great cause. But his book[1] we only know yet by the +extracts in the _Athenaeum_, which brings us your excellent articles. +May I not thank you for them? And when does Mr. Trollope come back?" +[from a flying visit to England]. "We hope not to miss him out of +Florence long. + +[Footnote 1: _Tuscany in_ 1849 _and_ 1859.] + +"Peni's love to Bice.[1] He has been very happy here, galloping +through the lanes on a pony the colour of his curls. Then he helps to +work in the vineyards and to keep the sheep, having made close friends +with the _contadini_ to whom he reads and explains Dall' Ongaro's +poems with great applause. By the way, the poet paid us a visit +lately, and we liked him much. + +[Footnote 1: Browning's boy and my girl.] + +"And let me tell _Bice's mother_ another story of Penini. He keeps a +journal, be it whispered; I ventured to peep through the leaves the +other morning, and came to the following notice: 'This is the happiest +day of my _hole (sic)_ life, because dearest Vittorio Emanuele is +really _nostro re!_' + +"There's a true Italian for you! But his weak point is spelling. + +"Believe me, with my husband's regards, + +"Ever truly and affectionately yours, + +"ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING." + + * * * * * + +It may possibly enter into the mind of some one of those who never +enjoyed the privilege of knowing Mrs. Browning the woman, to couple +together the stupidly calumnious insinuations to which she refers in +the first letter I have given, with the admiration she expresses for +the third Napoleon in the second letter. I differed from her wholly in +her estimate of the man, and in her views of his policy with regard to +Italy. And many an argument have I had with her on the subject. And my +opinions respecting it were all the more distasteful to her because +they concerned the character of the man himself as well as his policy +as a ruler. And those talks and arguments have left me probably the +only man alive, save one, who knows with such certainty as I know it, +and can assert as I can, the absolute absurdity and impossibility of +the idea that she, being what she was, could have been bribed by any +amount of Imperial or other flattery, not only to profess opinions +which she did not veritably hold--this touches her moral nature, +perhaps the most pellucidly truthful of any I ever knew--but to hold +opinions which she would not have otherwise held. This touches her +intellectual nature, which was as incapable of being mystified or +modified by any suggestion of vanity, self-love, or gratified pride, +as the most judicial-minded judge who ever sat on the bench. Her +intellectual view on the matter _was_, I thought, mystified and +modified by the intensity of her love for the Italian cause, and of +her hatred for the evils from which she was watching the Italians +struggling to liberate themselves. + +I heard, probably from herself, of whispered calumnies, such as those +she refers to in the first of the two letters given. She despised them +then, as those who loved and valued her did, though the sensitive +womanly gentleness of her nature made it a pain to her that any +fellow-creature, however ignorant and far away from her, should so +think of her. And my disgust at a secret attempt to stab has impelled +me to say what I _know_ on the subject. But I really think that not +only those who knew her as she lived In the flesh, but the tens of +thousands who know her as she lives in her written words, cannot but +feel my vindication superfluous. + +The above long and specially interesting letter is written in very +small characters on ten pages of extremely small duodecimo note-paper, +as is also the other letter by the same writer given above. Mrs. +Browning's handwriting shows ever and anon an odd tendency to form +each letter of a word separately--a circumstance which I mention for +the sake of remarking that old Huntingford, the Bishop of Hereford, in +my young days, between whom and Mrs. Browning there was one thing in +common, namely, a love for and familiarity with Greek studies, used to +write in the same manner. + +The Dall' Ongaro here spoken of was an old friend of ours--of my +wife's, if I remember right--before our marriage. He was a Venetian, +or rather to speak accurately, I believe, a Dalmatian by birth, but +all his culture and sympathies were Venetian. He had in his early +youth been destined for the priesthood, but like many another had been +driven by the feelings and sympathies engendered by Italy's political +struggles to abandon the tonsure for the sake of joining the "patriot" +cause. His muse was of the drawing-room school and calibre. But +he wrote very many charming little poems breathing the warmest +aspirations of the somewhat extreme _gauche_ of that day, especially +some _stornelli_ after the Tuscan fashion, which met with a very wide +and warm acceptance. I remember one extremely happy, the _refrain_ +of which still runs in my head. It is written on the newly-adopted +Italian tricolour flag. After characterising each colour separately in +a couplet, he ends:-- + + "_E il rosso, il bianco, e il verde, + È un terno che si giuoca, e non si perde_." + +The phrase is borrowed from the language of the lottery. "And the +red, and the white, and the green, are a threefold combination" [I +am obliged to be horribly prosaic in order to make the allusion +intelligible to non-Italian ears!] "on which we may play and be sure +not to lose!" + +I am tempted to give here another of Mrs. Browning's letters to my +first wife, partly by the persuasion that any letter of hers must be +a matter of interest to a very large portion of English readers, and +partly for the sake of the generously appreciative criticism of one of +my brother's books, which I also always considered to be one of his +best. I must add that Mrs. Browning's one bit of censure coincides as +perfectly with my own judgment. The letter as usual is dateless, +but must have been written very shortly after the publication of my +brother's novel called _The Three Clerks_. + +"My dear Mrs. Trollope,--I return _The Three Clerks_ with our true +thanks and appreciation. We both quite agree with you in considering +it the best of the three clever novels before the public. My husband, +who can seldom get a novel to hold him, has been held by all three, +and by this the strongest. Also it has qualities which the others gave +no sign of. For instance, I was wrung to tears by the third volume. +What a thoroughly _man's_ book it is! I much admire it, only wishing +away, with a vehemence which proves the veracity of my general +admiration, the contributions to the _Daily Delight_--may I dare to +say it? + +"I do hope you are better. For myself, I have not suffered more than +was absolutely necessary in the late unusual weather. + +"I heard with concern that Mrs. Trollope" [my mother] "has been less +well than usual. But who can wonder, with such cold? + +"Most truly yours, + +"Elizabeth Barrett Browning. + +"_Casa Guidi, Wednesday._" + +Here is also one other little memorial, written not by "Elizabeth +Barrett Browning," but by "Elizabeth Barrett." It is interesting +on more than one account. It bears no date, save "Beacon Terrace +[Torquay], Thursday," But it evidently marks the beginning of +acquaintanceship between the two exceptionally, though not equally +gifted girls--Elizabeth Barrett and Theodosia Garrow. It is written on +a sheet of the very small duodecimo note paper which she was wont to +use many years subsequently, but in far more delicate and elegant +characters than she used, when much pen-work had produced its usual +deteriorating effect on her caligraphy. + + * * * * * + +"I cannot return the _Book of Beauty_" [Lady Blessington's annual] "to +Miss Garrow without thanking her for allowing me to read in it sooner +than I should otherwise have done, those contributions of her own +which help to justify its title, and which are indeed sweet and +touching verses. + +"It is among the vexations brought upon me by my illness, that I still +remain personally unacquainted with Miss Garrow, though seeming to +myself to know her through those who actually do so. And I should +venture to hope that it might be a vexation the first to leave me, if +a visit to an invalid condemned to the _peine forte et dure_ of being +very silent, notwithstanding her womanhood, were a less gloomy thing. +At any rate I am encouraged to thank Miss Fisher and Miss Garrow +for their visits of repeated inquiry, and their other very kind +attentions, by these written words, rather than by a message. For I am +sure that wherever kindness _can_ come thankfulness _may_, and that +whatever intrusion my note can be guilty of, it is excusable by the +fact of my being Miss Garrow's + +"Sincerely obliged, + +"E. BARRETT." + + * * * * * + +Could anything be more charmingly girlish, or more prettily worded! +The diminutive little note seems to have been preserved, an almost +solitary survival of the memorials of the days to which it belongs. +It must doubtless have been followed by sundry others, but was, I +suppose, specially treasured as having been the first step towards a +friendship which was already highly valued. + +Of course, in the recollections of an Englishman living during those +years in Florence, Robert Browning must necessarily stand out in high +relief, and in the foremost line. But very obviously this is neither +the time nor the place, nor is my dose of presumption sufficient for +any attempt at a delineation of the man. To speak of the poet, since +I write for Englishmen, would be very superfluous. It may be readily +imagined that the "tag-rag and bobtail" of the men who mainly +constituted that very pleasant but not very intellectual society, were +not likely to be such as Mr. Browning would readily make intimates +of. And I think I see in memory's magic glass that the men used to be +rather afraid of him. Not that I ever saw him rough or uncourteous +with the most exasperating fool that ever rubbed a man's nervous +system the wrong way; but there was a quiet, lurking smile which, +supported by very few words, used to seem to have the singular +property of making the utterers of platitudes and the mistakers of +_non-sequiturs_ for _sequiturs_, uncomfortably aware of the nature of +their words within a very few minutes after they had uttered them. I +may say, however, that I believe that in any dispute on any sort of +subject between any two men in the place, if it had been proposed to +submit the matter in dispute for adjudication to Mr. Browning, the +proposal would have been jumped at with a greater readiness of +_consensus_ than in the case of any other man there. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +The Italians, I believe, were "thinking" at a considerably earlier +period than that which in the second letter transcribed in the +preceding chapter Mrs. Browning seems to have considered as the +beginning of their "cogitating" existence, and thinking on the +subjects to which she is there adverting. They were "thinking," +perhaps, less in Tuscany than in any other part of the peninsula, for +they were eating more and better there. They were very lightly taxed. +The _mezzeria_ system of agriculture, which, if not absolutely the +same, is extremely similar to that which is known as "conacre," +rendered the lot of the peasant population very far better and more +prosperous than that of the tillers of the earth in any of the other +provinces. And upon the whole the people were contented. The Tuscan +public was certainly not a "pensive public." They ate their bread not +without due condiment of _compagnatico_,[1] or even their chesnuts in +the more remote and primitive mountain districts, drank their sound +Tuscan wine from the generous big-bellied Tuscan flasks holding three +good bottles, and sang their _stornelli_ in cheerfulness of heart, and +had no craving whatsoever for those few special liberties which were +denied them. + +[Footnote 1: Anything to make the bread "go down," as our people +say--a morsel of bacon or sausage, a handful of figs or grapes, or a +bit of cheese.] + +_Epicuri de grege porci!_ No progress! Yes, I know all that, and +am not saying what should have been, but what was. There _was_ no +progress! The _contadini_ on the little farm which I came to possess +before I left Tuscany cultivated it precisely after the fashion of +their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, and strenuously resisted +any suggestion that it could, should, or might be cultivated in any +other way. But my _contadino_ inhabited a large and roomy _casa +colonica_; he and his buxom wife, had six stalwart sons, and was the +richer man in consequence of having them. No, in my early Florentine +days the _cogito, ergo sum_ could not have been predicated of the +Tuscans. + +But the condition of things in the other states of the peninsula, in +Venice and Lombardy under the Austrians, in Naples under the Bourbon +kings, in Romagna under the Pope, and very specially in Modena under +its dukes of the House of Este, was much otherwise. In those regions +the Italians were "thinking" a great deal, and had been thinking for +some time past. And somewhere about 1849, those troublesome members +of the body social who are not contented with eating, drinking, and +singing--cantankerous reading and writing people living in towns, who +wanted most unreasonably to say, as the phrase goes, that "their souls +were their own" (as if such fee-simple rights ever fall to the lot +of any man!)--began in Tuscany to give signs that they also were +"thinking." + +I remember well that Albèri, the highly accomplished and learned +editor of the _Reports of the Venetian Ambassadors_, and of the great +edition of Galileo's works, was the first man who opened my altogether +innocent eyes to the fact, that the revolutionary leaven was working +in Tuscany, and that there were social breakers ahead! This must +have been as early as 1845, or possibly 1844. Albèri himself was a +Throne-and-Altar man, who thought for his part, that the amount of +proprietorship over his own soul which the existing _régime_ allowed +him was enough for his purposes. But, as he confided to me, a very +strong current of opinion was beginning to run the other way in +Florence, in Leghorn, in Lucca, and many smaller cities--not in Siena, +which always was, and is still, a nest of conservative feeling. + +Nevertheless there never was, at least in Florence, the strength and +bitterness of revolutionary feeling that existed almost everywhere +else throughout Italy. I remember a scene which furnished a very +remarkable proof of this, and which was at the same time very +curiously and significantly characteristic of the Florentine +character, at least as it then existed. + +It was during the time of the Austrian occupation of Florence. On the +whole the Austrian troops behaved well; and their doings, and the +spirit in which the job they had in hand was carried out, were +very favourably contrasted with the tyranny, the insults, and the +aggressive arrogance, with which the French army of occupation +afflicted the Romans. The Austrians accordingly were never hated in +Florence with the bitter intensity of hate which the French earned in +the Eternal City. Nevertheless, there were now and then occasions +when the Florentine populace gratified their love of a holiday and +testified to the purity of their Italian patriotism by turning out +into the streets and kicking up a row. + +It was on an occasion of this sort, that the narrow street called Por' +Santa Maria, which runs up from the Ponte Vecchio to the Piazza, was +thickly crowded with people. A young lieutenant had been sent to that +part of the town with a small detachment of cavalry to clear the +streets. Judging from the aspect of the people, as his men, coming +down the Lung' Arno, turned into the narrow street, he did not +half like the job before him. He thought there certainly would be +bloodshed. And just as his men were turning the corner and beginning +to push their horses into the crowd, one of them slipped sideways on +the flagstones, with which, most distressingly to horses not used to +them, the streets of Florence are paved, and came down with his rider +partly under him. + +The officer thought, "Now for trouble! That man will be killed to +a certainty!" The crowd--who were filling the air with shouts of +"_Morte!" "Abbasso l'Austria!" "Morte agli Austriaci_!"[1]--crowded +round the fallen trooper, while the officer tried to push forward +towards the spot. But when he got within earshot, and could see also +what was taking place, he saw the people immediately round the fallen +man busily disengaging him from his horse! "_O poverino! Ti sei fatto +male? Orsu! Non sara niente! Su! A cavallo, eh?_"[2] And having helped +the man to remount, they returned to their amusement of roaring +"_Morte agli Austriaci!_" The young officer perceived that he had a +very different sort of populace to deal with from an angry crowd +on the other side of the Alps, or indeed on the other side of the +Apennines. + +[Footnote 1: "Death! Down with Austria! Death to the Austrians!"] + +[Footnote 2: "Oh! Poor fellow! Have you hurt yourself? Up with you! It +will be nothing! Up again on your horse, eh?"] + +I remember another circumstance which occurred a few years +previously to that just mentioned, and which was in its way equally +characteristic. In one of the principal _cafés_ of Florence, situated +on the Piazza del Duomo--the cathedral yard--a murder was committed. +The deed was done in full daylight, when the _café_ was full of +people. Such crimes, and indeed violent crimes of any sort, were +exceedingly rare in Florence. That in question was committed by +stabbing, and the motive of the criminal who had come to Florence for +the express purpose of killing his enemy was vengeance for a great +wrong. Having accomplished his purpose he quietly walked out of the +_café_ and went away. I happened to be on the spot shortly afterwards, +and inquired, with some surprise at the escape of the murderer, why he +had not been arrested red-handed. "He had a sword in his hand!" said +the person to whom I had addressed myself, in a tone which implied +that that quite settled the matter--that of course it was absolutely +out of the question to attempt to interfere with a man who had a sword +in his hand! + +It is a very singular thing, and one for which it is difficult to +offer any satisfactory explanation, that the change in Florence in +respect to the prevalence of crime has been of late years very great +indeed I have mentioned more than once, I think, the very remarkable +absence of all crimes of violence which characterised Florence in +the earlier time of my residence there. It was not due to rigorous +repression or vigilance of the police, as may be partly judged by the +above anecdote. There was, in fact, _no_ police that merited the name. +But anything in the nature of burglary was unheard of. The streets +were so absolutely safe that any lady might have traversed them alone +at any hour of the day or night. And I might add to the term "crimes +of violence" the further statement that pocket-picking was equally +unheard of. + +_Now_ there is perhaps more crime of a heinous character in Florence, +in proportion to the population, than in any city in the peninsula. I +think that about the first indication that all that glittered in the +mansuetude of _Firenze la Gentile_ was not gold, showed itself on +the occasion of an attempt to naturalise at Florence the traditional +sportiveness of the Roman Carnival. There and then, as all the world +knows, it has been the immemorial habit for the population, high and +low, to pelt the folks in the carriages during their Corso procession +with _bonbons, bouquets_, and the like. Gradually at Rome this +exquisite fooling has degenerated under the influence of modern +notions, till the _bouquets_ having become cabbage stalks, very +effective as offensive missiles, and the _bonbons_ plaster of Paris +pellets, with an accompanying substitution of a spiteful desire to +inflict injury for the old horse-play, it has become necessary to +limit the duration of the Saturnalia to the briefest span, with the +sure prospect of its being very shortly altogether prohibited. But at +Florence on the first occasion, now several years ago, of an attempt +to imitate the Roman practice, the conduct of the populace was such as +to demand imperatively the immediate suppression of it. The carriages +and the occupants of them were attacked by such volleys of stones and +mud, and the animus of the people was so evidently malevolent and +dangerous, that they were at once driven from the scene, and any +repetition of the practice was forbidden. + +It is so remarkable as to be, at all events, worth noting, that +contemporaneously with this singular deterioration in respect to +crime, another social change has taken place in Florence. _La +Gentile Firenze_ has of late years become very markedly the home of +clericalism of a high and aggressive type. This is an entirely new +feature in the Florentine social world. In the old time clerical views +were sufficiently supported by the Government to give rise to the +famous Madiai incident, which has been before alluded to. But +clericalism in its more aggressive aspects was not in the ascendant +either bureaucratically or socially. The spirit which had informed +the policy and government of the famous Leopoldine laws was still +sufficiently alive in the mental habitudes of both governors and +governed to render Tuscany a rather suspected and disliked region +in the mind of the Vatican and of the secular governments which +sympathised with the Vatican's views and sentiments. The change that +has taken place is therefore a very notable one. I have no such +sufficiently intimate knowledge of the subject as would justify me in +linking together the two changes I have noticed in the connection of +cause and effect. I only note the synchronism. + +On the other hand there are not wanting sociologists who maintain +that the cause of the outburst of lawlessness and crime which has +undeniably characterised Florence of late years is to be sought for +exactly in that old-time, easy-going tolerance in religious matters, +which they say is now producing a tardy but sure crop from seeds +that, however long in disclosing the true nature of the harvest to +be expected from them, ought never to have been expected by wise +legislators to produce any other. + +_Non nostrum est tantas componere lites!_ But Florence is certainly no +longer _Firenze la Gentile_ as she so eminently was in the days when I +knew her so well. + +Whether any of the other cities of Italy have in any degree ceased to +merit the traditional epithets which so many successive generations +assigned to them--how far Genoa is still _la Superba_, Bologna _la +Grassa_, Padua _la Dotta_, Lucca _la Industriosa_--I cannot say. +Venezia is unquestionably still _la Bella_. And as for old Rome, she +vindicates more than ever her title to the epithet _Eterna_, by her +similitude to those nursery toys which, throw them about as you will, +still with infallible certitude come down heads uppermost. + +As for the Florence of my old recollections, there were in the early +days of them many little old-world sights and sounds which are to be +seen and heard no longer, and which differentiated the place from +other social centres. + +I remember a striking incident of this sort which happened to my +mother and myself "in the days before the flood," therefore very +shortly after our arrival there. + +It was the practice in those days to carry the bodies of the dead on +open biers, with uncovered faces, to their burial. It had doubtless +been customary in old times so to carry all the dead; but the custom +was retained at the time of which I am writing only in the case +of distinguished persons, and very generally of the priesthood. I +remember, for instance, a poor little humpbacked Grand Duchess being +so carried through the street magnificently bedecked as if she were +going to a ball, and with painted cheeks. She had been a beneficent +little body, and the people, as far as they knew anything about +her, revered her, and looked on her last presentation to them with +sympathetic feelings. But it was a sorry sight to see the poor little +body, looking much like a bedizened monkey, so paraded. + +Well, my mother and I were, aimlessly but much admiringly, wandering +about the vast spaces of the cathedral when we became aware of a +_funzione_ of some sort--a service as we should say--being conducted +in a far part of the building. There was no great crowd, but a score +or two of spectators, mainly belonging to the _gamin_ category, were +standing around the officiating priests and curiously looking on. We +went towards the spot, and found that the burial service was being +performed over the body of a young priest. The body lay on its back on +the open bier, clad in full canonicals and with the long tasselled cap +of the secular clergy on his head. We stood and gazed with the others, +when suddenly I saw the dead man's head slightly move! A shiver, I +confess, ran through me. A moment's reflection, however, reminded me +of the recognised deceitfulness of the eyes in such matters, and I did +not doubt that I had been mistaken. But the next minute I again saw +the dead priest slightly shake his head, and this time I was sure that +I was not mistaken. I clutched my mother's arm and pointed, and again +saw the awful phenomenon, which sent a cold wave through both of us +from head to foot. But nobody save ourselves seemed to have seen +anything unusual. The service was proceeding in its wonted order. +Doubting whether it might possibly be one of those horrible cases of +suspended animation and mistaken death, I was thinking whether it were +not my duty to call attention to the startling thing we had seen, +and had with outstretched neck and peering eyes advanced a step for +further observation, and with the half-formed purpose of declaring +aloud that the man was not dead, when I spied crouched beneath the +bier a little monkey, some nine or ten years old, who had taken in his +hand the tassel of the cap, which hung down between the wooden bars +which formed the bier, and was amusing himself with slowly swaying it +forwards and backwards, and had thus communicated the motion to the +dead man's head! It was almost impossible to believe that the little +urchin had been able to reach the position he occupied without having +been observed by any of the clerical attendants, of whom several were +present, and still more difficult to suppose that no one of them had +seen what we saw, standing immediately in front of the corpse while +one of them performed the rite of lustration with holy water, the +vessel containing which was held by another. But no one interfered, +and none but those who know the Florentines as well as I know them can +feel how curiously and intensely characteristic of them was the fact +that no one did so. The awful reverence for death which would +have impelled an Englishman of almost any social position to feel +indignation and instantly put a stop to what he would consider a +profanation, was absolutely unknown to all those engaged in that +perfunctory rite. A certain amount of trouble and disturbance would +have been caused by dislodging the culprit, and each man there felt +only this; that it didn't matter a straw, and that there was no reason +for _him_ to take the trouble of noticing it. As far as I could +observe, the amusement the little wretch derived from his performance +was entirely unsocial, and confined to his own breast; for I could not +see that any of the _gamin_ fraternity noticed it, or cared about it, +any more than their seniors. + +I remember another somewhat analogous adventure of mine, equally +illustrative of the Florentine habits of those days. I saw a man +suddenly stagger and fall in the street. It was in the afternoon, and +there were many persons in the street, some of them nearer to the +fallen man than I was, but nobody, attempted to help him. I stepped +forward to do so, and was about to take hold of him and try to raise +him, when one of the by-standers eagerly caught me by the arm, saying, +"He is dying, he is dying!" "Let us try to raise him," said I, still +pressing forward. "You mustn't, you mustn't! It is not permitted," he +added, as he perceived that he was speaking to a foreigner, and then +went on to explain to me that what must be done was to call the +Misericordia, for which purpose one must run and ring a certain bell +attached to the chapel of that brotherhood in the Piazza del Duomo. + +Among the many things that have been written of the Florentine +Misericordia, I do not think that I have met with the statement that +it used to be universally believed in Florence that the law gave the +black brethren the privilege and the monopoly of picking up any dying +or dead person in the streets, and that it was forbidden to any one +else to do so. Whether any such _law_ really existed I much doubt, but +the custom of acting in accordance with it, and the belief that such +practice was imperative, undoubtedly did. And I have no doubt that +many a life has been sacrificed to it. The half hour or twenty minutes +which necessarily elapsed before the Misericordia could be called and +answer the call, must often have been supremely important, and in many +cases ought to have been employed in the judicious use of the lancet. + +The sight of the black robed and black cowled brethren, as they went +about the streets on their errands of mercy, was common enough in +Florence. But the holiday visitor had very little opportunity of +hearing anything of the internal management and rules of that peculiar +mediaeval society or of the nature of the work it did. + +The Florentine Misericordia was founded in the days when pestilence +was ravaging the city so fiercely that the dead lay uncared for in the +streets, because there was no man sufficiently courageous to bury or +to touch them. The members of the association, which was formed +for the performance of this charitable and arduous duty, chose for +themselves a costume, the object of which was the absolute concealment +of the individual performing it. A loose black linen gown drapes the +figure from the neck to the heels, and a black cowl, with two holes +cut for the eyes, covers and effectually conceals the head and face. +For more than five hundred years, up to the present day, the dress +remains the same, and no human being, either of those to whom their +services are rendered, or of the thousands who see them going about +in the performance of their self-imposed duty, can know whether the +mysterious weird-looking figure he sees be prince or peasant. He knows +that he may be either, for the members of the brotherhood are drawn +from all classes of society. + +It used to be whispered, and I have good reasons for believing the +whisper to have been true, that the late Grand Duke was a member, and +took his turn of duty with his brethren. Some indiscreet personal +attendant blabbed the secret, for assuredly the Duke himself was never +untrue to the oath which binds the members to secrecy. + +The whole society is divided into a number of companies, one of which +is by turns on duty. There is a large, most melancholy and ominously +sounding bell in the chapel of the brotherhood (not that already +mentioned by which anybody can call the attention of the brother in +permanent attendance, but a much larger one), which is heard all over +the city. This summons the immediate attendance of every member of the +company on duty, and the mysterious black figures may any day be seen +hurrying to the rendezvous. There they learn the nature of the call, +and the place at which their presence is required. + +I remember the case of an English girl who was fearfully burned at +a villa at some little distance from the city. The injuries were so +severe that, while it was extremely desirable that she should be +removed to a hospital, there was much doubt as to the possibility of +moving her. In this difficulty the Misericordia were summoned. They +came, five or six of them, bringing with them their too well-known +black covered litter, and transported the patient to the hospital, +lifting her from her bed and placing her in the litter with an +exquisitely delicate and skilled gentleness of handling which spared +her suffering to the utmost, and excited the surprise and admiration +of the English medical man who witnessed the operation. Every part of +the work, every movement, was executed in absolute silence and with +combined obedience to signalled orders from the leader of the company. + +Another case which was brought under my notice was that of a woman +suffering from dropsy, which made the necessary removal of her a very +arduous and difficult operation. It would probably have been deemed +impossible save by the assistance of the Misericordia, who managed so +featly and deftly that those who saw it marvelled at the skill and +accurately co-operating force, which nothing but long practice could +have made possible. + +It is a law of the brotherhood, never broken, that they are to accept +nothing, not so much as a glass of water, in any house to which +they are called. The Florentines well know how much they owe as a +community, and how much each man may some day come to owe personally +to the Misericordia; and when the doleful clang of their well-known +bell is heard booming over the city, women may be seen to cross +themselves with a muttered prayer, while men, ashamed of their +religiosity, but moved by feeling as well as habit, will furtively do +the same. + +There is an association at Rome copied from that at Florence, and +vowed to the performance of very similar duties. I once had an +opportunity of seeing the registers of this Roman Misericordia, and +was much impressed by the frequently recurring entry of excursions +into the Campagna to bring in the corpses of men murdered and left +there! + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +Among the other things that contributed to make those Florence +days very pleasant ones, we did a good deal in the way of private +theatricals. Our _impresario_ at least in the earlier part of the +time, was Arthur Vansittart. He engaged the Cocomero Theatre for our +performances, and to the best of my remembrance defrayed the whole of +the expense out of his own pocket. Vansittart was an exceptionally +tall man, a thread-paper of a man, and a very bad actor. He was +exceedingly noisy, and pushed vivacity to its extreme limits. I +remember well his appearance in some play--I fancy it was in _The Road +to Ruin_, in which I represented some character, I entirely forget +what--where he comes on with a four-in-hand whip in his hand; and I +remember, too, that for the other performers in that piece, their +appearance on the stage was a service of danger, from which the +occupants of the stage boxes were not entirely free. But he was +inexhaustibly good-natured and good-humoured, and gave us excellent +suppers after the performance. + +Then there was Edward Hobhouse, with--more or less with--his +exceedingly pretty and clever wife, and her sister, the not at all +pretty but still more clever and very witty Miss Graves. Hobhouse was +a man abounding in talent of all sorts, extremely witty, brim full +of humour, a thorough good fellow and very popular. He and his wife, +though very good friends did not entirely pull together; and it used +to be told of him, that replying to a man, who asked him "How's your +wife?" he answered with much humorous semblance of indignation, "Well! +if you come to that, how's yours?" Hobhouse was far and away the +cleverest and best educated man of the little set (these dramatic +reminiscences refer to the early years of my Florence life), and in +truth was somewhat regrettably wasted in the midst of such a frivolous +and idle community. But I take it that he was much of an invalid. + +Of course we got up _The Rivals_. I was at first Bob Acres, with an +Irishman of the name of Torrens for my Sir Lucius, which he acted, +when we could succeed in keeping him sober, to the life. My Bob Acres +was not much of a success. And I subsequently took Sir Anthony, which +remained my stock part for years, and which I was considered to do +well. + +Sir Francis Vincent, a resident in Florence for many years, with whom +I was for several of them very intimate, played the ungrateful part +of Falkland. He was a heavy actor with fairly good elocution and +delivery, and not unfitted for a part which it might have been +difficult to fill without him. He was to a great degree a reading man, +and had a considerable knowledge of the byeways of Florentine history. + +My mother "brought the house down" nightly as Mrs. Malaprop; and +a very exceptionally beautiful Madame de Parcieu (an Englishwoman +married to a Frenchman) was in appearance, _manière d'être_, and +deportment the veritable _beau idéal_ of Lydia Languish, and might +have made _a furore_ on any stage, if it had been possible to induce +her to raise her voice sufficiently. She was most good-naturedly +amenable. But when she was thus driven against her nature and habits +to speak out, all the excellence of her acting was gone. The meaning +of the words was taken out of them. + +Sir Anthony Absolute became, as I said, my stock part. And the phrase +is justified by my having acted it many years afterwards in a totally +different company--I the only remaining brick of the old edifice--and +to audiences not one of whom could have witnessed the performances of +those earlier days. Mrs. Richie, an American lady--who had, I think, +been known on a London stage under the name of "Mowatt"--was in those +latter days, now so far away in the dim past, our manageress. Mrs. +Proby, the wife, now I am sorry to say the widow, of the British +Consul, was on that occasion our Mrs. Malaprop, and was an excellent +representative of that popular lady, though she will, I am sure, +forgive me for saying not so perfect a one as my mother. + +Quite indescribably strange is the effect on my mind of looking back +at my three Thespian avatars--Falstaff at Cincinnati, Acres and Sir +Anthony in Grand Ducal Florence, and Sir Anthony again in a liberated +Tuscany! I seem to myself like some old mail-coach guard, who goes +through the whole long journey, while successive coachmen "Leave you +here, sir!" But then in my case the passengers are all changed too; +and I arrive at the end of the journey without one "inside" or +"outside" of those who started with me! I can still blow my horn +cheerily, however, and chat with the passengers, who joined the coach +when my journey was half done, as if they were quite old fellow +travellers! + +It must not be imagined, however, that that pleasant life at Florence +was all cakes and ale. + +I was upon the whole a hard worker. I wrote a series of volumes on +various portions of Italian, and especially Florentine, history, +beginning with _The Girlhood of Catherine de Medici_. They were all +fairly well received, the _Life of Filippo Strozzi_ perhaps the most +so. But the volume on the story of the great quarrel between the +Papacy and Venice, entitled _Paul the Pope and Paul the Friar_, was, I +think, the best. The volumes entitled _A Decade of Italian Women_, +and dealing with ten typical historic female figures, has attained, +I believe, to some share of public favour. I see it not unfrequently +quoted by writers on Italian subjects. Then I made a more ambitious +attempt, and produced a _History of the Commonwealth of Florence_, in +four volumes. + +Such a work appeals, of course, to a comparatively limited audience. +But that it was recognised to have some value among certain +Anglo-Saxons whose favourable judgment in the matter was worth having, +may be gathered from the fact that it has been a text-book in our own +and in transatlantic universities; while a verdict perhaps still +more flattering (though I will not say more gratifying) was given by +Professor Pasquale Villari (now senator of the kingdom of Italy), who, +in a letter in my possession, pronounces my history of Florence to be +in his opinion the best work on the subject extant. + +Professor Villari is not only an accomplished scholar of a wide +range of culture, but his praise of any work on Italian--and perhaps +especially on Tuscan--history comes from no "prentice han'." His +masterly _Life of Macchiavelli_ is as well known in our country as +in his own, through the translation of it into English by his gifted +wife, Linda Villari, whilom Linda White, and my very valued friend. +All these historical books were written _con amore_. The study of +bygone Florentines had an interest for me which was quickened by the +daily and hourly study of living Florentines. It was curious to mark +in them resemblances of character, temperament, idiosyncrasy, defects, +and merits, to those of their forefathers who move and breathe before +us in the pages of such old chroniclers as Villani, Segni, Varchi, and +the rest, and in sundry fire-graven strophes and lines of their mighty +poet. Dante's own local and limited characteristics, as distinguished +from the universality of his poetic genius, have always seemed to me +quintessentially Tuscan. + +Of course it is among the lower orders that such traits are chiefly +found, and among the lower orders in the country more than those +in the towns. But there is, or was, for I speak of years ago, a +considerable conservative pride in their own inherited customs and +traditions common to all classes. + +Especially this is perceived in the speech of the genuine Florentine. +Quaint proverbs, not always of scrupulous refinement, old-world +phrases, local allusions, are stuffed into the conversation of your +real citizen or citizeness of _Firenze la Gentile_ as thickly as the +beads in the _vezzo di corallo_ on the neck of a _contadina_. And +above all, the accent--the soft (not to say slobbering) _c_ and +_g_, and the guttural aspirate which turns _casa_ into _hasa_ and +_capitale_ into _hapitale_, and so forth--this is cherished with +peculiar fondness. I have heard a young, elegant, and accomplished +woman discourse in very choice Italian with the accent of a +market-woman, and on being remonstrated with for the use of some +very pungent proverbial illustration in her talk, she replied with +conviction, "That is the right way to speak Tuscan. I have nothing to +do with what Italians from other provinces may prefer. But pure, racy +Tuscan--the Tuscan tongue that we have inherited--is spoken as I speak +it--or ought to be!" + +I had gathered together, partly for my own pleasure, and partly in the +course of historical researches, a valuable collection of works on +_Storia Patria_, which were sold by me when I gave up my house there. +The reading of Italian, even very crabbed and ancient Italian which +might have puzzled more than one "elegant scholar," became quite easy +and familiar to me, but I have never attained a colloquial mastery +over the language. I can talk, to be sure, with the most incorrect +fluency, and I can make myself understood--at all events by Italians, +whose quick, sympathetic apprehension of one's meaning, and courteous +readiness to assist a foreigner in any linguistic straits, are +deserving of grateful recognition from all of us who, however +involuntarily, maltreat their beautiful language. + +But the colloquial use of a language must be acquired when the organs +are young and lissom. I began too late. And besides, I have laboured +under the great disadvantage that my deafness prevents me from sharing +in the hourly lessons which those who hear all that is going on around +them profit by. + +Besides the above-mentioned historical works, I wrote well nigh a +score, I think, of novels, which also had no great, but a fair, share +of success. The majority of them are on Italian subjects; and these, +if I may be allowed to say so, are good. The pictures they give of +Italian men and women and things and habits are true, vivid, and +accurate. Those which I wrote on English subjects are unquestionably +bad. I had been living the best part of a life-time out of England; I +knew but little comparatively of English life, and I had no business +to meddle with such subjects. But besides all this, I was always +writing in periodical publications of all sorts, English and American, +to such an extent that I should think the bulk of it, if brought +together, would exceed that of all the many volumes I am answerable +for. No! my life in that Castle of Indolence--Italy--was not a +_far-niente_ one! + +We were great at picnics in those Florence days. Perhaps the most +favourite place of all for such parties was Pratolino, a park +belonging to the Grand Duke, about seven miles from Florence, on the +Bologna road. These seven miles wave almost all more or less up hill, +and when the high ground on which the park is situated has been +reached, there is a magnificent view over the Val d'Arno, its thousand +villas, and Florence, with its circle of surrounding hills. + +There was once a grand ducal residence there, which was famous in +the later Medicean days for the multiplicity and ingenuity of its +water-works. All kinds of surprises, picturesque and grotesque +effects, and practical jokes, had been prepared by the ingenious, but +somewhat childish skill of the architect. Turning the handle of a +door would produce a shower-bath, sofas would become suddenly boats +surrounded by water, and such like more or less disagreeable surprises +to visitors, who were new to the specialties of the place. But all +this practical joking was at length fatal to the scene of it. The +pipes and conduits got out of order, and eventually so ruined the +edifice that it had to be taken down, and has never been replaced. + +But the principal object of attraction--besides the view, the charming +green turf for dining on, the facility for getting hot water, plates, +glasses, &c., from a gardeners house, and a large hall in the same, +good for dancing--was the singular colossal figure, representing "The +Apennine," said to have been designed by Michael Angelo. One used +to clamber up inside this figure, which sits in a half crouching +attitude, and reach on the top of the head a platform, on which four +or five persons could stand and admire the matchless view. + +About three miles further, still always ascending the slope of the +Apennine, is a Servite monastery which is the cradle and mother +establishment of the order. Sometimes we used to extend our rambles +thither. The brethren had the reputation, I remember, of possessing a +large and valuable collection of prints. They were not very willing +to exhibit it; but I did once succeed in examining it, and, as I +remember, found that it contained nothing much worth looking at. + +A much more favourite amusement of mine was a picnic arranged to last +for two or three days, and intended to embrace objects further afield. +Vallombrosa was a favourite and admirably well selected locality +for this purpose. And many a day and moonlight night never to be +forgotten, have I spent there. Sometimes we pushed our expeditions to +the more distant convents--or "Sanctuaries" as they were called--of +Camaldoli and Lavernia. And of one very memorable excursion to these +two places I shall have to speak in a subsequent chapter. + +Meantime those dull mutterings as of distant thunder, which Signor +Albèri had, as mentioned at a former page, first signalised to me, +were gradually growing into a roar which was attracting the attention +and lively interest of all Europe. + +Of the steady increase in the volume of this roar, and of the results +in which it eventuated, I need say little here, for I have already +said enough in a volume entitled _Tuscany in 1849 and in 1859_. But +I may jot down a few recollections of the culminating day of the +Florentine revolution. + +I had been out from an early hour of that morning, and had assisted at +sundry street discussions of the question, What would the troops do? +Such troops as were in Florence were mainly lodged in the forts, the +Fortezza da Basso, which I have had occasion to mention in a former +chapter, and the other situated on the high ground beyond the Boboli +Gardens, and therefore immediately above the Pitti Palace. My house at +the corner of the large square, now the Piazza dell Indipendenza, was +almost immediately under the walls and the guns of the Fortezza da +Basso; but I felt sure that the troops would simply do nothing; might +very possibly fraternise with the people; but would in no case burn a +cartridge for the purpose of keeping the Grand Duke on his throne. + +A short wide street runs in a straight line from the middle of one +side of the Piazza to the fort; and a considerable crowd of people, +at about ten o'clock, I think, began to advance slowly up this street +towards the _fortezza_, and I went with them. High above our heads +on the turf-covered top of the lofty wall, there were a good number, +perhaps thirty or forty soldiers, not drawn up in line, but apparently +merely lounging and enjoying the air and sunshine. They had, I think +all of them, their muskets in their hands, but held them idly and with +apparently no thought whatever of using them. I felt confirmed in my +opinion that they had no intention of doing so. + +Arrived at the foot of the fortress wall, the foremost of the people +began calling out to the soldiers, "_Abbasso l'Austria! Siete per +Italia o per l'Austria?_" I did not--and it is significant--hear any +cries of "_Abbasso il Gran Duca!_" The soldiers, as far as I could see +at that distance, appeared to be lazily laughing at the people. +One man called out "_Ecco un bel muro per fracassare il capo +contro!_"--"That is an excellent wall to break your heads against!" +It was very plain that they had no intention of making any hostile +demonstration against the crowd. At the same time there was no sort +of manifestation of any inclination to fraternise with the +revolutionists. They were simply waiting to see how matters would go; +and under the circumstances they can hardly be severely blamed for +doing so. But there can be no doubt that, whichever way things might +go, their view of the matter would be strongly influenced by the very +decided opinion that that course would be best which should not imply +the necessity for _doing_ anything. I think that the feeling generally +in "the army," if such it could be called, was on the whole kindly +to the Grand Duke, but not to the extent of being willing to fight +anybody, least of all the Florentines, in his defence! + +How matters _did_ go it is not necessary to tell here. If ever there +was a revolution "made with rose-water," it was the revolution which +deposed the poor _gran ciuco_. I don't think it cost any human being +in all Florence a scratch or a bloody nose. It cost an enormous amount +of talking and screaming, but nothing else. At the same time it is +fair to remember that the popular leaders could not be sure that +matters might not have taken another turn, and that it _might_ have +gone hard with some of them. In any case, however, it would not have +gone _very_ hard with any of them. Probably exile would have been the +worst fate meted out to them. It is true that exile from Tuscany just +then would have been attended by a similar difficulty to that which +caused the old Scotch lady, when urged to run during an earthquake, to +reply, "Ay! but whar wull I run to?" + +I do not think there was any bitter, or much even unkind, feeling +on the part of the citizens towards the sovereign against whom they +rebelled. If any fact or circumstance could be found which was +calculated to hold him up to ridicule, it was eagerly laid hold of, +but there was no fiercer feeling. + +A report was spread during the days that immediately followed the +Duke's departure that orders had been given to the officers in the +upper fortress to turn their cannon on the city at the first sign of +rising. Such reports were very acceptable to those who for political +purposes would fain have seen somewhat of stronger feeling against the +Duke. I have good reason to believe that such orders _had_ been given. +But I have still stronger reasons for doubting that they were ever +given by the Grand Duke. And I am surest of all, that let them have +been given by whom they may, there was not the smallest chance of +their being obeyed. As for the Duke himself, I am very sure that he +would have given or even done much to prevent any such catastrophe. + +But perhaps the most remarkable and most singular scene of all that +rose-water revolution was the Duke's departure from his capital and +his duchy. Other sovereigns in similar plight have hidden themselves, +travestied themselves, had hairbreadth escapes, or have not escaped at +all. In Tuscany the fallen ruler went forth in his own carriage with +one other following it, both rather heavily laden with luggage. The +San Gallo gate is that by which the hearse that conveys the day's dead +to the cemetery on the slope of the Apennine leaves the city every +night. And the Duke passed amid the large crowd assembled at the gate +to see him go, as peaceably as the vehicle conveying those whose days +in Florence, like his, were at an end, went out a few hours later by +the same road. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +Among the very great number of men and women whom I have known during +my life in Italy--some merely acquaintances, and many whom I knew +to be, and a few, alas! a very few, whom I still know to be trusty +friends--there were many of whom the world has heard, and some perhaps +of whom it would not unwillingly hear something more. But time and +space are limited, and I must select as best I may. + +I have a very pleasant recollection of "Garibaldi's Englishman," +Colonel Peard. Peard had many more qualities and capabilities than +such as are essential to a soldier of fortune. The phrase, however, is +perhaps not exactly that which should be used to characterise him. He +had qualities which the true soldier of fortune should not possess. +His partisanship was with him in the highest degree a matter of +conviction and conscientious opinion, and _nothing_ would have tempted +him to change his colours or draw his sword on the other side. I am +not sure either, whether a larger amount of native brain power, and +(in a much greater degree) a higher quality of culture, than that of +the general under whom it may be his fortune to serve, is a good part +of the equipment of a soldier of fortune. And Peard's relation to +Garibaldi very notably exemplified this. + +He was a native of Devonshire, as was my first wife; we saw a good +deal of him in Florence, and I have before me a letter written to her +by him from Naples on the 28th of January, 1861, which is interesting +in more respects than one. Peard was a man who _would_ have all that +depended on him ship-shape. And this fact, taken in conjunction with +the surroundings amid which he had to do his work, is abundantly +sufficient to justify the growl he indulges in. + + * * * * * +"My dear Mrs. Trollope," he writes, "I am ashamed to think either of +you or of other friends at Florence; it is such an age since I have +written to any of you. But I have been daily, from morning to night, +hard at work for weeks. The _honour_ of having a command is all very +well, but the trouble and worry are unspeakable. Besides, I had such +a set under me that it was enough to rile the sweetest tempered man. +Volunteers may be very well in their way. I doubt not their efficiency +in repelling an attack in their own country. But defend me from ever +again commanding a brigade of English volunteers in a foreign country. +As to the officers, many were most mutinous, and some something worse. +Thank goodness the brigade is at an end. All I now wait for is the +settlement of the accounts. If I can get away by the second week in +February, I at present think of taking a run as far as Cairo, then +crossing to Jerusalem, and back by Jaffa, Beyrout, Smyrna, and Athens +to Italy, when I shall hope once more to see you and yours. + +"Politics do not look well in Southern Italy, I fear. The Mazzinists +have been most active, and have got up a rather strong feeling against +Cavour and what they think the peace party. Now Italy must have a +little rest for organisation, civil as well as military. They do not +give the Government time to do or even propose good measures for +the improvement of the country. No sooner are one set of ministers +installed than intrigues are on foot to upset them. I firmly believe +that the only hope for Southern Italy and Sicily is in a strong +military Government. These districts must be treated as _conquered +provinces_, and the people educated and taught habits of industry, +whether they like it or not. The country is at present in a state +of barbarism, and must be saved from that. All that those who are +_supposed to be educated_ seem to think about is how they can get a +few dollars out of Government." [I fear the honest Englishman would +find that those supposed to be educated in those provinces are as much +in a state of barbarism in the matters that offended him as ever.] "I +never saw such a set of harpies in my life. One had the assurance to +come to me a few days since, asking if I could not take him on the +strength of the brigade, so as to enable him to get six months pay out +of the Government. As to peculation, read _Gil Blas_, and that will +give you a faint sketch of the customs and habits of all _impiegati_ +[civil servants] in this part of Italy. I do not believe that the +Southern Italians, taken as a body, know what honesty is." [All that +he says is true to the present day. But the distinction which he makes +between the Southern Italians and those of the other provinces is most +just, and must be remembered.] "But that is the fault of the horrid +system of tyranny under which they have so long lived. I do not say +that the old system must be reformed, it must be totally changed. +Solomon might make laws, but so corrupt are all the _impiegati_, that +I doubt if he could get them carried out. Poor Garibaldi is made a +tool of by a set of designing intriguers, who will sacrifice him +at any moment. He is too honest to see or believe of dishonesty in +others. He has no judgment of character. He has been surrounded by +a set of blacklegs and swindlers, many among them, I regret to say, +English. How I look forward to seeing you all again! Till we meet, +believe me + +"Most truly yours, + +"GIO. [_sic_] PEARD." + +The last portion of this letter is highly interesting and historically +well worth preserving. It is entirely and accurately true. And there +was no man in existence more fitted by native integrity and hatred of +dishonesty on the one hand, and close intimacy with the subject of +his remarks on the other, to speak authoritatively on the matter than +"Garibaldi's Englishman." + +The following letter, written, as will be seen, on the eve of +his departure for the celebrated expedition to Sicily, is also +interesting. It is dated Genoa. + + * * * * * + +"DEAR MRS. TROLLOPE,--I have been thinking over your observations +about _terno_. I don't give up my translation; but would it not be +literal enough to translate it, 'the bravest three colours'? + +[This refers to the rendering of the lottery phrase _terno_ in a +translation by my wife of the _stornello_ of Dall' Ongaro previously +mentioned. In the Italian lottery, ninety numbers, 1-90, are always +put into the wheel. Five only of these are drawn out. The player +bets that a number named by him shall be one of these (_semplice +estratto_); or that it shall be the first drawn (_estratto +determinato_); or that two numbers named by him shall be two of the +five drawn (_ambo_); or that three so named shall be drawn (_terno_). +It will be seen, therefore, that the winner of an _estratto +determinato_, ought, if the play were quite even, to receive ninety +times his stake. But, in fact, such a player would receive only +seventy-five times his stake, the profit of the Government consisting +of this pull of fifteen per ninety against the player. Of course, what +he ought to receive in any of the other cases is easily (not by me, +but by experts) calculable. It will be admitted that the difficulty +of translating the phrase in Dall' Ongaro's little poem, so as to be +intelligible to English readers, was considerable. The letter then +proceeds]: + +"I did not start, you will see, direct from Livorno [Leghorn], for +Medici wrote me to join him here. Moreover, the steamer by which I +expected to have gone, did not make the trip, but was sent back to +this city. I will worry you with a letter when anything stirring +occurs. We sail to-night. Part went off last evening--1,500. We go in +three steamers, and shall overtake the others. + +"With kind regards to all friends, believe me, + +"Yours very faithfully, + +"JOHN PEARD." + + * * * * * + +The remarks contained in the former of the two letters here +transcribed seem to make this a proper place for recording "what I +remember" of Garibaldi. + +My first acquaintance with him was through my very old, and very +highly valued, loved, and esteemed friend, Jessie White Mario. The +Garibaldi _culte_ has been with her truly and literally the object +(apart from her devoted love for her husband, an equally ardent +worshipper at the same shrine) for which she has lived, and for which +she has again and again affronted death. For she accompanied him in +all his Italian campaigns as a hospital nurse, and on many occasions +rendered her inestimable services in that capacity under fire. If +Peard has been called "Garibaldi's Englishman," truly Jessie White +Mario deserves yet more emphatically the title of "Garibaldi's +Englishwoman." She has published a large life of Garibaldi, which is +far and away the best and most trustworthy account of the man and +his wonderful works. She is not blind to the spots on the sun of her +adoration, nor does she seek to conceal the fact that there were such +spots, but she is a true and loyal worshipper all the same. + +Her husband was--alas! that I should write so; for no Indian wife's +life was ever more ended by her suttee than Jessie Mario's life has +practically been ended by her husband's untimely death!--Alberto Mario +was among the, I fear, few exceptions to Peard's remarks on the men +who were around Garibaldi. He was not only a man of large literary +culture, a brave soldier, an acute politician, a formidable political +adversary, and a man of perfect and incorruptible integrity, but he +would have been considered in any country and in any society in Europe +a very perfect gentleman. He was in political opinion a consistent and +fearlessly outspoken Republican. He and I therefore differed _toto +coelo_. But our differences never diminished our, I trust, mutual +esteem, nor our friendly intercourse. But he was a born _frondeur_. He +edited during his latter years a newspaper at Rome, which was a thorn +in the side of the authorities. I remember his being prosecuted and +condemned for persistently speaking of the Pope in his paper as +"Signor Pecci." He was sentenced to imprisonment. But all the +Government wanted was his condemnation; and he was never incarcerated. +But he used to go daily to the prison and demand the execution of +his sentence. The gaoler used to shut the door in his face, and he +narrated the result of his visit in the next day's paper! + +It was as Jessie Mario's friend then, that I first knew Garibaldi. + +One morning at the villa I then possessed, at Ricorboli, close to +Florence, a maid-servant came flying into the room, where I was +still in bed at six o'clock in the morning, crying out in the utmost +excitement, "_C'è il Generale! c'è il Generale; e chiede di lei, +signore!_"--"Here's the General! here's the General! And he is asking +for you, sir!" She spoke as if there was but one general in all the +world. But there was hardly any room in Florence at that time where +her words would not have been understood as well as I understood them. + +I jumped out of bed, got into a dressing-gown, and ran out to where +the "General" was on the lawn before the door, just as I was, and +hardly more than half awake. There he was, all alone. But if there had +been a dozen other men around him, I should have had no difficulty in +recognising him. There was the figure as well known to every Italian +from Turin to Syracuse as that of his own father--the light grey +trousers, the little foraging cap, the red shirt, the bandana +handkerchief loosely thrown over his shoulders and round his neck. + +Prints, photographs, portraits of all kinds, have made the English +public scarcely less familiar than the Italian, with the physiognomy +of Giuseppe Garibaldi. But no photograph, of course, and no painting +which I have ever seen, gives certain peculiarities of that striking +head and face, as I first saw it, somewhere about twenty years ago. + +The pose of the head, and the general arrangement and colour of the +tawny hair (at that time but slightly grizzled) justified the epithet +"leonine" so often applied to him. His beard and moustache were of the +same hue, and his skin was probably fair by nature, but it had been +tanned by wind and weather. The clear blue eyes were surrounded by a +network of fine lines. This had no trace or suggestion of _cunning_, +as is often the case with wrinkles round the setting of the eyes, but +was obviously the result of habitual contraction of the muscles in +gazing at very distant objects. In short, Garibaldi's eyes, both in +this respect and in respect of a certain, steadfast, far-away look in +them, were the eyes of a sailor. Seamanship, as is generally known, +was his first profession. Another physical peculiarity of his which +I do not remember to have seen noticed in print was a remarkably +beautiful voice. It was fine in quality and of great range; sweet, yet +manly, and with a suggestion of stored-up power which harmonised with +the man. It seemed to belong, too, to the benevolence, which was the +habitual expression of his face when in repose. + +"Jessie [pronounced Jèssee] told me I should find you up; but you are +not so early as I am!" was his salutation. I said he had _dans le +temps_ been beforehand with others as well as with me! At which he +laughed, not, I thought, ill-pleased. And then we talked--about Italy +of course. One subject of his talk I specially remember, because it +gave rise to a little discussion, and in a great degree gave me the +measure of the man. + +"As for the priests," said he, "they ought all to be put to death, +without exception and without delay!" + +"Rather a strong measure!" I ventured to say. + +"Not a bit too strong! not a bit!" he rejoined warmly. "Do we not put +assassins to death? And is not the man who murders your soul worse +than the man who only kills your body?" + +I attempted to say that the difference of the two cases lay in the +fact, that as to the killing of the body there was no doubt about the +matter, whereas mankind differed very widely as to the killing of the +soul; and that as long as it remained a moot point whether priests did +so or not, it would hardly be practicable or even politic to adopt the +measure he suggested. + +But he would not listen to me--only repeated with increasing +excitement that no good could come to humanity till all priests were +destroyed. + +Then we talked about the Marries, of both of whom he spoke with the +greatest affection; and of the prospects of "going to Rome," which of +course he considered the simplest and easiest thing possible. + +I saw Garibaldi on many subsequent occasions, but never again +_tête-à-tête_, or _a Quattro Oct_, as the Italians more significantly +phrase it. The last time I ever saw him was under melancholy +circumstances enough, though the occasion professed to be one of +rejoicing. It was at the great gathering at Palermo for celebrating +the anniversary of the Sicilian Vespers. Of course such a celebration +would have brought Garibaldi to partake in it, wherever he might have +been, short of in his grave. And truly he was then very near that. It +was a melancholy business. He was brought from the steamer to his bed +in the hotel on a litter through the streets lined by the thousands +who had gathered to see him, but who had been warned that his +condition was such, that the excitement occasioned by any shouting +would be perilous to him. Amid dead silence his litter passed through +the crowds who were longing to welcome him to the scene of his old +triumphs! Truly it was more like a funeral procession than one of +rejoicing. + +It was very shortly before his death, which many people thought had +been accelerated by that last effort to make his boundless popularity +available for the propagation of Radicalism. + +Peard's words reveal with exactitude the deficiency which lay at the +root of all the blunders, follies, and imprudence which rendered his +career less largely beneficent for Italy than it might have been. +"He had no judgment of character," and was too honest to believe in +knavery. It must be added that he was too little intelligent to detect +it, or to estimate the consequences of it. Of any large views of +social life, or of the means by which, and the objects for which, men +should be governed, he was as innocent as a baby. In a word, he was +not an intellectual man. All the high qualities which placed him on +the pinnacle he occupied were qualities of the heart and not of the +head. They availed with admirable success to fit him for exercising a +supreme influence over men, especially young men, in the field, and +for all the duties of a guerilla leader. They would not have sufficed +to make him a great commander of armies; and did still less fit him +for becoming a political leader. + +Whom next shall I present to the reader from the portrait gallery of +my reminiscences? + +Come forward, Franz Pulszky, most genial, most large-hearted of +philosophers and friends!--I can't say "guides," for though he was +both the first, he was not the last, differing widely as we did +upon--perhaps not most, but at all events--many large subjects. + +I had known the lady whom Pulszky married in Vienna many years +previously, and long before he knew her. She was the daughter of that +highly cultivated Jewish family of whom I have spoken before. When I +first knew her she was as pretty and charming a young girl as could be +imagined. She was possessed then of all the accomplishments that can +adorn a girl at that period of life. Later on she showed that she +was gifted with sense, knowledge, energy, firmness, courage and +_caractère_ in a degree very uncommon. Since leaving Vienna I had +neither seen nor heard more of her, till she came to live with +her husband and family of children in Florence. But our old +acquaintanceship was readily and naturally renewed, and his villa near +the city became one of the houses I best loved to frequent. She had at +that time, and even well-nigh I take it in those old days at Vienna, +abandoned all seeming of conformity to the practices of the faith she +was born in. + +I used to say of Pulszky that he was like a barrel full to the bung +with generous liquor, which flowed in a full stream, stick the spigot +in where you would. He was--is, I am happy to say is the proper tense +In his case--a most many-sided man. His talk on artistic subjects, +mainly historical and biographical, was abundant and most amusing. +His antiquarian knowledge was large. His ethnographical learning, +theories, and speculations were always interesting and often most +suggestive. Years had, I think, put some water in the wine of his +political ideas, but not enough to prevent differences between us on +such subjects. He was withal--there again I mean "is," for I am sure +that years and the air of his beloved Pesth cannot have put any water +in _that_ generous and genial wine--a fellow of infinite jest, and +full of humour; in a word, one of the fullest and most delightful +companions I have ever known. He talked English with no further accent +than served to add a raciness to the flavour of his conversation; +and every morning of one fixed day in the week he used to come to +Ricorboli for what he called a tobacco parliament. + +I used frequently to spend the evening at his villa, where one met a +somewhat extraordinary cosmopolitan gathering. Generally we had some +good music; for Madame Pulszky was--unhappily in her case the past +tense is needed--a very perfect musician. Among other people more +or less off the world's beaten track, I used to meet there a very +extraordinary Russian, who had accomplished the rare feat of escaping +from Siberia. He was a Nihilist of the most uncompromising type; a +huge, shaggy man, with an unkempt head and chest like those of a bear; +and by his side--more or less--there was a pretty, _petite_, dainty +little young wife--beauty and the beast, if ever that storied couple +were seen in the flesh! + +Many years afterwards when I and my wife saw Pulszky at Pesth, and +were talking of old times, he reminded me of this person; and on +my doubting that any man in his senses could believe in the +practicability of the extreme Nihilist theories, he instanced our old +acquaintance, saying, "Yes, there is a man, who in his very inmost +conscience believes that no good of any sort can be achieved for +humanity till the sponge shall have been passed over _all_ that +men have instituted and done, and a perfect _tabula rasa_ has been +substituted for it!" + +I have many letters from Pulszky, written most of them after his +return to Pesth, and for the most part too much occupied with the +persons and politics of that recent day to be fit for publication. + +Here is one, written before he left Florence, which may be given: + + * * * * * + +"VILLA PETROVICH. + +"MY DEAR TROLLOPE,--I am just returned from a long excursion with +Boxall to Arezzo, Cortona, Borgo San Sepolcro, Città di Castello, +Perugia, and Assisi. We were there for a week, and enjoyed it +amazingly. I am sorry to say that I am not now able to join your party +to Camaldoli, since I must see Garibaldi, and do not know as yet +what I shall do when the war begins, which might happen during your +excursion. I hope you will drink a glass of water to my remembrance at +La Vernia from the miraculous well, called from the rocks by my patron +saint, St. Francis of Assisi. I shall come to you on Sunday, and will +tell you more about him. I studied him at Assisi. + +"Yours sincerely, + +"FR. PULSZKY." + + * * * * * + +The following passages may be given from a long letter, written from +Pesth on the 27th of March, 1869. It is for the most part filled with +remarks on the party politics of the hour, and persons, many of them +still on the scene:-- + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR MRS. AND MR. TROLLOPE,--You don't believe how glad I was to +get a token of remembrance from you. It seems to me quite an age since +I left Florence, and your letter was like a voice from a past period. +I live here as a stranger; you would not recognise me. I talk nothing +but politics and business. There is not a man with whom I could speak +in the way that we did on Sundays at your villa. I am of course much +with old Deak. I often dine with him. I know all his anecdotes and +jokes by heart. He likes it, if I visit him; but our conversation +remains within the narrow limits of party politics and the topics of +the day. Sometimes I spend an evening with Baron Eotvös, the Minister +of Public Instruction, my old friend; and there only we get both +warm in remembering the days of our youth, and building _châteaux +en Espagne_ for the future of the country. Eotvös has appointed me +Director of the National Museum, which contains a library of 180,000 +volumes, mostly Hungarian; a very indifferent picture gallery, with +a few good pictures and plenty of rubbish; a poor collection of +antiquities; splendid mediaeval goldsmith work; arms, coins, and some +miserable statues; a good collection of stuffed birds; an excellent +one of butterflies; a celebrated one of beetles, and good specimens +for geology and mineralogy. But all this collection is badly, if at +all, catalogued; badly arranged; and until now we have in a great +palace an appropriation of only 1,200_l._ a year. I shall have much to +do there--as much as any minister in his office, if politics leave me +the necessary time for it. + +[Then follows a quantity of details about the party politics of the +day. And then he continues:--] + +"Such a contested election with us costs about 2,000_l._ to 3,000_l._ +I must say I never spent money with more regret than this; but I had +to maintain the party interest and my family influence in my electoral +district. I have there a fine old castle and a splendid park, but I +rarely go to the country, since I have jumped, as you know, once more +into the whirlpool of politics, and can't get out again. An agrarian +communistic agitation has been initiated, I do not know whether with +or without the sanction of S----, but certainly it has spread rapidly +over a great portion of the country, and I doubt whether Government +has the energy for putting that agitation down. It is a very serious +question, especially as it finds us engaged in many other questions of +the highest interest. + +[Then he gives an outline of the position of Hungary in relation to +other States, and then he continues:--] + +"We remain still in opposition with the Wallachians, or, as they now +like to call themselves, Rumanes, and we try to maintain the peace +with Prussia. And now when we should concentrate all our forces to +meet the changes which threaten us, a stupid and wicked Opposition +divides the nation into two hostile camps [how very singular and +unexampled!]. We fight one another to the great pleasure of Russia +and Prussia, who enjoy our fratricidal feuds as the Romans in the +amphitheatre enjoyed the fights of the barbarians in the arena. + +"I must beg your pardon, dear Mrs. Trollope, that I grow so pathetic! +You know it is not my custom when I am with ladies. But you must know +likewise that I live now outside of female society. I do not exactly +know whether it is my fault or that of the ladies of Pesth; so much is +certain that only at Vienna, where I go from time to time, I call upon +ladies. As to my children, Augustus, whom you scarcely know, is a +volunteer in the army according to our law of universal conscription. +Charles you may have seen at Florence. I sent him thither to visit his +grandmother." [Madame Walter, the mother of Madame Pulszky; the lady +who had received us with such pleasant hospitality at Vienna, and who +had come to reside at Florence, where she lived to a great age much +liked and respected.] "Polixena gets handsome and clever; little +Garibaldi is to go to school in September next. I grow old, +discontented, insupportable;" [we found him at Pesth many years +afterwards no one of the three!]; "a journey to Greece and Italy would +certainly do me immense good; but I fear I must give up that plan for +the present year, since after a contested election it is a serious +thing to spend money for amusement. In June I shall leave my present +lodging and go to the Museum, which stands in a handsome square +opposite to the House of Parliament. Excuse me for my long, long talk; +and do not forget your faithful friend, _in partibus infidelium_, + +"FR. PULSZKY." + + * * * * * + +On the 26th of March, 1870, he writes a letter which was brought to +us by his son, the Augustus mentioned in the letter I have just +transcribed. + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR MRS. AND MR. TROLLOPE,--Detained by Parliamentary duties and +the management of my own affairs, I am still unable to make a trip +to Italy to visit my friends, who made the time of my exile more +agreeable to me than my own country. But I send in my stead a second +edition of the old Pulszky, revised and corrected _ad usum Delphini_, +though I do not doubt that you prefer the old book, to which you were +accustomed. My son Augustus has now finished his studies, and is +D.E.L.--in a few days Lieutenant in the reserve, and Secretary at +the Ministry of Finance. Few young men begin their career in a more +promising way. As to myself, Augustus will tell you more than I could +write. I have remained too long in foreign countries to feel entirely +at home at Pesth, where people know how to make use of everybody. I am +M.P., belong to the Finance Committee, am Chairman of the Committee of +Foreign Affairs in the Delegation, Director of the Museum, Chairman of +the Philological Section in the Academy of Sciences, Chairman of the +Society of Fine Arts, Vice-President of three Insurance Offices, +and Member of the Council of two railroads. This long list proves +sufficiently that my time is taken up from early morning to night. But +my health is good, despite of the continuous wear and tear. + +"During the summer vacations I wish to go to England. For ten years +I have not been there; and I long to see again a highly civilised +people; else I become myself a barbarian. Still I am proud of my +Hungarians, who really struggle hard, and not without success, to be +more than they are now--the first of the barbarians. + +"I have for a long time not heard of you. Of course, in our +correspondence your letter was the last, not mine. It is my own fault. +But you must excuse me still for one year. Then I hope I can put +myself in a more comfortable position. For the present I am unable +even to read anything but Hungarian papers, bills, reports, and +business letters. I envy you in your elegant villa, where you enjoy +life! I hope you are both well, and do not forget your old friend, + +"FR. PULSZKY. + +"P.S.--Augustus will give you a good photograph of me." + + * * * * * + +Here is one other letter of the 13th June, 1872:-- + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR TROLLOPE,--What a pity that my time does not allow me to +visit Italy at any other season than just in summer. We are in the +midst of our canvass for the general elections. My son Augustus is to +be returned for my old place Szecseny without opposition on the 21st. +On the following day we go to the poll at Gyöngyös, a borough which is +to send me to Parliament. It is a contested election, therefore rather +troublesome and expensive, though not too expensive. Parliament meets +with us on the first of September. Thus my holidays are in July and +August. Shall we never have the pleasure to see you and Mrs. Trollope, +to whom I beg you to give my best regards, here at Pesth? Next year +is the great exhibition at Vienna. Might it not induce you to visit +Vienna, whence by an afternoon trip you come to Pesth, where I know +you would amuse yourselves to your hearts' content. + +"My children are quite well. Charles is at the University at Vienna. +He despises politics, and wants to become Professor at the University +of Pesth in ten or twelve years. + +"As to me I am well, very busy; much attacked by the Opposition since +I am a dreaded party man. Besides I have to re-organise the National +Museum, from the library, which has no catalogue, to the great +collections of mineralogy and plants. We bought the splendid picture +gallery of Prince Esterhazy. This too is under my direction, with a +most important collection of prints and drawings. You see, therefore, +that my time is fully occupied. + +"Yours always, + +"FR. PULSZKY." + + * * * * * + +My wife and I did subsequently visit our old friend at Pesth, and much +enjoyed our brief stay there and our chat of old times. But the work +of re-organising the Museum was not yet completed. I do sincerely hope +that the task has been brought to an end by this time, and that I may +either in England or at Pesth once again see Franz Pulszky in the +flesh! + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +According to the pathetic, and on the face of it accurately truthful, +account of the close of his life in Mr. Forster's admirable and +most graphic life of him, I never knew Landor. For the more than +octogenarian old man whom I knew at Florence was clearly not the +Landor whom England had known and admired for so many and such +honoured years. Of all the painful story of the regrettable +circumstances which caused him to seek his last home in Florence it +would be mere impertinence in me to speak, after the lucid, and at the +same time delicately-touched, account of them which his biographer has +given. + +I may say, however, that even after the many years of his absence from +Florence there still lingered a traditional remembrance of him--a sort +of Landor legend--which made all us Anglo-Florentines of those days +very sure, that however blamable his conduct (with reference to the +very partially understood story of the circumstances that caused +him to leave England) may have been in the eyes of lawyers or of +moralists, the motives and feelings that had actuated him must have +been generous and chivalrous. Had we been told that, finding a brick +wall in a place where he thought no wall should be, he had forthwith +proceeded to batter it down with his head, though it was not his wall +but another's, we should have recognised in the report the Landor of +the myths that remained among us concerning him. But that while in any +degree _compos mentis_ he had under whatever provocation acted in a +base, or cowardly, or mean, or underhand manner, was, we considered, +wholly impossible. + +There were various legendary stories current in Florence in those +days of his doings in the olden time. Once--so said the tradition--he +knocked a man down in the street, was brought before the _delegato_, +as the police magistrate was called, and promptly fined one piastre, +value about four and sixpence; whereupon he threw a sequin (two +piastres) down upon the table and said that it was unnecessary to give +him any change, inasmuch as he purposed knocking the man down again as +soon as he left the court. We, _poteri_, as regarded the date of the +story, were all convinced that the true verdict in the matter was that +of the old Cornish jury, "Sarved un right." + +Landor, as I remember him, was a handsome-looking old man, very much +more so, I think, than he could have been as a young man, to judge +by the portrait prefixed to Mr. Forster's volumes. He was a man +of somewhat leonine aspect as regards the general appearance and +expression of the head and face, which accorded well with the large +and massive build of the figure, and to which a superbly curling white +beard added not only picturesqueness, but a certain nobility. + +Landor had been acquainted with the Garrows, and with my first wife +at Torquay; and the acquaintance was quickly renewed during his last +years at Florence. He would frequently come to our house in the Piazza +dell' Independenza, and chat for a while, generally after he had sat +silent for some little time; for he used to appear fatigued by his +walk. Later, when his walks and his visits had come to an end, I used +often to visit him in "the little house under the wall of the +city, directly back of the Carmine, in a bye-street called the Via +Nunziatina, not far from that in which the Casa Guidi stands," which +Mr. Forster thus describes. I continued these visits, always short, +till very near the close; for whether merely from the perfect courtesy +which was a part of his nature, or whether because such interruptions +of the long morning hours were really welcome to him, he never allowed +me to leave him without bidding me come again. + +I remember him asking me after my mother at one of the latest of these +visits. I told him that she was fairly well, was not suffering, but +that she was becoming very deaf. "Dead, is she?" he cried, for he had +heard me imperfectly, "I wish I was! I can't sleep," he added, "but I +very soon shall, soundly too, and all the twenty-four hours round." +I used often to find him reading one of the novels of his old friend +G.P.R. James, and he hardly ever failed to remark that he was a +"woonderful" writer; for so he pronounced the word, which was rather a +favourite one with him. + +It was a singular thing that Landor always dropped his aspirates. He +was, I think, the only man in his position in life whom I ever heard +do so. That a man who was not only by birth a gentleman, but was by +genius and culture--and such culture!--very much more, should do +this, seemed to me an incomprehensible thing. I do not think he ever +introduced the aspirate where it was not needed, but he habitually +spoke of 'and, 'ead, and 'ouse. + +Even very near the close, when he seemed past caring for anything, the +old volcanic fire still lived beneath its ashes, and any word which +touched even gently any of his favourite and habitual modes of thought +was sure to bring forth a reply uttered with a vivacity of manner +quite startling from a man who the moment before had seemed scarcely +alive to what you were saying to him. To what extent this old volcanic +fire still burned may be estimated from a story which was then current +in Florence. The circumstances were related to me in a manner that +seemed to me to render it impossible to doubt the truth of them. But +I did not _see_ the incident in question, and therefore cannot assert +that it took place. The attendance provided for him by the kindly care +of Mr. Browning, as narrated by Mr. Forster, was most assiduous and +exact, as I had many opportunities of observing. But one day when he +had finished his dinner, thinking that the servant did not come to +remove the things so promptly as she ought to have done, he took +the four corners of the table-cloth (so goes the story), and thus +enveloping everything that was on the table, threw the whole out of +the window. + +I received many notes from Landor, for the most part on trifling +occasions, and possessing little interest. They were interesting, +however, to the race of autograph collectors, and they have all been +coaxed out of me at different times, save one. I have, however, in my +possession several letters from him to my father-in-law, Mr. Garrow, +many passages in which are so characteristic that I am sure my readers +will thank me for giving them, as I am about to do. The one letter +of his that remains to me is, as the reader will see, not altogether +without value as a trait of character. The young lady spoken of in +it is the same from whose papers in the _Atlantic Monthly_, entitled +"Last Days of Walter Savage Landor," Mr. Forster has gleaned, as he +says, one or two additional glimpses of him in his last Florence home. +The letter is without date, and runs as follows:-- + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR SIR,--Let me confess to you that I am not very willing that +it should be believed desirous" [he evidently meant to write either +'that I should be believed desirous,' or 'that it should be believed +that I am desirous'] "of scattering my image indiscriminately over the +land. On this sentiment I forbade Mr. Forster to prefix an engraving +of me over my collected works. If Miss Field wishes _one_ more +photograph, Mr. Alinari may send it to her, and I enclose the money to +pay for it. With every good wish for your glory and prosperity, + +"I remain, my dear sir, + +"Very truly yours, + +"W.S. LANDOR." + + * * * * * + +The writing is that of a sadly shaking hand. The lady's request would +unquestionably have been more sure of a favourable response had she +preferred it in person, instead of doing so through me. But I suspect +from the phrase "one more," and the underlining of the word one, that +she had already received from him more than one photograph, and was +ashamed to make yet another application. But she had led, or allowed, +me to imagine that she was then asking for the first time. The care to +send the money for the price of the photograph was a characteristic +touch. Miss Field was, I well remember, a great favourite with Landor. +I remember her telling me that he wished to give her a very large sort +of scrap book, in which, among a quantity of things of no value, there +were, as I knew, some really valuable drawings; and asking me whether +she should accept it, her own feeling leaning to the opinion that she +ought not to do so, in which view I strongly concurred. If I remember +right the book had been sent to her residence, and had to be sent back +again, not without danger of seriously angering him. + +Here are the letters I have spoken of, written by Landor to Mr. +Garrow. They are all undated save by the day of the month, but the +post-marks show them to have been all written in 1836-8. The first +is a very long letter, almost the whole of which is about a quarrel +between husband and wife, both friends of the writer, which it would +serve no good purpose to publish. The following passage from it, +however, must not be lost:-- + + + * * * * * + +"What egregious blockheads must those animals have been who discover a +resemblance to my style in Latin or other quotations. I have no need +of crutches. I can walk forward without anybody's arm; and if I wanted +one, I should not take an old one in preference. Not only do I think +that quotations are deformities and impediments, but I am apt to +believe that my own opinion, at least in those matters of which I +venture to treat, is quite as good as any other man's, living or dead. +If their style is better than my own, it would be bad policy to insert +it; if worse, I should be like a tailor who would recommend his +abilities by engrafting an old sleeve on a new coat.... Southey +tells me that he has known his lady more than twenty years, that the +disproportion of their ages is rational, and that having only one +daughter left, his necessary absences would be irksome to her. +Whatever he does, is done wisely and virtuously. As for Rogers, +almost an octogenarian, be it on his own head! A dry nettle tied to +a rose-bud, just enough life in it to sting, and that's all Lady +Blessington would be delighted at any fresh contribution from Miss +Garrow. Let it be sent to her at Gore House. I go there to-morrow for +ten days, then into Warwickshire, then to Southampton. But I have not +given up all hope of another jaunt to Torquay. Best compliments to the +ladies. + +"Yours ever, + +"W.S.L." + + * * * * * + + +The following is dated the 15th of November, 1837--just half a century +ago! + + * * * * * + +"35, ST. JAMES'S SQUARE, BATH. + +"I should be very ungrateful if I did not often think of you. But +among my negligences, I must regret that I did not carry away with me +the address of our friend Bezzi." [A Piedmontese refugee who was a +very intimate friend of Garrow's. I knew him in long subsequent years, +when political changes had made it possible for him to return to +Italy. He was a very clever and singularly brilliant man, whose name, +I think, became known to the English public in connection with the +discovery of the celebrated portrait of Dante on a long whitewashed +wall of the Bargello, in Florence. There was some little jealousy +about the discovery between him and Kirkup. The truth was that +Kirkup's large and curious antiquarian knowledge led him to feel sure +that the picture must be there, under the whitewash; while Bezzi's +influence with the authorities succeeded in getting the wall cleared +of its covering.] "I am anxious to hear how he endures his absence +from Torquay, and I will write to him the moment I hear of him. Tell +Miss Garrow that the muses like the rustle of dry leaves almost as +well as the whispers of green ones. If she doubts it, entreat her +on my part to ask the question of them. Nothing in Bath is vastly +interesting to me now. Two or three persons have come up and spoken to +me whom I have not seen for a quarter of a century. Of these faces I +recollect but one, and it was the ugliest! By the same token--but here +the figure of aposiopesis is advantageous to me--old Madam Burridge, +of my lodgings, has sent me three large forks and one small, which I +left behind. She forgot to send another of each. What is worse, I left +behind me a three-faced seal, which I think I once showed you. It was +enclosed in a black rough case. This being of the time of Henry the +Eighth, and containing the arms of my family connections, I value far +above a few forks, or a few dozens. It cannot be worth sixpence to +whoever has it. One of the engravings was a greyhound with an arrow +through him, a crest of my grandmother's, whose maiden name was Noble. +If you pass by, pray ask about it--not that I am ever disappointed at +the worst result of an inquiry. I am afraid the ladies of your house +will think me imprudent; and what must be their opinion, if you let it +transpire that I have furthermore invested a part of my scrip in the +beaver trade. Offer my best regards to them all, and believe me, + +"My dear sir, + +"Yours very sincerely, + +"W.S.L." + + * * * * * + +The following is dated only January 2nd, but the post-mark shows it to +have been written from Bath on that day, 1838. + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR SIR,--Yesterday there were lying across my fender three +or four sheets of paper, quite in readiness to dry themselves, and +receive my commands. One of these, I do assure you, was destined for +Torquay, but the interruption of visitors would allow me time only to +cover half a one with my scrawl. Early last week I wrote a long letter +to Bezzi, but wanted the courage to send it. I wish him to remain in +England as much almost as you yourself can do. But if after promising +his lady" [it is noteworthy that such a master of English as Landor, +should use, now for the second time in these letters, this ugly +phrase] "to let her try the air of Italy, he should withdraw, she +might render his life less comfortable by reproaches not altogether +unmerited. When she gets there she will miss her friends; she will +hear nothing but a language which is unknown to her, and will find +that no change of climate can remove her ailments. I offered my house +to Bezzi some time ago, with its two gardens and a hundred acres of +land, all for a hundred a year. But I am confident my son will never +remain in England, and after the expiration of the year will return +to Tuscany. Bezzi cannot find another house, even without garden, for +that money. James paid for a worse twelve louis a month, although he +took it for eight months. So the houses in Tuscany are very far from +inviting to an economist, although vastly less expensive than at +Torquay, the rival of Naples in this respect as in beauty.... I have +found my seal in a waistcoat pocket. I do not think the old woman +stole the forks, but she knew they were stolen.... Kenyon has +something of Falstaff about him, both in the physical and the moral. +But he is a friendly man, of rare judgment in literary works, and of +talents that only fall a little short of genius. + +"God preserve you from your Belial Bishop!" [Philpotts]. "What an +incumbent! I would not see the rascal once a month to be as great a +man as Mr. Shedden, or as sublime a genius as Mr. Wise," [word under +the seal] "would drown me in bile or poison me with blue pills. A +society has been formed here, of which the members have come to the +resolution of making inquiries at every house about the religion of +the inmates, what places of worship they attend, &c., &c. Is not +it hard upon a man, who has changed a couple of sovereigns into +half-crowns for Christmas boxes, to be forced to spend ten shillings +for a horsewhip, when he no longer has a horse? Our weather here is +quite as mild and beautiful as it can possibly be at Torquay. Miss +Garrow, I trust, has listened to the challenges of the birds, and sung +a new song. As Bezzi is secretary and librarian, I must apply to him +for it, unless she will condescend to trust me with a copy. I will now +give you a specimen of my iron seal, brass setting and pewter mending. + +"Yours ever, + +"W.S.L." + + * * * * * + +The mention of Bishop Philpotts (though not by name) in the foregoing +letter, reminds me of a story which used to be told of him, and which +is too good to be lost, even though thus parenthetically told. When at +Torquay he used to frequent a small church, in which the service was +at that time performed by a very young curate of the extra gentle +butter-won't-melt-in-his-mouth kind, who had much objection to +the phrase in the Communion service, "eateth and drinketh his +own damnation," and ventured somewhat tremblingly to substitute +"condemnation" for the word which offended him. Whereupon the orthodox +Bishop reared his head, as he knelt with the rest of the congregation +and roared aloud "_Damnation!_" Whether the curate had to be carried +out fainting, I don't remember. + +The next letter of Landor's that I have is dated 13th April, St. +James's Square, Bath. The postmark shows that it was written in 1838. + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR SIR,--I have had Kenyon here these last four days. He tells +me that he saw Bezzi in London, and that we may entertain some hopes +that he will be induced to remain in England. All he wants is some +employment; and surely his powerful friends among the Whigs could +easily procure him it. But the Whigs of all scoundrelly factions, are, +and have ever been, the most scoundrelly, the most ungenerous, the +most ungrateful. What have they done for Fonblanque, who could have +kicked them overboard on his toe-nail? Their abilities put together +are less than a millionth of his; and his have been constantly and +most zealously exerted in their favour. My first conversation with +Kenyon was about the publication of his poems, which are just come +out. They are in part extremely clever; particularly one on happiness +and another on the shrine of the Virgin. He was obliged to print them +at his own expense; and his cousin, Miss Barrett, who also has written +a few poems of no small merit, could not find a publisher. These, +however, bear no proportion to Miss Garrow's.[1] Yet I doubt whether +publishers and the folks they consult would find out that. + +[Footnote 1: To those who never knew Landor, and the habitual +limitless exaggeration of his manner of speaking, it may be necessary +to observe that he did not really hold any opinion so monstrous as +might be supposed from the passage in the text. And a letter given +by Mr. Forster expresses earnestly and vigorously enough his high +admiration for Miss Barrett's poetry. It must be remembered also, that +at the time this was written, Mr. Landor could only have seen some of +the earliest of Miss Barrett's writings.] + +"Southey was about to write to me when his brothers death, by which +six children come under his care, interrupted him. I wish I possessed +one or two of Miss Garrow's beautiful poems, that I might ask his +opinion and advice about them. His opinion I know would be the same as +mine; but his advice is what I want. Surely it cannot be requisite and +advantageous to withhold them from the world so long as you imagine. +In one single year both enough of materials and of variety for a +volume might be collected and prepared. Would Miss Garrow let me offer +one to the _Book of Beauty_? I shall be with Lady Blessington the +last day of the present month. One of the best poems of our days" [on +death], "appeared in the last _Book of Beauty_. But in general its +poetry is very indifferent. With best regards to the ladies, + +"I am ever, my dear sir, + +"Yours most sincerely, + +"W.S.L." + + * * * * * + +The following, dated merely "Gore House, Sunday morning," was written, +or at least posted, on the 14th May, 1838. + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR SIR,--It is impossible you should not often have thought me +negligent and ungrateful. Over and over again have I redd [_sic_], +the incomparably fine poetry you sent me; and intended that Lady +Blessington should partake in the high enjoyment it afforded me. I had +promised her to be at Gore House toward the end of April, but I had +not the courage to face all my friends. However, here I came on Friday +evening; and before I went to bed I redd to her ladyship what I +promised her. She was enchanted. I then requested her to toss aside +some stuff of mine, and to make way for it in the next _Book of +Beauty_. The gods, as Homer says, granted half my prayer, and it +happened to be (what was not always the case formerly) the better +half. She will insert both. It is only by some such means as that that +the best poetry in our days comes with mincing step into popularity. +Mine being booted and spurred, both ladies and gentlemen get out of +the way of it, and look down at it with a touch of horror. + +"Now for news, and about your neighbours. Captain Ackland is going to +marry a niece of Massy Dawson. Mischievous things are said about poor +Lady M----, all false, you may be sure. Admiral Aylmer after all his +services under Nelson, &c., &c., is unable to procure a commission in +the marines for his nephew, Frederick Paynter. Lord A. will not ask. I +am a suitor to all the old women I know, and shall fail too, for it is +not the thing they want me to ask of them. + +"I see two new Deputy Lord-Lieutenants have been appointed for +the County of Monmouth. My estate there is larger than the Lord +Lieutenant's; yet even this mark of respect has not been paid me. It +might be, safely. I shall consider myself sold to the devil, and for +more than my value, when I accept any distinction, or anything else +from any man living. The Whigs are growing unpopular, I hear. I hope +never to meet any of them. Last night, however, I talked a little with +Grantley Berkeley, and told him a bit of my mind. You see, I have not +much more room in my paper, else I should be obliged to tell you that +the bells are ringing, and that I have only just time to put on my +gloves for church. + +"Adieu, and believe me with kindly regards to the ladies, + +"Yours, + +"W.S.L." + + * * * * * + +The last in this series of letters which has reached my hands is +altogether undated, but appears by the post-mark to have been written +from Bath, 19th July, 1838. + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR SIR,--There is one sentence in your letter which shocked +me not a little. You say 'The Whigs have not offered you a Deputy +Lieutenantcy; so cheap a distinction could not have hurt them. But +then you are too proud to ask,' &c. Do you really suppose that I would +have accepted it even if it had been offered? No, by God! I would not +accept any distinction even if it were offered by honest men. I will +have nothing but what I can take. It is, however, both an injustice +and an affront to confer this dignity on low people, who do not +possess a fourth of my property, and whose family is as ignoble as +Lord Melbourne's own, and not to have offered the same to me. In the +eleventh page of the _Letters_ I published after the quelling of +Bonaparte are these words: 'I was the first to abjure the party of +the Whigs, and shall be the last to abjure the principles. When the +leaders had broken all their promises to the nation, had shown their +utter incapacity to manage its affairs, and their inclination to +crouch before the enemy, I permitted my heart after some struggles to +subside and repose in the cool of this reflection--Let them escape. +It is only the French nation that ever dragged such feebleness to the +scaffold,' Again, page 35--'Honest men, I confess, have generally in +the present times an aversion to the Whig faction, not because it +is suitable either to honesty or understanding to prefer the narrow +principles of the opposite party, but because in every country lax +morals wish to be and are identified with public feeling, and because +in our own a few of the very best have been found in an association +with the very worst.' Whenever the Tories have deviated from their +tenets, they have enlarged their views and exceeded their promises. +The Whigs have always taken an inverse course. Whenever they have come +into power, they have previously been obliged to slight those matters, +and to temporise with those duties, which they had not the courage +either to follow or to renounce. + +"And now, my dear sir, to pleasanter matters. I have nothing in the +press, and never shall have. I gave Forster all my works, written or +to be written. Neither I nor my family shall have anything to do with +booksellers. They say a new edition of my _Imaginary Conversations_ is +called for. I have sent Forster a dozen or two of fresh ones, but I +hope he will not hazard them before my death, and will get a hundred +pounds or near it for the whole. + +"If ever I attended a public dinner, I should like to have been +present at that which the people gave to you. Never let them be quiet +until the Church has gone to the devil, its lawful owner, and till +something a little like Christianity takes its place. If parsons are +to be Lords, it is but right and reasonable that the Queen should be +Pope. Indeed, I have no objection to this, but I have to the other. +What a singularity it is that those who profess a belief in Christ do +not obey Him, while those who profess it in Mahomet or Moses or Boodh +are obedient to their precepts, if not in certain points of morality, +in all things else. Carlyle is a vigorous thinker, but a vile writer, +worse than Bulwer. I breakfasted in company with him at Milman's. +Macaulay was there, a clever clown, and Moore too, whom I had not seen +till then. Between those two Scotchmen he appeared like a glow-worm +between two thistles. There were several other folks, literary and +half literary, Lord Northampton, &c., &c. I forgot Rogers. Milman has +written the two best volumes of poetry we have seen lately; but when +Miss Garrow publishes hers I am certain there will be a total eclipse +of them. My friend Hare's brother, who married a sister of the +impudent coxcomb, Edward Stanley, has bought a house at Torquay, and +Hare tells me that unless he goes to Sicily be shall be there in +winter. If so, we may meet; but Bath is my dear delight in all +seasons. I have been sitting for my picture, and have given it to Mrs. +Paynter. It is admirably executed by Fisher. + +"Yours ever, + +"W.S.L." + + * * * * * + +These letters are all written upon the old-fashioned square sheet of +letter paper, some gilt-edged, entirely written over, even to the +turned-down ends, and heavily sealed. + +Mr. Forster says no word about the Deputy-Lieutenantcy, and Landor's +anger and disgust in connection with it. He must necessarily have +known all about it, but probably in the exuberance of his material did +not think it worth mentioning. But it evidently left almost as painful +an impression on Landor's mind as the famous refusal of the Duke of +Beaufort to appoint him a justice of the peace. + +During the later portion of my life at Florence, and subsequently at +Rome, Mr. G.P. Marsh and his very charming wife were among our +most valued friends for many years. Marsh was an exception to the +prevailing American rule, which for the most part changes their +diplomatists with the change of President. He had been United States +minister at Constantinople and at Turin before he came to Florence +with the Italian monarchy. At Rome he was "the Dean" of the diplomatic +body, and on many occasions various representative duties fell upon +him as such which were especially unwelcome to him. The determination +of the Great Powers to send ambassadors to the Court of the Quirinal +instead of ministers plenipotentiary, as previously, came as a great +boon to Mr. Marsh. For as the United States send no ambassadors, his +position as longest in office of all the diplomatic body no longer +placed him at the head of it. + +Mr. Marsh was a man of very large and varied culture. A thorough +classical scholar and excellent modern linguist, philology was perhaps +his most favourite pursuit. He wrote various books, his best I think a +very large octavo volume, entitled not very happily _Man in Nature_. +The subject of it is the modifications and alterations which this +planet has undergone at the hands of man. His subject leads him to +consider much at large the denudation of mountains, which has caused +and is causing such calamitous mischief in Italy and the south +of France. He shows very convincingly and interestingly that the +destruction of forests causes not only floods in winter and spring, +but drought in summer and autumn. And the efforts which have recently +been made in Italy to take some steps towards the reclothing of the +mountain sides, have in great measure been due to his work, which has +been largely circulated in an Italian translation. + +The following letter which I select from many received from him, is +not without interest. It is dated 30th November, 1867. + + * * * * * + +"DEAR SIR,--I return you Layard's article, which displays his usual +marked ability, and has given me much pleasure as well as instruction. +I should much like to know what are his grounds for believing that +'a satisfactory settlement of this Roman question would have been +speedily brought about with the concurrence of the Italian Government +and the Liberal party in Rome, and with the tacit consent of the +Emperor of the French, had it not been for the untoward enterprise +of Garibaldi,' p. 283. I certainly have not the slightest ground for +believing any such thing; nor do I understand _to whom_ the settlement +referred to would have been 'satisfactory.' Does Mr. Layard suppose +that any conceivable arrangement would be satisfactory both to the +Papacy and to Italian Liberals out of Rome? The _Government_ of Italy, +which changes as often as the moon, might have accepted something +which would have satisfied Louis Napoleon, Antonelli, and the three +hundred _nobili_ of Rome, who waited at dinner, napkin on arm, on the +Antiboini, to whom they gave an entertainment,--but the people? + +"I send you one of Ferretti's pamphlets, which please keep. And I +enclose in the package two of Tuckerman's books. If you could turn +over the leaves of these and say to me in a note that they impress you +favourably, and that you are not displeased with his magazine article, +I will make him a happy man by sending him the note. + +"Very truly yours, + +"GEO.P. MARSH." + + * * * * * + +I did more than "turn over the leaves" of the book sent, and did very +truly say that they had interested me much. It is rather suggestive to +reflect how utterly unintelligible to the present generation must +be the term "Antiboini" in the above letter, without a word of +explanation. The highly unpopular and objectionable "Papal Legion" had +been in great part recruited from Antibes, and were hence nicknamed +"Antiboini," and not, as readers of the present day might fairly +imagine, from having been the opponents of any "boini." + +The personal qualities of Mr. Marsh had obtained for him a great, and +I may indeed say, exceptional degree of consideration and regard from +his colleagues of the diplomatic body, and from the Italian ministers +and political world generally. And I remember one notable instance of +the manifestation of this, which I cannot refrain from citing. Mr. +Marsh had written home to his Government some rather trenchantly +unfavourable remarks on some portion of the then recent measures of +the Italian Ministry. And by some awkward accident or mistake these +had found their way into the columns of an American newspaper. +The circumstances might have given rise to very disagreeable and +mischievous complications and results. But the matter was suffered to +pass without any official observation solely from the high personal +consideration in which Mr. Marsh was held, not only at the Consulta +(the Roman Foreign Office), but at the Quirinal, and in many a Roman +salon. + +Mr. Marsh died full of years and honours at a ripe old age. But the +closing scene of his life was remarkable from the locality of it. He +had gone to pass the hot season at Vallombrosa, where a comfortable +hotel replaces the old _forestieria_ of the monastery, while a School +of Forestry has been established by the Government within its walls. +Amid those secular shades the old diplomatist and scholar breathed his +last, and could not have done so in a more peaceful spot. But the very +inaccessible nature of the place made it a question of some difficulty +how the body should be transported in properly decorous fashion to the +railway station in the valley below--a difficulty which was solved by +the young scholars of the School of Forestry, who turned out in a body +to have the honour of bearing on their shoulders the remains of the +man whose writings had done so much to awaken the Government to the +necessity of establishing the institution to which they belonged. + +Mrs. Marsh, for so many years the brightest ornament of the +Italo-American society, and equally admired and welcomed by the +English colony, first at Florence and then at Rome, still lives for +the equal delight of her friends on the other side of the Atlantic. I +may not, therefore, venture to say more of "what I remember" of her, +than that it abundantly accounts for the feeling of an unfilled void, +which her absence occasioned and occasions in both the American and +English world on the banks of the Tiber. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +It was in the spring of the year 1860 that I first became acquainted +with "George Eliot" and G H. Lewes in Florence. But it was during +their second visit to Italy in 1861 that I saw a good deal more of +them. It was in that year, towards the end of May, that I succeeded +in persuading them to accompany me in a visit to the two celebrated +Tuscan monasteries of Camaldoli and La Vernia. I had visited both on +more than one occasion previously--once with a large and very merry +party of both sexes, of whom Colley Grattan was one--but the excursion +made in company with G.H. Lewes and George Eliot was another-guess +sort of treat, and the days devoted to it stand out in high relief in +my memory as some of the most memorable in my life. + +They were anxious to be moving northwards from Florence, and I had +some difficulty in persuading them to undertake the expedition. A +certain weight of responsibility, therefore, lay on me--that folks +whose days were so sure of being turned to good profit, should not by +my fault be led to waste any of them. But I had already seen enough of +both of them to feel sure that the specialties of the very exceptional +little experience I proposed to them would be appreciated and +acceptable. Neither he nor she were fitted by their habits, or indeed +by the conditions of their health, to encounter much "roughing," and +a certain amount of that was assuredly inevitable--a good deal more +five-and-twenty years ago than would be the case now. But if the flesh +was weak, truly the spirit was willing! I have heard grumbling and +discontent from the young of either sex in the heyday of health and +strength in going over the same ground. But for my companions on the +present occasion, let the difficulties and discomforts be what they +might, the continually varied and continually suggestive interest they +found in everything around them, overrode and overbore all material +considerations. + +Never, I think, have I met with so impressionable and so delicately +sensitive a mind as that of George Eliot! I use "sensitive" in the +sense in which a photographer uses the word in speaking of his plates. +Everything that passed within the ken of that wonderful organism, +whether a thing or combination of things seen, or an incident, or a +trait revealing or suggesting character, was instantly reproduced, +fixed, registered by it, the operating light being the wonderful +native force of her intellect. And the photographs so produced were by +no means evanescent. If ever the admirably epigrammatic phrase, "wax +to receive and marble to retain," was applicable to any human mind, +it was so to that of George Eliot. And not only were the enormous +accumulations of stored-up impressions safe beyond reach of oblivion +or confusion, but they were all and always miraculously ready for +co-ordination with those newly coming in at each passing moment! Think +of the delight of passing, in companionship with such a mind, through +scenes and circumstances entirely new to it! + +Lewes, too, was a most delightful companion, the cheeriest of +philosophers! The old saying of "_Comes jucundus in viâ pro vehiculo +est_," was especially applicable to him. Though very exhaustible in +bodily force, he was inexhaustible in cheerfulness, and above all in +unwearied, incessant, and minute care for "Polly." In truth, if any +man could ever be said to have lived in another person, Lewes in those +days, and to the end of his life, lived in and for George Eliot. The +talk of worshipping the ground she trod on, and the like, are pretty +lovers phrases, sometimes signifying much, and sometimes very little. +But it is true accurately and literally of Lewes. That care for her, +at once comprehensive and minute, unsleeping watchfulness, lest she +should dash her foot against a stone, was _never_ absent from his +mind. She had become his real self, his genuine _ego_ to all intents +and purposes. And his talk and thoughts were egoistic accordingly. Of +his own person, his ailments, his works, his ideas, his impressions, +you might hear not a word from him in the intercourse of many days. +But there was in his inmost heart a _naïf_ and never-doubting faith +that talk on all these subjects as regarded _her_ must be profoundly +interesting to those he talked with. To me, at all events, it was so. +Perhaps had it been otherwise, there would have been less of it. + +We were to reach Camaldoli the first night, and had therefore to +leave Florence very early in the morning. At Pelago, a little +_paése_--village we should call it--on the Arno some fourteen or +fifteen miles above Florence, we were to find saddle-horses, the +journey we were about to make being in those days practicable in no +other way, unless on foot. There was at that time a certain Antonio da +Pelago, whose calling it was to act as guide, and to furnish horses. +I had known him for many years, as did all those whose ramblings took +them into those hills. He was in many respects what people call +"a character," and seemed to fancy himself to have in some degree +proprietary rights over the three celebrated Tuscan monasteries, +Vallombrosa, Camaldoli, and La Vernia. He was well known to the +friars at each of these establishments, and indeed to all the sparse +population of that country-side. He was a very good and competent +guide and courier, possessed with a very amusingly exaggerated notion +of his own importance, and rather bad to turn aside from his own +preconceived and predetermined methods of doing everything that had to +be done. George Eliot at once made a study of him. + +I am reminded, too, as I write, of the great amusement with which my +old and highly-valued friend of many years, Alfred Austin, who long +subsequently was making the same excursion with me and both our wives, +listened to an oration of the indispensable Antonio. One of his +baggage horses had strayed and become temporarily lost among the +hills. He was exceedingly wroth, and poured forth his vexation in +a torrent of very unparliamentary language. "_Corpo di Guida!_" +he exclaimed, among a curious assortment of heterogeneous +adjurations--"Body of Judas!" stooping to the ground as he spoke, and +striking the back of his hand against it, with an action that very +graphically represented a singular survival of the classical _testor +inferos!_ Then suddenly changing his mood, he apostrophised the +missing beast with the almost tearful reproach, "There! there now! +Thou hast made me throw away all my devotions! All! And Easter only +just gone!" That is to say, your fault has betrayed me into violence +and bad language, which has begun a new record of offences just after +I had made all clear by my Easter devotions. + +The first stage of our rough ride was to the little hill town of +Prato Vecchio on the infant Arno, and close under the lofty peaks of +Falterona, in the flanks of which both the Arno and the Tiber rise. +The path, as it descends to the town, winds round the ruins of an +ancient castle, beneath the walls of which is still existent that +Fontebranda fountain, which Adam the forger in the _Inferno_ longed +for a drop of, and which almost all Dantescan scholars and critics +mistake for a larger and nowadays better known fountain of the same +name at Siena. On pointing it out to George Eliot, I found, of course, +that the name and the whole of Adam the forger's history was familiar +to her; but she had little expected to find his local habitation among +these wild hills; and she was unaware of the current mistake between +the Siena Fontebranda, and the little rippling streamlet before us. + +The little _osteria_, at which we were to get some breakfast, was a +somewhat lurid dwelling in an uninviting back lane. But the ready and +smiling good-humour with which the hostess prepared her coffee and +bread, and eggs and bacon, availed much to make up for deficiencies, +especially for guests far more interested in observing every minute +specialty of the place, the persons, and the things, than they were +extreme to mark what was amiss. I remember George Eliot was especially +struck by the absence of either milk or butter, and by the fact that +the inhabitants of these hills, and indeed the Tuscans of the remoter +parts of the country generally, never use them at all--or did not in +those days. + +But it was beyond Prato Vecchio that the most characteristic part of +our ride began. The hills, into the folds and gullies of which we +plunged almost immediately after leaving the walls of the little town, +are of the most arid, and it is hardly too much to say, repulsive +description. It is impossible to imagine soil more evidently to the +least experienced eye hopeless for any purpose useful to man, than +these rolling and deeply water-scored hills. Nor has the region any +of the characters of the picturesque. The soil is very friable, +consisting of an easily disintegrated slaty limestone, of a pale +whitey-brown in prevailing colour, varied here and there by stretches +of similar material greenish in tint. For the most part the hill-sides +are incapable of nourishing even a blade of grass; and they are +evidently in the process of rapid removal into the Mediterranean, for +the further extension of the plain that has been formed between Pisa +and the shore since the time, only a few hundred years ago, when Pisa +was a first-class naval power. All this, with the varied historical +corollaries and speculations which it suggested, was highly +interesting to my fellow-travellers. + +But the ride, nowhere dangerous, though demanding some strong faith in +the sure-footedness of Antonio's steeds, is not an easy one. The +sun was beating with unmitigated glare on those utterly shadeless +hill-sides. It was out of the question to attempt anything beyond +a walk. The sides of the gullies, which had to be ascended and +descended, though never reaching to the picturesque proportions +of precipices, were yet sufficiently steep and rough to make very +fatiguing riding for a lady unaccustomed to such exercise. And George +Eliot was in no very robust condition of health at the time. And +despite his well dissembled anxiety I could see that Lewes was not +easy respecting her capability of resisting the heat, the fatigue, and +the unwonted exercise. But her cheerfulness and activity of interest +never failed her for an instant. Her mind "made increment of +everything." Nor even while I led her horse down some of the +worst descents did the exigencies of the path avail to interrupt +conversation, full of thought and far-reaching suggestiveness, as her +talk ever was. + +At last we reached the spot where the territory of the monastery +commences; and it is one that impresses itself on the imagination and +the memory in a measure not likely to be forgotten. The change is like +a pantomime transformation scene! The traveller passes without the +slightest intermediate gradation from the dreary scene which has been +described, into the shade and the beauty of a region of magnificent +and well-managed forest! The bodily delight of passing from the severe +glare of the sun into this coolness, welcome alike to the skin and to +the eye, was very great. And to both my companions, but especially to +George Eliot, the great beauty of the scene we entered on gave the +keenest pleasure. + +Assuredly Saint Romuald in selecting a site for his Camaldolese did +not derogate from the apparently instinctive wisdom which seems to +have inspired the founders of monasteries of every order and in every +country of Europe. Invariably the positions of the religious houses +were admirably well chosen; and that of Camaldoli is no exception to +the rule. The convent is not visible from the spot where the visitor +enters the forest boundary which marks the limit of the monastic +domain. Nearly an hour's ride through scenery increasing in beauty +with each step, where richly green lawns well stocked with cattle +are contrasted wonderfully with the arid desolation so recently left +behind, has still to be done ere the convent's hospitable door is +reached. + +The convent door, however, in our case was not reached, for the +building used for the reception of visitors, and called the +_forestieria_, occupies its humble position by the road side a hundred +yards or so before the entrance to the monastery is reached. There +Antonio halted his cavalcade, and while showing us our quarters with +all the air of a master, sent one of his attendant lads to summon +the _padre forestieraio_--the monk deputed by the society to receive +strangers. + +Had our party consisted of men only, we should have been received in +the convent, where there was a very handsome suite of rooms reserved +for the purpose. But females could not enter the precincts of the +cloister. The father in question very shortly made his appearance, a +magnificent figure, whose long black beard flowing over his perfectly +clean white robe made as picturesque a presentment of a friar as could +be desired. He was extremely courteous, and seemed to desire nothing +better than to talk _ad libitum_. But for my fellow travellers, rest +after their broiling ride was the thing most urgently needed. + +And this requirement brought us to the consideration of our +accommodation for the night. The humble little _forestieria_ at +Camaldoli was not built for any such purpose. It never, of course, +entered into the heads of the builders that need could ever arise +for receiving any save male guests. And for such, as I have said, a +handsome suite of large rooms, both sitting-rooms and bedrooms, +with huge fireplaces for the burning of colossal logs, is provided. +Ordinary brethren of the order would not be lodged there. The +magnificence is reserved for a Cardinal (Gregory XVI. who had been +a Camaldolese frequently came here), or a travelling Bishop and his +suite, or a heretic English or American milord! But not for any +daughter of Eve! And the makeshift room over a carpenter's shop, which +is called the _forestieria_, has been devoted to the purpose only in +consequence of the incomprehensible mania of female English heretics +for visiting the disciples of St. Romuald. And there the food supplied +from the convent can be brought to them. But for the night? I had +warned my friends that they would have to occupy different quarters; +and it now became necessary to introduce George Eliot to the place she +was to pass the night in. + +At the distance of about twenty minutes' walk above the convent, +across a lovely but very steep extent of beautifully green turf, +encircled by the surrounding forest, there is a cow-house, with an +annexed lodging for the cowherd and his wife. And over the cow stable +is--or was, for the monks have been driven away and all is altered +now!--a bedchamber with three or four beds in it, which the +toleration of the community has provided for the accommodation of the +unaccountable female islanders. I have assisted in conveying parties +of ladies up that steep grassy slope by the light of a full moon, +when all the beds had to be somewhat more than fully occupied. But +fortunately George Eliot had the whole chamber to herself--perhaps, +however, not quite fortunately, for it was a very novel and not +altogether reassuring experience for her to be left absolutely alone +for the night, to the protection of an almost entirely unintelligible +cowherd and his wife! But there was no help for it! G.H. Lewes did not +seem to be quite easy about it; but George Eliot did not appear to be +troubled by the slightest alarm or misgiving. She seemed, indeed, to +enjoy all the novelty and strangeness of the situation; and when she +bade us good-night from the one little window of her chamber over the +cows, as we turned to walk down the slope to our grand bedrooms at the +convent, she said she should be sure to be ready when we came for her +in the morning, as the cows would call her, if the cowherds failed to +do so. + +The following morning we were to ride up the mountain to the Sagro +Eremo. Convent hours are early, and soon after the dawn we +had convoyed our female companion down the hill to the little +_forestieria_ for breakfast, where the _padre forestieraio_ gave us +the best coffee we had had for many a day. George Eliot declared that +she had had an exceptionally good night, and was delighted with the +talk of the magnificently black-bearded father, who superintended our +meal, while a lay brother waited on us. + +The former was to start in a day or two on his triennial holiday, and +he was much excited at the prospect of it. His _naïf_ talk and quite +childlike questions and speculations as to times and distances, and +what could be done in a day, and the like, amused George Eliot much. +In reckoning up his available hours he deducted so much in each day +for the due performance of his canonical duties. I remarked to him +that he could read the prescribed service in the diligence, as I had +often seen priests doing. "Secular priests no doubt!" he said, "but +that would not suit one of _us!_" + +Our ride up to the Sagro Eremo was a thing to be remembered! I had +seen and done it all before; but I had not seen or done it in company +with George Eliot. It was like doing it with a new pair of eyes, and +freshly inspired mind! The way is long and steep, through magnificent +forests, with every here and there a lovely enclosed lawn, and +fugitive peeps over the distant country. On our way up we met a +singular procession coming down. + +It consisted of a low large cart drawn by two oxen, and attended by +several lay brothers and peasants, in the centre of which was seated +an enormously fat brother of the order, whose white-robed bust with +immense flowing white beard, emerging from a quantity of red wraps +and coverings, that concealed the lower part of his person, made an +extraordinary appearance. He was being brought down from the Sagro +Eremo to the superior comfort of the convent, because he was unwell. + +At the Sagro Eremo--the sacred hermitage--is seen the operation of the +Camaldolese rule in its original strictness and perfection. At the +convent itself it is, or has become, much relaxed in many respects. +The Camaldolese, like other Carthusians, are properly _hermits_, that +is to say, their life is not conventual, but eremitical. Each brother +at the Sagro Eremo inhabits his own separately built cell, +consisting of sleeping chamber, study, wood-room, and garden, all of +microscopical dimensions. His food, exclusively vegetable, is +passed in to him by a little turntable made in the wall. There is a +refectory, in which the members of the community eat in common on two +or three festivals in the course of the year. On these occasions only +is any speech or oral communication between the members permitted. +There is a library tolerably well furnished with historical as well as +theological works. But it is evidently never used. Nor is there any +sign that the little gardens are in any degree cultivated by the +occupants of them. I remarked to George Eliot on the strangeness of +this abstinence from both the two permitted occupations, which might +seem to afford some alleviation of the awful solitude and monotony of +the eremitical life. But she remarked that the facts as we saw them +were just such as she should have expected to find! + +The Sagro Eremo is inhabited by three classes of inmates; firstly, by +novices, who are not permitted to come down to the comparative luxury +and comfort and milder climate of the convent till they have passed +three or four years at the Sagro Eremo. Secondly, by those who have +been sent thither from the convent below as punishment for some +misdoing. Thirdly, by those who remain there of their own free will, +in the hope of meriting a higher and more distinguished reward for +their austerities in a future life. One such was pointed out to us, +who had never left the Eremo for more than fifty years, a tall, +very gaunt, very meagre old man with white hair, hollow cheeks, and +parchment skin, a nose like an eagle's beak, and deep-set burning +eyes--as typical a figure, in its way, as the rosy mountain of a man +whom we met travelling down in his ox cart. + +Lewes was always anxious lest George Eliot should over-tire herself. +But she was insatiably interested both in the place and the denizens +of it. + +Then before supper at the _forestieria_ was ready, our friend the +father _forestieraio_ insisted on showing us the growing crop of +haricot beans, so celebrated for their excellence that some of them +were annually sent to Pope Gregory the Sixteenth as long as he lived. + +Then followed another night in the cow-house for George Eliot and for +us in the convent, and the next morning we started with Antonio and +his horses for La Vernia. + +The ride thither from Camaldoli, though less difficult, is also less +peculiar than that from Prato Vecchio to the latter monastery, at +least, until La Vernia is nearly reached. The _penna_ (Cornish, Pen; +Cumbrian, Penrith; Spanish, Peña) on which the monastery is built is +one of the numerous isolated rocky points which have given their names +to the Pennine Alps and Apennines. The Penna de la Vernia rises very +steeply from the rolling ground below, and towers above the traveller +with its pyramidal point in very suggestive fashion. The well-wooded +sides of the conical hill are diversified by emergent rocks, and the +plume of trees on the summit seems to suggest a Latin rather than a +Celtic significance for the "Penna." + +It is a long and tedious climb to the convent, but the picturesque +beauty of the spot, the charm of the distant outlook, and above all +the historical interest of the site, rewards the visitor's toil +abundantly. There is a _forestieria_ here also, within the precincts +of the convent, but not within the technical "cloister." It is simply +a room in which visitors of either sex may partake of such food as the +poor Franciscans can furnish them, which is by no means such as the +more well-to-do Carthusians of Camaldoli supply to their guests. Nor +have the quarters set apart for the sleeping accommodation of male +visitors within the cloister anything of the spacious old-world +grandeur of the strangers' suite of rooms at the latter monastery. The +difficulty also of arranging for the night's lodging of a female is +much greater at La Vernia. There is indeed a very fairly comfortable +house, kept under the management of two sisters of the order of Saint +Francis, expressly for the purpose of lodging lady pilgrims to the +shrine. For in former days--scarcely now, I think--the wives of the +Florentine aristocracy used to undertake a pilgrimage to La Vernia +as a work of devotion. But this house is at the bottom of the long +ascent--nearly an hour's severe climb from the convent--an arrangement +which necessarily involves much additional fatigue to a lady visitor. + +George Eliot writes to Miss Sara Hennell on the 19th of June, a letter +inserted by Mr. Cross in his admirable biography of his wife--"I +wish you could have shared the pleasures of our last expedition from +Florence to the monasteries of Camaldoli and La Vernia. I think it +was just the sort of thing you would have entered into with thorough +zest." And she goes on to speak of La Vernia in a manner which seems +to show that it was the latter establishment which most keenly +interested and impressed her. She was in fact under the spell of the +great and still potent personality of Saint Francis, which informs +with his memory every detail of the buildings and rocks around you. +Each legend was full of interest for her. The alembic of her mind +seemed to have the secret of distilling from traditions, which in +their grossness the ordinary visitor turns from with a smile of +contempt, the spiritual value they once possessed for ages of faith, +or at least the poetry with which the simple belief of those ages has +invested them. Nobody could be more alive to every aspect of natural +beauty than she showed herself during the whole of this memorable +excursion. But at La Vernia the human interest over-rode the simply +aesthetic one. + +Her day was a most fatiguing one. And when Lewes and I wearily climbed +the hill on foot, after escorting her to her sleeping quarters, he was +not a little anxious lest on the morrow she should find herself unable +for the ride which was to take us to the spot where a carriage was +available for our return to Florence. + +But it was not so. She slept well under the care of the Franciscan +nuns, who managed to get her a cup of milkless coffee in the morning, +and so save her from the necessity of again climbing the hill. A +charming drive through the Casentino, or valley of the Upper Arno, +showing us the aspect of a Tuscan valley very different from that +of the Lower Arno, brought to an end an expedition which has always +remained in my memory as one of the most delightful of my life. + +I had much talk with George Eliot during the time--very short at +Florence--when she was maturing her Italian novel, _Romola_. Of +course, I knew that she was digesting the acquisitions of each day +with a view to writing; but I had not the slightest idea of the period +to which her inquiries were specially directed, or of the nature of +the work intended. But when I read _Romola_, I was struck by the +wonderful power of absorption manifested in every page of it. The +rapidity with which she squeezed out the essence and significance of a +most complex period of history, and assimilated the net results of its +many-sided phases, was truly marvellous. + +Nevertheless, in drawing the girl Romola, her subjectivity has +overpowered her objectivity. Romola is not--could never have been--the +product of the period and of the civilisation from which she is +described as having issued. There is far too much of George Eliot in +her. It was a period, it is true, in which female culture trod upon +the heels of the male culture of the time perhaps more closely than it +has ever done since. But let Vittoria Colonna be accepted, as probably +she may be, as a fair exponent of the highest point to which that +culture had reached, and an examination of the sonnets into which +she has put her highest thoughts and aspirations together with a +comparison of those with the mental calibre of Romola will, I think, +support the view I have taken. + +Tito, on the other hand, gives us with truly wonderful accuracy and +vigour "the very form and pressure of the time." The pages which +describe him read like a quintessential distillation of the Florentine +story of the time and of the human results which it had availed to +produce. The character of Savonarola, of course, remains, and must +remain, a problem, despite all that has been done for the elucidation +of it since _Romola_ was written. But her reading of it is most +characteristically that which her own idiosyncrasy--so akin to it +in its humanitarian aspects, so superior to it in its methods of +considering man and his relations to the unseen--would lead one to +expect. + +In 1869-70, George Eliot and Mr. Lewes visited Italy for the fourth +time. I had since the date of their former visit quitted my house in +Florence, and established myself in a villa and small _podere_ at +Ricorboli, a commune outside the Florentine Porta San Niccolò. And +there I had the great pleasure of receiving them under my roof, +assisted in doing so by my present wife. Their visit was all too short +a one--less than a week, I think. + +But one knows a person with whom one has passed even that short time +under the same roof far better than can ever be the result of a very +much longer acquaintanceship during which one meets only in the +ordinary intercourse of society. And the really intimate knowledge of +her which I was thus enabled to obtain has left with me the abiding +conviction that she was intellectually by far the most extraordinarily +gifted person it has ever been my good fortune to meet. I do not +insist much on the uniform and constant tender consideration for +others, which was her habitual frame of mind, for I have known others +of whom the same might have been said. It is true that it is easy for +those in the enjoyment of that vigorous health, which renders mere +living a pleasure, to be kindly; and that George Eliot was never +betrayed by suffering, however protracted and severe, into the +smallest manifestation of impatience or unkindly feeling. But neither +is this trained excellence of charity matchless among women. What +was truly, in my experience, matchless, was simply the power of her +intelligence; the precision, the promptitude, the rapidity (though +her manner was by no means rapid), the largeness of the field of +knowledge, the compressed outcome of which she was at any moment ready +to bring to bear on the topic in hand; the sureness and lucidity +of her induction; the clearness of vision, to which muddle was as +impossible and abhorrent as a vacuum is supposed to be to nature; and +all this lighted up and gilded by an infinite sense of, and capacity +for, humour,--this was what rendered her to me a marvel, and an object +of inexhaustible study and admiration. + +To me, though I never passed half an hour in conversation with her +without a renewed perception of the vastness of the distance which +separated her intelligence from mine, she was a companion each minute +of intercourse with whom was a delight. But I can easily understand +that, despite her perfect readiness to place herself for the nonce on +the intellectual level of those with whom she chanced to be brought in +contact, her society may not have been agreeable to all. I remember a +young lady--by no means a stupid or unintelligent one--telling me that +being with George Eliot always gave her a pain in "her mental neck," +just as an hour passed in a picture gallery did to her physical neck. +She was fatigued by the constant attitude of looking up. But had she +not been an intelligent girl, she need not have constantly looked up. +It would be a great mistake to suppose that George Eliot's mental +habits exacted such an attitude from those she conversed with. + +Another very prominent and notable characteristic of that most +remarkable idiosyncrasy was the large and almost universal tolerance +with which George Eliot regarded her fellow creatures. Often and +often has her tone of mind reminded me of the French saying, "_Tout +connaître ce serait tout pardonner!_" I think that of all the human +beings I have ever known or met George Eliot would have made the most +admirable, the most perfect father confessor. I can conceive nothing +more healing, more salutary to a stricken and darkened soul, than +unrestricted confession to such a mind and such an intelligence as +hers. Surely a Church with a whole priesthood of such confessors would +produce a model world. + +And with all this I am well persuaded that her mind was at that time +in a condition of growth. Her outlook on the world could not have +been said at that time to have been a happy one. And my subsequent +acquaintance with her in after years led me to feel sure that this had +become much modified. She once said to me at Florence that she wished +she never had been born! I was deeply pained and shocked; but I am +convinced that the utterance was the result, not of irritation and +impatience caused by pain, but of the influence exercised on the tone +of thought and power of thinking by bodily malady. I feel sure that +she would not have given expression to such a sentiment when I and my +wife were subsequently staying with her and Lewes at their lovely +home in Surrey. She had by that time, I cannot but think, reached a +brighter outlook and happier frame of mind. + +We had as neighbours at Ricorboli, although on the opposite bank of +the Arno, our old and very highly-valued friends, Mr. G.P. Marsh, the +United States Minister, and his charming wife, to whom for the sake of +both parties we were desirous of introducing our distinguished guests. +We thought it right to explain to Mrs. Marsh fully all that was not +strictly normal in the relationship of George Eliot and G.H. Lewes +before bringing them together, and were assured both by her and by her +husband that they saw nothing in the circumstances which need deprive +them of the pleasure of making the acquaintance of persons whom it +would be so agreeable to them to know. The Marsh's were at that time +giving rather large weekly receptions in the fine rooms of their +villa, and our friends accompanied us to one of these. It was very +easy to see that both ladies appreciated each other. There was a +large gathering, mostly of Americans, and Lewes exerted himself to be +agreeable and amusing--which he always was, when he wished to be, to a +degree rarely surpassed. + +He and I used to walk about the country together when "Polly" was +indisposed for walking; and I found him an incomparable companion, +whether a gay or a grave mood were uppermost. He was the best +_raconteur_ I ever knew, full of anecdote, and with a delicious +perception of humour. She also, as I have said--very needlessly +to those who have read her books--had an exquisite feeling and +appreciation of the humorous, abundantly sufficient if unsupported by +other examples, to put Thackeray's dicta on the subject of woman's +capacity for humour out of court. But George Eliot's sense of humour +was different in quality rather than in degree from that which Lewes +so abundantly possessed. And it was a curious and interesting study to +observe the manifestation of the quality in both of them. It was not +that the humour, which he felt and expressed, was less delicate +in quality or less informed by deep human insight and the true +_nihil-humanum-a-me-alienum-puto_ spirit than hers, but it was less +wide and far-reaching in its purview of human feelings and passions +and interests; more often individual in its applicability, and less +drawn from the depths of human nature as exhibited by types +and classes. And often they would cap each other with a mutual +relationship similar to that between a rule of syntax and its example, +sometimes the one coming first and sometimes the other. + +I remember that during the happy days of this visit I was writing a +novel, afterwards published under the title of _A Siren_, and Lewes +asked me to show him the manuscript, then nearly completed. Of course +I was only too glad to have the advantage of his criticism. He was +much struck by the story, but urged me to invert the order in which +it was told. The main incident of the plot is a murder caused by +jealousy, and I had begun by narrating the circumstances which led up +to it in their natural sequence. He advised me to begin by bringing +before the reader the murdered body of the victim, and then unfold the +causes which had led to the crime. And I followed his advice. + +The murder is represented as having been committed on a sleeping +person by piercing the heart with a needle, and then artistically +covering the almost imperceptible orifice of the wound with wax, in +such sort as to render the discovery of the wound and the cause of +death almost impossible even by professional eyes. And I may mention +that the facts were related to me by a distinguished man of science at +Florence, as having really occurred. + +Perhaps, since I have been led to speak of this story of mine, I may +be excused for recording an incident connected with it, which occurred +some years subsequently at Rome, in the drawing-room of Mrs. Marsh. +The scene of the story is Ravenna. And Mrs. Marsh specially introduced +me to a very charming young couple, the Count and Countess Pasolini +of Ravenna, as the author of _A Siren_. They said they had been most +anxious to know who could have written that book! They thought that no +Englishman could have been resident at Ravenna without their having +known him, or at least known _of_ him. And yet it was evident that a +writer, who could photograph the life and society of Ravenna as it had +been photographed in the book in question must have resided there and +lived in the midst of it for some time. But I never was in Ravenna for +a longer time than a week in my life. + +It was many years after the visit of George Eliot and Mr. Lewes to my +house at Ricorboli that I and my wife visited them at The Heights, +Witley, in Surrey. I found that George Eliot had grown! She was +evidently happier. There was the same specially quiet and one may say +harmonious gentleness about her manner and her thought and her ways. +But her outlook on life seemed to be a brighter, a larger, and as I +cannot doubt, a healthier one. She would no longer, I am well assured, +have talked of regretting that she had been born! It would be to give +an erroneous impression if I were to say that she seemed to be more in +charity with all men, for assuredly I never knew her otherwise. But, +if the words may be used, as I think they may be understood, without +irreverence, or any meaning that would be akin to blasphemy, she +seemed to me to be more in charity with her Creator. The ways of God +to man had become more justified to her; and her outlook as to the +futurity of the world was a more hopeful one. Of course optimism had +with her to be long-sighted! But she seemed to have become reconciled +to the certainty that he who stands on a lofty eminence must needs see +long stretches of dusty road across the plains beneath him. + +Nothing could be more enjoyable than the evenings passed by the +_partie carrée_ consisting of herself and Lewes, and my wife and +myself. I am afflicted by hardness of hearing, which shuts me out from +many of the pleasures of society. And George Eliot had that excellency +in woman, a low voice. Yet, partly no doubt by dint of an exertion +which her kindness prompted, but in great measure from the perfection +of her dainty articulation, I was able to hear her more perfectly than +I generally hear anybody. One evening Mr. and Mrs. Du Maurier joined +us. The Lewes's had a great regard for Mr. Du Maurier, and spoke to us +in a most feeling way of the danger which had then recently threatened +the eyesight of that admirable artist. We had music; and Mr. Du +Maurier sang a drinking song, accompanying himself on the piano. +George Eliot had specially asked for this song, saying, I remember, "A +good drinking song is the only form of intemperance I admire!" + +I think also that Lewes seemed in higher spirits than when I had +been with him at Florence. But this was no more than an additional +testimony to the fact that _she_ was happier. + +She also was, I take it, in better health, for we had some most +delightful walks over the exceptionally beautiful country in the +neighbourhood of their house, to a greater extent than she would, I +think, have been capable of at Florence. + +One day we made a most memorable excursion to visit Tennyson at Black +Down. It was the first time I had ever seen him. He walked with us +round his garden, and to a point finely overlooking the country below, +charmingly varied by cultivated land, meadow and woodland. It was +a magnificent day; but as I looked over the landscape I thought I +understood why the woods, which one looks down on from a similar +Italian height, are called _macchie_--stains, whereas our ordinarily +more picturesque language knows no such term and no such image. In +looking over a wide-spread Italian landscape one is struck by the +accuracy and picturesque truth of the image; but it needs the sun and +the light and the atmosphere of Italy to produce the contrast of light +and shade which justifies the phrase. + +Our friends were evidently _personae gratae_ at the court of the +Laureate; and after our walk he gave us the exquisite treat of reading +to us the just completed manuscript of _Rizpah_. And how he read it! +Everybody thinks that he has been impressed by that wonderful poem to +the full extent of the effect that it is capable of producing. They +would be astonished at the increase of weird terror which thrills the +hearer of the poet's own recital of it. + +He was very good-natured about it. It was explained to him by George +Eliot that I should not be able to enjoy the reading unless I were +close to him, so he placed me by his side. He detected me availing +myself of that position to use my good eyes as well as my bad ears, +and protested; but on my appeal _ad misrecordiam_, and assurance that +I should so enjoy the promised treat to infinitely greater effect, he +allowed me to look over his shoulder as he read. After _Rizpah_ he +read the _Northern Cobbler_ to us, also with wonderful effect. The +difference between reading the printed lines and hearing them so read +is truly that between looking on a black and white engraving and the +coloured picture from which it has been taken. Another thing also +struck me. The provincial dialect, which, when its peculiarities are +indicated by letters, looks so uncouth as to be sometimes almost +puzzling, seemed to produce no difficulty at all as he read it, though +he in nowise mitigated it in the least. It seemed the absolutely +natural and necessary presentation of the thoughts and emotions to be +rendered. It was, in fact, a dramatic rendering of them of the highest +order. + +I remember with equal vividness hearing Lowell read some of his +_Biglow Papers_ in the drawing-room of my valued friend Arthur Dexter, +of Boston, when there were no others present save him and his mother +and my wife and myself. And that also was a great treat; that also was +the addition of colour to the black and white of the printed page. But +the difference between reading and hearing was not so great as in the +case of the Laureate. + +When, full of the delight that had been afforded us, we were taking +our leave of him, our host laid on us his strict injunctions to say +no word to any one of what we had heard, adding with a smile that was +half _naïf_, half funning, and wholly comic, "The newspaper fellows, +you know, would get hold of the story, and they would not do it as +well!" + +And then our visit to the Lewes's in their lovely home drew to an end, +and we said our farewells, little thinking as we four stood in that +porch, that we should never in this world look on their faces more. + +The history of George Eliot's intellect is to a great extent legible +in her books. But there are thousands of her readers in both +hemispheres who would like to possess a more concrete image of her +in their minds--an image which should give back the personal +peculiarities of face, voice, and manner, that made up her outward +form and semblance. I cannot pretend to the power of creating such an +image; but I may record a few traits which will be set down at all +events as truthfully as I can give them. + +She was not, as the world in general is aware, a handsome, or even a +personable woman. Her face was long; the eyes not large nor beautiful +in colour--they were, I think, of a greyish blue--the hair, which she +wore in old-fashioned braids coming low down on either side of her +face, of a rather light brown. It was streaked with grey when last I +saw her. Her figure was of middle height, large-boned and powerful. +Lewes often said that she inherited from her peasant ancestors a frame +and constitution originally very robust. Her head was finely formed, +with a noble and well-balanced arch from brow to crown. The lips and +mouth possessed a power of infinitely varied expression. George Lewes +once said to me when I made some observation to the effect that she +had a sweet face (I meant that the face expressed great sweetness), +"You might say what a sweet hundred faces! I look at her sometimes in +amazement. Her countenance is constantly changing." The said lips and +mouth were distinctly sensuous in form and fulness. + +She has been compared to the portraits of Savonarola (who was +frightful) and of Dante (who though stern and bitter-looking, was +handsome). _Something_ there was of both faces in George Eliot's +physiognomy. Lewes told us in her presence, of the exclamation uttered +suddenly by some one to whom she was pointed out at a place of public +entertainment--I believe it was at a Monday Popular Concert in St. +James's Hall. "That," said a bystander, "is George Eliot." The +gentleman to whom she was thus indicated gave one swift, searching +look and exclaimed _sotto voce_, "Dante's aunt!" Lewes thought this +happy, and he recognised the kind of likeness that was meant to the +great singer of the _Divine Comedy_. She herself playfully disclaimed +any resemblance to Savonarola. But, although such resemblance was very +distant--Savonarola's peculiarly unbalanced countenance being a strong +caricature of hers--some likeness there was. + +Her speaking voice was, I think, one of the most beautiful I ever +heard, and she used it _conscientiously_, if I may say so. I mean that +she availed herself of its modulations to give thrilling emphasis to +what was profound in her utterances, and sweetness to what was gentle +or playful. She bestowed great care too on her enunciation, disliking +the slipshod mode of pronouncing which is so common. I have several +times heard her declare with enthusiasm that ours is a beautiful +language, a noble language even to the ear, when properly spoken; and +imitate with disgust the short, _snappy_, inarticulate way in which +many people utter it. There was no touch of pedantry or affectation in +her own measured, careful speech, although I can well imagine that she +might have been accused of both by those persons--unfortunately more +numerous than could be desired--who seem to take it for granted that +_all_ difference from one's neighbour, and especially a difference in +the direction of superiority, must be affected. + +It has been thought by some persons that the influence of George Henry +Lewes on her literary work was not a fortunate one, that he fostered +too much the scientific bent of her mind to the detriment of its +artistic richness. I do not myself hold this opinion. I am even +inclined to think that but for his companionship and encouragement she +might possibly never have written fiction at all. It is, I believe, +impossible to over-estimate the degree to which the sunshine of +his complete and understanding sympathy and his adoring affection +developed her literary powers. She has written something to this +effect--perhaps more than once; I have not her biography at hand at +this moment for reference--in a letter to Miss Sara Hennell. And no +one who saw them together in anything like intimate intercourse could +doubt that it was true. As I have said before, Lewes worshipped +her, and it is considered a somewhat unwholesome experience to be +worshipped. Fortunately the process is not so common as to constitute +one of the dangers of life for the average human being! But in George +Eliot's case I really believe the process was not deleterious. Her +nature was at once stimulated and steadied by Lewes's boundless faith +in her powers, and boundless admiration for their manifestation. Nor +was it a case of sitting like an idol to be praised and incensed. Her +own mental attitude towards Lewes was one of warm admiration. She +thought most highly of his scientific attainments, whether well +foundedly or mistakenly I cannot pretend to gauge with accuracy. But +she also admired and enjoyed the sparkling brightness of his talk, +and the dramatic vivacity with which he entered into conversation and +discussion, grave or gay. And on these points I may venture to record +my opinion that she was quite right. I always used to think that the +touch of Bohemianism about Lewes had a special charm for her. It must +have offered so piquant a contrast with the middle-class surroundings +of her early life. I observed that she listened with great complacency +to his talk of theatrical things and people. Lewes was fond of +talking about acting and actors, and in telling stories of +celebrated theatrical personages, would imitate--half involuntarily +perhaps--their voice and manner. I remember especially his doing this +with reference to Macready. + +Both of them loved music extremely. It was a curious, and, to me, +rather pathetic study to watch Lewes--a man naturally self-sufficient +(I do not use the word in any odious sense), of a combative turn of +intellect, and with scarcely any diffidence in his nature--so humbly +admitting, and even insisting upon, "Polly's" superiority to himself +in every department. Once when he was walking with my wife in the +garden of their house in Surrey, she turned the conversation which had +been touching other topics to speak of George Eliot. "Oh," said Lewes, +stopping short and looking at her with those bright eyes of his, +"_Your blood be on your own head_! I didn't begin it; but if you wish +to speak of her, _I_ am always ready." It was this complete candour, +and the genuineness of his admiring love for her, which made its +manifestations delightful, and freed them from offence. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +I have a great many letters from G.H. Lewes, and from George Eliot. +Many of the latter are addressed to my wife. And many, especially of +those from Lewes, relating as they do mainly to matters of literary +business, though always containing characteristic touches, are not of +sufficient general interest to make it worth while to transcribe them +for publication. In no case is there any word in any of them that +would make it expedient to withhold them on any other ground. I might +perhaps have introduced them into my narrative as nearly as possible +at the times to which chronologically they refer. But it has seemed to +me so probable that there may be many readers who may be glad of an +opportunity of seeing these letters without feeling disposed to give +their time to the rest of these volumes, that I have thought it best +to throw them together in this place. + +I will begin with one written from Blandford Square, by George Eliot +to me, which is of great interest. It bears no date whatever, save +that of place; but the subject of it dates it with considerable +accuracy. + + * * * * * + +"DEAR MR. TROLLOPE,--I am very grateful to you for your notes. +Concerning _netto di specchio_, I have found a passage in Varchi which +decides the point according to _your_ impression." [Passages equally +decisive might be found _passim_ in the old Florentine historians. +And I ought to have referred her to them. But as she had altogether +mistaken the meaning of the phrase, I had insinuated my correction as +little presumptuously as I could.] + +"My inference had been gathered from the vague use of the term to +express disqualification [_i.e._ NON _netto di specchio_ expressed +disqualification]. But I find from Varchi, b. viii. that the +_specchio_ in question was a public book, in which the names of all +debtors to the _Commune_ were entered. Thus your doubt [no doubt at +all!] has been a very useful caveat to me. + +"Concerning the Bardi, my authority for making them originally +_popolani_ is G. Villani. He says, c. xxxix., '_e gia cominciavano +a venire possenti i Frescobaldi e Bardi e Mozzi_ ma di piccolo +cominciamento.' And c. lxxxi. '_e questi furono le principale case +de Guelfi che uscirono di Firenze. Del Sesto d' Oltr' Arno, i Rossi, +Nerli, e parte de' Manelli, Bardi, e Frescobaldi de' Popoloni dal +detto Sesto_, case nobili _Canigiani_,' &c. These passages corrected +my previous impression that they were originally Lombard nobles. + +[It needs some familiarity with the Florentine chroniclers to +understand that the words quoted by no means indicate that the +families named were not of patrician origin. "There walked into the +lobby with the Radicals, Lord ---- and Mr. ----," would just as much +prove that the persons named had not belonged to the class of +landowners. But the passage is interesting as showing the great care +she took to make her Italian novel historically accurate. And it is to +be remembered that she came to the subject absolutely new to it. She +would have known otherwise, that the _Case_ situated in the Oltr' +Arno quarter, were almost all noble. That ward of the city was the +Florentine _quartier St. Germain_.] + +"Concerning the phrase _in piazza_, and _in mercato_, my choice of +them was partly founded on the colloquial usage as represented by +Sacchetti, whose dialogue is intensely idiomatic. Also _in piazza_ is, +I believe, used by the historians (I think even by Macchiavelli), when +speaking of popular _turn-outs_. The ellipse took my fancy because of +its colloquial stamp. But I gather from your objection that it seems +too barbarous in a modern Italian ear. Will you whisper your final +opinion in Mr. Lewes's ear on Monday? + +[I do not remember what the ellipse in question was. As regards the +use of the phrase _in piazza_ she is perfectly right. The term keeps +the same meaning to the present day, and is equivalent in political +language to _the street_.] + +"_Boto_ was used on similar grounds, and as it is recognised by the +_Voc. della, Crusca_, I think I may venture to keep it, having a +weakness for those indications of the processes by which language is +modified. + +[_Boto_ for _voto_ is a Florentinism which may be heard to the present +day, though the vast majority of strangers would never hear it, or +understand it if they did. George Eliot no doubt met with it in some +of those old chroniclers who wrote exactly as not only the lower +orders, but the generality of their fellow citizens, were speaking +around them. And her use of it testifies to the minuteness of her +care to reproduce the form and pressure of the time of which she was +writing.] + +"Once more thank you, though my gratitude is in danger of looking too +much like a lively sense of anticipated favours, for I mean to ask you +to take other trouble yet. + +"Yours very truly, + +"MARION E. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +The following letter, written from Blandford Square on the 5th July, +1861, is, as regards the first three pages, from him, and the last +from her. + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR TROLLOPE,--We have now read _La Beata_ [my first novel], and +must tell you how charmed we have been with it. _Nina_ herself is +perfectly exquisite and individual, and her story is full of poetry +and pathos. Also one feels a breath from the Val d'Arno rustling amid +the pages, and a sense of Florentine life, such as one rarely gets out +of books. The critical objection I should make to it, apart from minor +points, is that often you spoil the artistic attitude by adopting +a critical antagonistic attitude, by which I mean that instead of +painting the thing objectively, you present it critically, _with an +eye to the opinions_ likely to be formed by certain readers; thus, +instead of relying on the simple presentation of the fact of Nina's +innocence you _call up_ the objection you desire to anticipate by side +glances at the worldly and 'knowing' reader's opinions. In a word +I feel as if you were not engrossed by your subject, but were +sufficiently aloof from it to contemplate it as a spectator, which is +an error in art. Many of the remarks are delicately felt and finely +written. The whole book comes from a noble nature, and so it impresses +the reader. But I may tell you what Mrs. Carlyle said last night, +which will in some sense corroborate what I have said. In her opinion +you would have done better to make two books of it, one the love +story, and one a description of Florentine life. She admires the book +very much I should add. Now, although I cannot by any means agree +with that criticism of hers, I fancy the origin of it was some such +feeling, as I have endeavoured to indicate in saying you are often +critical when you should be simply objective. + +"We had a pleasant journey home over the St. Gothard, and found our +boy very well and happy at Hofwyl, and our bigger boy _ditto_ awaiting +us here. Polly is very well, and as you may imagine talks daily of +Florence and our delightful trip, our closer acquaintance with you and +yours being among the most delightful of our reminiscences. + +"Yesterday Anthony dined with us, and as he had never seen Carlyle he +was glad to go down with us to tea at Chelsea. Carlyle had read and +_agreed_ with the West Indian book, and the two got on very well +together; both Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle liking Anthony, and I suppose +it was reciprocal, though I did not see him afterwards to hear what he +thought. He had to run away to catch his train. + +"He told us of the sad news of Mrs. Browning's death. Poor Browning! +That was my first, and remains my constant reflection. When people +love each other and have lived together any time they ought to die +together. For myself I should not care in the least about dying. The +dreadful thing to me would be to live after losing, if I should ever +lose, the one who has made life for me. Of course you who all knew and +valued her will feel the loss, but I cannot think of anybody's grief +but his. + +"The next page must be left for Polly's postscript, so I shall only +send my kindest regards and wishes to Mrs. Trollope and the biggest of +kisses to _la cantatrice_" [my poor girl Bice!]. + +"Ever faithfully yours, + +"G.H. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +"DEAR MRS. TROLLOPE,--While I am reading _La Beata_ I constantly feel +as if Mr. Trollope were present telling it all to me _vivâ voce_. It +seems to me more thoroughly and fully like himself than any of his +other books. And in spite of our having had the most of his society +away from you" [on our Camaldoli excursion] "you are always part of +his presence to me in a hovering aerial fashion. So it seems quite +natural that a letter addressed to him should have a postscript +addressed to you. Pray reckon it amongst the good you do in this +world, that you come very often into our thoughts and conversation. +We see comparatively so few people that we are apt to recur to +recollections of those we like best with almost childish frequency, +and a little fresh news about you would be a welcome variety, +especially the news that you had quite shaken off that spine +indisposition which was still clinging to you that last morning when +we said our good-byes. We have enough knowledge about you and your +world to interpret all the details you can give us. But our words +about our own home doings would be very vague and colourless to you. +You must always imagine us coming to see you and wanting to know as +much about you as we can, and like a charming hostess gratify that +want. I must thank you for the account of Cavour in _The Athenaeum_, +which stirred me strongly. I am afraid I have what _The Saturday +Review_ would call 'a morbid delight in deathbeds'--not having reached +that lofty superiority which considers it bad taste to allude to them. + +"How is Beatrice, the blessed and blessing? That will always be a +history to interest us--how her brown hair darkens, how her voice +deepens and strengthens, and how you get more and more delight in her. +I need send no separate message to Mr. Trollope, before I say that + +"I am always yours, with lively remembrance, + +"MARION E. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +It needed George Eliot's fine and minute handwriting to put all this +into one page of note-paper. + +The next letter that came from Blandford Square, dated 9th December, +1861, was also a joint one, the larger portion of which however is +from her pen. + + * * * * * + +"DEAR GOOD PEOPLE,--If your ears burn as often as you are talked about +in this house, there must be an unpleasant amount of aural circulation +to endure! And as the constant _refrain_ is, 'Really we must write to +them, that they may not altogether slip away from us,' I have this +morning screwed my procrastination to the writing-desk. + +"First and foremost let us know how you are, and what are the results +of the bathing. Then a word as to the new novel, or any other work, +will be acceptable. I lend about _La Beata_ in all good quarters, and +always hear golden opinions from all sorts of people. Of course you +hear from Anthony. + +"Is he prosperous and enjoying his life? The book will have an enormous +sale just now; but I fancy he will find more animosity and less +friendliness than he expected, to judge from the state of exasperation +against the Britisher, which seems to be general. + +"We have been pursuing the even baritone--I wish I could say tenor--of +our way. My health became seriously alarming in September, so we went +off to Malvern for a fortnight; and there the mountain air, exercise, +and regular diet set me up, so that I have been in better training for +work than I had been for a long while. Polly has not been strong, yet +not materially amiss. But as she will add a postscript to this I shall +leave her to speak for herself. + +"In your (T.A.T.) book huntings, if you could lay your hand on a copy +of Hermolaus Barbarus, _Compendium Scientiae Naturalis_, 1553, or any +of Telesio's works, think of me and pounce on them. I was going to +bother you about the new edition of Galileo, but fortunately I fell in +with the Milan edition cheap, and contented myself with that. Do you +know what there is _new_ in the Florentine edition? I suppose you +possess it, as you do so many enviable books. + +"We heard the other day that Miss Blagden had come to stay in London +for the winter, so Polly sent a message to her to say how glad we +should be to see her. If she comes she will bring us some account of +_casa_ Trollope. When you next pass Giotto's tower salute it for me; +it is one of my dearest Florentines, and always beckoning to us to +come back. + +"Ever your faithful friend, + +"G.H. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +She writes:-- + + * * * * * + +"DEAR FRIENDS,--Writing letters or asking for them is not always the +way to make one's memory agreeable, but you are not among those people +who shudder at letters, since you _did_ say you would like to hear +from us, and let us hear from you occasionally. I have no good news to +tell about myself; but to have my husband back again and enjoying his +work is quite enough happiness to fall to one woman's share in this +world, where the stock of happiness is so moderate and the claimants +so many. He is deep in Aristotle's _Natural Science_ as the first step +in a history of science, which he has for a long while been hoping +that he should be able to write. So you will understand his demand for +brown folios. Indeed, he is beginning to have a slight contempt +for authors sufficiently known to the vulgar to be inserted in +biographical dictionaries. Hermolaus Barbaras is one of those +distinguished by omission in some chief works of that kind; and we +learned to our surprise from a don at Cambridge that _he_ had never +heard the name. Let us hope there is an Olympus for forgotten authors. + +"Our trial of the water cure at Malvern made us think with all the +more emphasis of the possible effect on a too delicate and fragile +friend at Florence." [My wife.] "It really helped to mend George. And +as I hope the Florentine hydropathist may not be a quack as Dr.---- +at Malvern certainly is, I shall be disappointed if there is no good +effect to be traced to 'judicious packing and sitz baths' that you can +tell us of. Did Beatrice enjoy her month's dissipation at Leghorn? And +is the voice prospering? Don't let her quite forget us. We make rather +a feeble attempt at musical Saturday evenings, having a new grand +piano, which stimulates musical desires. But we want a good violin and +violoncello--difficult to be found among amateurs. Having no sunshine +one needs music all the more. It would be difficult for you to imagine +very truthfully what sort of atmosphere we have been living in here in +London for the last month--warm, heavy, dingy grey. I have seen some +sunshine once--in a dream. Do tell us all you can about yourselves. It +seems only the other day that we were shaking you by the hand; and all +details will be lit up as if by your very voice and looks. Say a kind +word for me sometimes to the bright-eyed lady by whose side I sat in +your balcony the evening of the National Fête. At the moment I cannot +recall her name. We are going now to the British Museum to read--a +fearful way of getting knowledge. If I had Aladdin's lamp I should +certainly use it to get books served up to me at a moment's notice. +It may be better to search for truth than to have it at hand without +seeking, but with books I should take the other alternative. + +"Ever yours, + +"M.E. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +The lady in the balcony spoken of in the above letter was Signora +Mignaty, the niece of Sir Frederick Adam, whom I had known long years +previously in Rome, and who had married Signor Mignaty, a Greek +artist, and was (and is) living in Florence. She was, in fact, the +niece of the Greek lady Sir Frederick married. I remember her aunt, a +very beautiful woman. The niece, Signorina Margherita Albani as she +was when I first knew her at eighteen years old in Rome, inherited so +much of the beauty of her race that the Roman artists were constantly +imploring her to sit for them. She has made herself known in the +literary world by several works, especially by a recent book on +Correggio, his life and works, published in French. + +The next letter from Lewes, written from Blandford Square on the 2nd +June, without date of year, but probably 1863, is of more interest to +myself than to the public. But I may perhaps be permitted to indulge +my vanity by publishing it as a testimony that his previous praise +of what I had written was genuine, and not merely the laudatory +compliments of a correspondent. + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR TROLLOPE,--Enclosed is the proof you were good enough to say +you would correct. When am I to return the compliment? + +"I have finished _Marietta_. Its picture of Italian life is extremely +vivid and interesting, but it is a long way behind _La Beata_ in +interest of story. I have just finished one volume of Anthony's +_America_, and am immensely pleased with it--so much so that I hope to +do something towards counteracting the nasty notice in the _Saturday_. + +"Ever yours faithfully, + +"G.H. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +The next letter is from Lewes, dated "The Priory, North Bank, Regent's +Park, 20th March, 1864."-- + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR TROLLOPE,--My eldest boy, who spends his honeymoon in +Florence (is not that sugaring jam tart?), brings you this greeting +from your silent but affectionate friends. Tell him all particulars +about yourselves, and he will transmit them in his letters to us. +First and foremost about the health of your wife, and how this bitter +winter has treated her. Next about Bice, and then about yourself. + +"We rejoice in the prospect of your _History of Florence_, and I am +casting about, hoping to find somebody to review it worthily for the +_Fortnightly Review_. By the way, would not you or your wife help me +there also! Propose your subjects! + +"I hope you will like our daughter. She is a noble creature; and +Charles is a lucky dog (his father's luck) to get such a wife. + +"We have been and are in a poor state of health, but manage to +scramble on. Charles will tell you all there is to tell. With our love +to your dear wife and Bice, + +"Believe me, ever faithfully yours, + +"G.H. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +Shortly after receiving this my wife had a letter from George Eliot, +from Venice, dated 15th May, 1864. She writes from the "Hôtel de +Ville." + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR MRS. TROLLOPE,--I wonder whether you are likely to be at Lake +Como next month, or at any other place that we could take on our way +to the Alps. It would make the prospect of our journey homeward much +pleasanter if we could count on seeing you for a few hours; and I will +not believe that you will think me troublesome if I send the question +to you. I am rather discontented with destiny that she has not let us +see anything of you for nearly three years. And I hope you too will +not be sorry to take me by the hand again. + +"My ground for supposing it not unlikely that you will be at one of +the lakes, is the report I heard from Mr. Pigott, that such a plan was +hovering in your mind. My chief fear is that our return, which is not +likely at the latest to be later than the middle of June, may be too +early for us to find you. We reached Venice three days ago, after a +short stay at Milan, and have the delight of finding everything more +beautiful than it was to us four years ago. That is a satisfactory +experience to us, who are getting old, and are afraid of the +traditional loss of glory on the grass and all else, with which +melancholy poets threaten us. + +"Mr. Lewes says I am to say the sweetest things that can be said with +propriety to you, and love to Bice, to whose memory he appeals, in +spite of all the friends she has made since he had the last kiss from +her. + +"I too have love to send to Bice, whom I expect to see changed like +a lily-bud to something more definitely promising. Mr. Trollope, +I suppose, is in England by this time, else I should say all +affectionate regards from us both to him. I am writing under +difficulties. + +"Ever, dear Mrs. Trollope, + +"Very sincerely yours, + +"M.E. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +Here is another from Lewes, which the post-mark only shows to have +been written in 1865:-- + + * * * * * + +"DEAR TROLLOPE,--Thank Signor ---- for the offer of his paper, and +express to him my regret that in the present crowded state of the +_Review_ I cannot find a place for it. Don't you however run away with +the idea that I don t want _your_ contributions on the same ground! +The fact is ----'s paper is too wordy and heavy and not of sufficient +interest for our publication; and as I have a great many well on hand, +I am forced to be particular. Originally my fear was lest we should +not get contributors enough. That fear has long vanished. But _good_ +contributions are always scarce; so don't you fail me! + +"We have been at Tunbridge Wells for a fortnight's holiday. I was +forced to 'cave in,' as the Yankees say--regularly beat. I am not very +flourishing now, but I can go into harness again. Polly has been, +and alas! still is, anything but in a satisfactory state. But she is +gestating, and gestation with her is always perturbing. I wish the +book were done with all my heart. + +"I don't think I ever told you how very much your _History of +Florence_ interested me. I am shockingly ignorant of the subject, and +not at all competent to speak, except as one of the public; but you +made the political life of the people clear to me. I only regretted +here and there a newspaper style which was not historic. Oscar +Browning has sent me his review, but I have not read it yet. It is at +the printers. Polly sends her love. + +"Ever faithfully yours, + +"G.H.L." + + * * * * * + +He writes again, dating his letter 1st January, 1866, but post-marked +1865. It is singular, that the date as given by the writer, 1866, must +have been right, and that given by the post-mark, 1865, wrong. And +the fact may possibly some day be useful to some counsel having to +struggle against the evidence of a post-mark. The letter commences:-- + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR TROLLOPE,--A happy new year to you and Bice! + +[It is quite impossible that Lewes could have so written, while my +wife, Theodosia, so great a favourite with both him and his wife, and +so constantly inquired for tenderly by them, was yet alive. I lost +her on the 13th of April, 1865. It is certain therefore, that Lewes's +letter was written in 1866, and not as the post-mark declares in 1865. +After speaking of some literary business matters, the letter goes +on:--] + +"And when am I to receive those articles from you, which you +projected? I suppose other work keeps you ever on the stretch. But so +active a man must needs 'fulfil himself in many ways.' + +"We have been ailing constantly without being ill, but our work gets +on somehow or other. Polly is miserable over a new novel, and I am +happy over the very hard work of a new edition of my _History of +Philosophy_, which will almost be a new book, so great are the changes +and additions. Polly sends her love to you and Bice. + +"Yours very faithfully, + +"G.H. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +Then after a long break, and after a new phase of my life had +commenced, Lewes writes on the 14th of January, 1869, from "21, North +Bank":-- + + * * * * * + +"DEAR T.T.,--We did not meet in Germany because our plans were +altogether changed. We passed all the time in the Black Forest, and +came home through the Oberland. I did write to Salzburg however, and +perhaps the letter is still there; but there was nothing in it. + +"You know how fond we are of you, and the pleasure it always gives +us to get a glimpse of you. (Not that we have not also very pleasant +associations with your wife,[1] but she is as yet stranger to us of +course.) But we went away in search of complete repose. And in the +Black Forest there was not a soul to speak to, and we liked it so much +as to stay on there. + +[Footnote 1: I had married my second wife on the 29th of October, +1866.] + +"We contemplate moving southwards in the spring, and if we go to Italy +and come _near_ Florence, we shall assuredly make a _détour_ and come +and see you. Polly wants to see Arezzo and Perugia. And I suppose we +can still get a _vetturino_ to take us that way to Rome? Don't want +railways, if to be avoided. I don't think we can get away before +March, for my researches are so absorbing, that, if health holds out, +I must go on, if not, we shall pack up earlier. The worst of Lent is +that one gets no theatres, and precisely because we never go to the +theatre in London, we hugely enjoy it abroad. Yesterday we took the +child of a friend of ours to a morning performance of the pantomime, +and are utterly knocked up in consequence. Somehow or other abroad the +theatre agrees with us. Polly sends the kindest remembrances to you +and your wife. Whenever you want anything done in London, consider me +an idle man. + +"Ever yours faithfully, + +"G.H. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +And on the 28th February, in the same year, accordingly he writes:-- + + * * * * * + +"Touching our visit to Florence, you may be sure we could not lightly +forego such a pleasure. We start to-morrow, and unless we are recalled +by my mother's health, we calculate being with you about the end of +March. But we shall give due warning of our arrival. We both look +forward to this holiday, and 'languish for the purple seas;' though +the high winds now howl a threat of anything but a pleasant crossing +to Calais. _Che! Che!_ One must pay for one's pleasure! With both of +our warmest salutations to you and yours, + +"Believe me, yours faithfully, + +"G.H. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +The travellers must, however, have reached us some days before the end +of March, for I have a letter to my wife from George Eliot, dated +from Naples on the 1st of April, 1869, after they had left us. She +writes:-- + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR MRS. TROLLOPE,--The kindness which induces you to shelter +travellers will make you willing to hear something of their subsequent +fate. And I am the more inclined to send you some news of ourselves +because I have nothing dismal to tell. We bore our long journey better +than we dared to expect, for the night was made short by sleep in +our large coupé, and during the day we had no more than one headache +between us. Mr. Lewes really looks better, and has lost his twinges. +And though pleasure-seekers are notoriously the most aggrieved and +howling inhabitants of the universe, we can allege nothing against +our lot here but the persistent coldness of the wind, which is in +dangerously sudden contrast with the warmth of the sunshine whenever +one gets on the wrong side of a wall. This prevents us from +undertaking any carriage expeditions, which is rather unfortunate, +because such expeditions are among the chief charms of Naples. We have +not been able to renew our old memories of that sort at all, except by +a railway journey to Pompeii; and our days are spent in the museum +and in the sunniest out-of-door spots. We have been twice to the San +Carlo, which we were the more pleased to do, because when we were here +before, that fine theatre was closed. The singing is so-so, and the +tenor especially is gifted with limbs rather than with voice or +ear. But there is a baritone worth hearing and a soprano, whom the +Neapolitans delight to honour with hideous sounds of applause. + +"We are longing for a soft wind, which will allow us to take the long +drive to Baiae during one of our remaining days here. At present we +think of leaving for Rome on Sunday or Monday. But our departure will +probably be determined by an answer from the landlord of the Hôtel +de Minerva, to whom Mr. Lewes has written. We have very comfortable +quarters here, out of the way of that English and American society, +whose charms you can imagine. Our private dinner is well served; and I +am glad to be away from the Chiaja, except--the exception is a great +one--for the sake of the sunsets which I should have seen there. + +"Mr. Lewes has found a book by an Italian named Franchi, formerly a +priest, on the present condition of philosophy in Italy. He emerges +from its depths--or shallows--to send his best remembrances; and to +Bice he begs especially to recommend Plantation Bitters. + +"I usually think all the more of things and places the farther I get +from them, and, on that ground, you will understand that at Naples +I think of Florence, and the kindness I found there under my small +miseries. Pray offer my kind regards to Miss Blagden when you see +her, and tell her that I hope to shake hands with her in London this +spring. + +"We shall obey Mr. Trollope's injunctions to write again from Perugia +or elsewhere, according to our route homeward. But pray warn him, that +when my throat is not sore, and my head not stagnant, I am a much +fiercer antagonist. It is perhaps a delight to one's egoism to have a +friend who is among the best of men with the worst of theories. One +can be at once affectionate and spit-fire. Pray remember me with +indulgence, all of you, and believe, dear Mrs. Trollope, + +"Most truly yours, + +"M.E. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +It will be seen from the above that George Eliot had very quickly +fraternised--what is the feminine form?--with my second wife, as I, +without any misgivings, foresaw would be the case. Indeed subsequent +circumstances allowed a greater degree of intimacy to grow up +between them than had been possible in the case of my Bice's mother, +restricted as her intercourse with the latter had been by failing +health, and the comparative fewness of the hours they had passed +together. Neither she nor Lewes had ever passed a night under my roof +until I received them in the villa at Ricorboli, where I lived with my +second wife. + +What was the subject of the "antagonism" to which the above letter +alludes, I have entirely forgotten. In all probability we differed on +some subject of politics,[1] by reason of the then rapidly maturing +Conservatism which my outlook ahead forced upon me. Nevertheless it +would seem from some words in a letter written to me by Lewes in the +November of 1869, that my political heresies were not deemed +deeply damning. There was a question of my undertaking the foreign +correspondence of a London paper, which came to nothing till some four +years later, under other circumstances; and with reference to that +project he writes:-- + +[Footnote 1: My wife, on reading this passage, tells me that according +to her recollection the differences in question had no reference to +politics at all, but to matters of higher interest relating to man's +ultimate destinies.] + + * * * * * + +"Polly and I were immensely pleased at the prospect for you. She +was rejoiced that you should once more be giving yourself to public +affairs, which you so well understand.... We are but just come back +from the solitudes of a farm-house in Surrey, whither I took Polly +immediately after our loss [of his son], of which I suppose Anthony +told you. It had shaken her seriously. She had lavished almost a +mother's love on the dear boy, and suffered a mother's grief in the +bereavement. He died in her arms; and for a long while it seemed as if +she could never get over the pain. But now she is calm again, though +very sad. But she will get to work, and _that_ will aid her. + +"For me, I was as fully prepared (by three or four months' conviction +of its inevitableness) as one can be in such cases. It is always +sudden, however foreseen. Yet the preparation was of great use; and +I now have only a beautiful image living with me, and a deep +thankfulness that his sufferings are at an end, since recovery was +impossible. + +"Give my love to your wife and Bice, and believe ever in yours +faithfully, + +"G.H. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +The following highly interesting letter was written to my wife by +Mrs. Lewes, about a year after his death. It is dated "The Priory, 19 +December, 1879":-- + + * * * * * + +"DEAR MRS. TROLLOPE,--In sending me Dr. Haller's words you have sent +me a great comfort. A just appreciation of my husband's work from a +competent person is what I am most athirst for; and Dr. Haller has +put his finger on a true characteristic. I only wish he could print +something to the same effect in any pages that would be generally +read. + +"There is no biography. An article entitled 'George Henry Lewes' +appeared in the last _New London Quarterly_. It was written by a man +for whom he had much esteem; but it is not strong. A few facts about +the early life and education are given with tolerable accuracy, but +the estimate of the philosophic and scientific activity is inadequate. +Still it is the best thing you could mention to Dr. Haller. You know +perhaps that a volume entitled _The Study of Psychology_ appeared in +May last, and that another volume (500 pp.) of _Problems of Life +and Mind_ has just been published. The best history of a writer is +contained in his writings; these are his chief actions. If he happens +to have left an autobiography telling (what nobody else can tell) how +his mind grew, how it was determined by the joys, sorrows, and other +influences of childhood and youth--that is a precious contribution +to knowledge. But biographies generally are a disease of English +literature. + +"I have never yet told you how grateful I was to you for writing to me +a year ago. For a long while I could read no letter. But now I have +read yours more than once, and it is carefully preserved. You had been +with us in our happiness so near the time when it left me--you and +your husband are peculiarly bound up with the latest memories. + +"You must have had a mournful summer. But Mr. Trollope's thorough +recovery from his severe attack is a fresh proof of his constitutional +strength. We cannot properly count age by years. See what Mr. +Gladstone does with seventy of them in his frame. And my lost one had +but sixty-one and a half. + +"You are to come to England again in 1881, I remember, and then, if I +am alive, I hope to see you. With best love to you both, always, dear +Mrs. Trollope, + +"Yours faithfully, + +"M.E. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +The "words of Dr. Haller," to which the above letter refers, were to +the effect that one of Lewes's great advantages in scientific and +philosophical research was his familiar acquaintance with the works +of German and French writers, which enabled him to follow the +contemporaneous movement of science throughout Europe, whereas many +writers of learning and ability wasted their own and their readers' +time in investigating questions already fully investigated elsewhere, +and advancing theories which had been previously proved or disproved +without their knowledge. Dr. Ludwig Haller, of Berlin, in writing to +me about G.H. Lewes, then recently deceased, had said, if I remember +rightly, that he had some intention of publishing a sketch of Lewes in +some German periodical. I am not aware whether this intention was ever +carried into effect. + +The attack to which the above letter alludes was a very bad one +of sciatica. At length the baths of Baden in Switzerland cured me +permanently, but after their--it is said ordinary and normal, but very +perverse--fashion, having first made me incomparably worse. I suffered +excruciatingly, consolingly (!) assured by the doctor that sciatica +never kills--only makes you wish that it would! While I was at the +worst my brother came to Baden to see me, and on leaving me after +a couple of days, wrote to my wife the following letter, which I +confiscated and keep as a memorial. + +After expressing his commiseration for me, he continues:-- + +"For you, I cannot tell you the admiration I have for you. Your +affection and care and assiduity were to be expected. I knew you well +enough to take them as a matter of course from you to him. But your +mental and physical capacity, your power of sustaining him by your +own cheerfulness, and supporting him by your own attention, are +marvellous. When I consider all the circumstances I hardly know how to +reconcile so much love with so much self-control." + +Every word true! And what he saw for a few hours in each of a couple +of days, I saw every hour of the day and night for four terrible +months! + +But all this is a parenthesis into which I have been led, I hope +excusably, by Mrs. Lewes's mention of my illness. + +N.B.--I said at an early page of these recollections that I had never +been confined to my bed by illness for a single day during more than +sixty years. The above-mentioned illness leaves the statement still +true. The sciatica was bad, but never kept me in bed. Indeed I was +perhaps in less torment out of it. + +Here is the last letter of George Eliot's which reached us. It is +written by Mrs. Lewes to my wife, from "The Priory, 30 December, +1879":-- + + * * * * * + +"DEAR MRS. TROLLOPE,--I inclose the best photograph within my reach. +To me all portraits of him are objectionable, because I see him more +vividly and truly without them. But I think this is the most like what +he was as you knew him. I have sent your anecdote about the boy to Mr. +Du Maurier, whom it will suit exactly. I asked Charles Lewes to copy +it from your letter with your own pretty words of introduction. + +"Yours affectionately, + +"M.E. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +It is pretty well too late in the day for me to lament the loss of old +friends. They have been well-nigh some time past all gone. I have +been exceptionally fortunate in an aftermath belonging to a younger +generation. But they too are dropping around me! And few losses from +this second crop have left a more regretted void than George Henry +Lewes and his wife. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +I have thought that it might be more convenient to the reader to have +the letters contained in the foregoing chapter all together, and have +not interrupted them therefore to speak of any of the events which +were meantime happening in my own life. + +But during the period which the letters cover the two greatest sorrows +of my life had fallen upon me--I had lost first my mother, then my +wife. + +The bereavement, however, was very different in the two cases. If my +mother had died a dozen years earlier I should have felt the loss as +the end of all things to me--as leaving me desolate and causing a void +which nothing could ever fill. But when she died at eighty-three she +had lived her life, upon the whole a very happy one, to the happiness +of which I had (and have) the satisfaction of believing I largely +contributed. + +It is very common for a mother and daughter to live during many years +of life together in as close companionship as I lived with my mother, +but it is not common for a son to do so. During many years, and many, +many journeyings, and more _tête-à-tête_ walks, and yet more of +_tête-à-tête_ home hours, we were inseparable companions and friends. +I can truly say that, from the time when we put our horses together on +my return from Birmingham to the time of my marriage, she was all in +all to me! During some four or five days in the early time of our +residence at Florence I thought I was going to lose her, and I can +never forget the blank wretchedness of the prospect that seemed to be +before me. + +She had a very serious illness, and was, as I had subsequently +reason to believe, very mistakenly treated. She was attended by a +practitioner of the old school, who had at that time the leading +practice in Florence. He was a very good fellow, and an admirable +whist player; and I do not think the members of our little colony +drew a sufficiently sharp line of division between his social and his +professional qualifications. He was, as I have said, essentially a man +of the (even then) old school, and retained the old-fashioned general +practitioners phraseology. I remember his once mortally disgusting an +unhappy dyspeptic old lady by asking her, "Do we go to our dinner with +glee?" As if the poor soul had ever done anything with glee! + +This gentleman had bled my mother, and had appointed another bleeding +for the evening. I believe she would assuredly have died if that had +been done, and I attribute to Lord Holland the saving of her. Her +doctor had very wrongly resisted the calling in of other English +advice, professional jealousy, and indeed enmity, running high just +then among us. Lord Holland came to the house just in the nick of +time; and over-ruling authoritatively all the difficulties raised by +the Esculapius in possession of the field, insisted on at once sending +his own medical attendant. The result was the immediate administration +of port wine instead of phlebotomy, and the patient's rapid recovery. + +My mother was at the time far past taking any part in the discussion +of the medical measures to be adopted in her case. But I am not +without a suspicion that she too, if she could have been consulted, +would have sided with phlebotomy and whist, as against modern practice +unrelieved by any such alleviation. For the phlebotomist had been a +constant attendant at her Friday night whist-table; and as it was she +lost him, for he naturally was offended at her recovery under rival +hands. + +What my mother _was_ I have already said enough to show, as far as +my imperfect words can show it, in divers passages of these +reminiscences. She was the happiest natured person I ever knew--happy +in the intense power of enjoyment, happier still in the conscious +exercise of the power of making others happy; and this continued to +be the case till nearly the end. During the last few years the bright +lamp began to grow dim and gradually sink into the socket. She +suffered but little physically, but she lost her memory, and then +gradually more and more the powers of her mind generally. I have often +thought that this perishing of the mind before the exceptionally +healthy and well-constituted physical frame, in which it was housed, +may have been due to the tremendous strain to which she was subjected +during those terrible months at Bruges, when she was watching the +dying bed of a much-loved son during the day, and, dieted on green tea +and laudanum, was writing fiction most part of the night. The cause, +if such were the case, would have preceded the effect by some forty +years; but whether it is on the cards to suppose that such an effect +may have been produced after such a length of time, I have not +physiological knowledge enough to tell. + +She was, I think, to an exceptional degree surrounded by very many +friends, mostly women, but including many men, at every period of her +life. But the circumstances of it caused the world of her intimates +during her youth, her middle life, and her old age, to be to a great +degree peopled by different figures. + +She was during all her life full of, and fond of, fun; had an +exquisite sense of humour; and at all times valued her friends and +acquaintances more exclusively, I think, than most people do, for +their intrinsic qualities, mainly those of heart, and, not so much +perhaps intellect, accurately speaking, as brightness. There is a +passage in my brother's _Autobiography_ which grates upon my mind, +and, I think, very signally fails to hit the mark. + +He writes (vol. i. p. 28):--"She loved society, affecting a somewhat +Liberal _rôle_, and professing an emotional dislike to tyrants, which +sprung from the wrongs of would-be regicides and the poverty of +patriot exiles. An Italian marquis who had escaped with only a second +shirt from the clutches of some archduke whom he had wished to +exterminate, or a French _prolétaire_ with distant ideas of +sacrificing himself to the cause of liberty, were always welcome to +the modest hospitality of her house. In after years, when marquises of +another caste had been gracious to her, she became a strong Tory, and +thought that archduchesses were sweet. But with her, politics were +always an affair of the heart, as indeed were all her convictions. Of +reasoning from causes I think that she knew nothing." + +Now there is hardly a word of this in which Anthony is not more +or less mistaken; and that simply because he had not adequate +opportunities for close observation. The affection which subsisted +between my mother and my brother Anthony was from the beginning to the +end of their lives as tender and as warm as ever existed between a +mother and son. Indeed I remember that in the old days of our youth +we used to consider Anthony the Benjamin. But from the time that he +became a clerk in the Post Office to her death, he and my mother were +never together but as visitors during the limited period of a visit. +From the time that I resigned my position at Birmingham to the time +of her death, I was uninterruptedly an inmate of her house, or she of +mine. And I think that I knew her, as few sons know their mothers. + +No regicide, would-be or other, ever darkened her doors. No French +_prolétaire_, or other French political refugee was ever among her +guests. She never was acquainted with any Italian marquis who had +escaped in any degree of distress from poverty. With General Pepe she +was intimate for years. But of him the world knows enough to perceive +that my brother cannot have alluded to him. And I recollect no other +marquis. It is very true that in the old Keppel Street and Harrow days +several Italian exiles, and I think some Spaniards, used to be her +occasional guests. This had come to pass by means of her intimacy with +Lady Dyer, the wife and subsequently widow of Sir Thomas Dyer, whose +years of foreign service had interested him and her in many such +persons. The friends of her friend were her friends. They were not +such by virtue of their political position and ideas. Though it is no +doubt true, that caring little about politics, and in a jesting way +(how jesting many a memorial of fun between her and Lady Dyer, and +Miss Gabell, the daughter of Dr. Gabell of Winchester, is still extant +in my hands to prove;) the general tone of the house was "Liberal." +But nothing can be farther from the truth than the idea that my mother +was led to become a Tory by the "graciousness" of any "marquises" or +great folks of any kind. I am inclined to think that there was _one_ +great personage, whose (not graciousness, but) intellectual influence +_did_ impel her mind in a Conservative direction. And this was +Metternich. She had more talk with him than her book on Vienna would +lead a reader to suppose; and very far more of his mind and influence +reached her through the medium of the Princess. + +To how great a degree this is likely to have been the case may be in +some measure perceived from a letter which the Princess addressed to +my mother shortly after she had left Vienna. She preserved it among a +few others, which she specially valued, and I transcribe it from the +original now before me. + + * * * * * + +"Vous ne pourriez croire, chère Madame Trollope, combien le portrait +que vous avez chargé le Baron Hügel de me remettre m'a fait de +plaisir! + +"Il y a longtemps que je cachais au fonds de mon coeur le désir de +posséder votre portrait, qui, interressant pour le monde, est devenu +précieux pour moi, puisque j'ai le plaisir de vous connaître telle +que vous êtes, bonne, simple, bienveillante, et loin de tout ce qui +effroie et eloigne des reputations litéraires. Je remercie M. Hervieu +de Tavoir fait aussi ressemblant. Et je vous assure, chère Madame +Trollope, que rien ne pouvait me toucher aussi vivement et me faire +autant de plaisir que ce souvenir venant de vous, qui me rappelera +sans cesse les bons moments que j'ai eu la satisfaction de passer avec +vous et qui resteront à jamais chères à ma mémoire. + +"MELANIE, PRINCESSE DE METTERNICH." + + * * * * * + +I think that the hours passed by the Princess and my mother +_tête-à-tête_, save for the presence of the artist occupied by his +work during the painting of the Princess Melanie's portrait for +my mother, were mainly the cause of the real intimacy of mind and +affection which grew up between them--though, of course, the painting +of the portrait shows that a considerable intimacy had previously +arisen. And it had been arranged that the portrait of my mother, which +was the occasion of the above letter, should be exchanged for that of +the Princess. But there had been no time amid the whirl of the Vienna +gaieties to get it executed. It was, therefore, sent from England by +Baron Hügel when he called on my mother, on visiting this country +shortly after her return from Austria. + +It occurs to me here to mention a circumstance which was, I think, +the first thing to begin--not the acquaintance but--the intimacy in +question; and which may be related as possessing an interest not +confined to either of the ladies in question. + +The Archduchess Sophie had graciously intimated her desire that my +mother should be presented to her, and an evening had been named +for the purpose. But a few days before--just three, if I remember +rightly--my mother caught a cold, which resulted in erysipelas, +causing her head to become swollen to nearly double its usual size! +Great was the dismay of the ladies who had arranged the meeting with +the Archduchess, chief among whom had been the Princess Melanie. +She came to my mother, and insisted upon sending to her an old +homoeopathic physician, who was her own medical attendant, and had +been Hahnemann's favourite pupil. He came, saw his patient, and +was told that what he had to do was to make her presentable by the +following Friday! He shook his head, said the time was too short--but +he would do his best. And the desired object was _fully_ attained. + +I have no doubt that my mother returned from her Vienna visit a more +strongly convinced Conservative in politics than she had hitherto +been. And it does not seem to me that the modification of her +opinions in that direction, which was doubtless largely operated by +conversation with the great Conservative statesman and his _alter +ego_, the Princess, needs to be in any degree attributed to the +"graciousness" of people in high position either male or female. Is +it not very intelligible and very likely that such opinions, so set +forth, as she from day to day heard them, should have honestly and +legitimately influenced her own? + +But I think that I should be speaking, if perhaps presumptuously, yet +truly, if I were to add that there was also one very far from great +personage, whose influence in the same direction was greater than even +that of Prince Metternich or of any other great folks whatever; and +that was the son in daily and almost hourly communion and conversation +with whom she lived. I also had begun life as a "Liberal," and was +such in the days when Mr. Gladstone was a high Tory. But my mind had +long been travelling in an inverse direction to his. And far too large +a number of my contemporaries distinguished and undistinguished have +been moving in the same direction for it to be at all necessary to +say that most assuredly my slowly maturing convictions were neither +generated nor fostered by any "graciousness" or other influence of +dukes or duchesses or great people of any sort. + +That my mother's political ideas were in no degree "an affair of the +heart," I will not say, and by no means regret not being able to say. +But I cannot but assert that it is a great mistake to say that they +were uninfluenced by "reasoning from causes," or that the movement +of her mind in this respect was in any degree whatever due to the +caresses which my brother imagines to have caused it. + +She was not a great or careful preserver of papers and letters, or +I might have been able to print here very many communications from +persons in whom the world feels an interest. Among her early and very +dear friends was Mary Mitford. + +I have a very vivid remembrance of the appearance of Mary Russell +Mitford as I used to see her on the occasions of my visits to Reading, +where my grandfather's second wife and then widow was residing. She +was not corpulent, but her figure gave one the idea of almost cubical +solidity. She had a round and red full moon sort of face, from the +ample forehead above which the hair was all dragged back and stowed +away under a small and close-fitting cap, which surrounding her face +increased the effect of full-blown rotundity. But the grey eye and +even the little snub nose were full of drollery and humour, and the +lines about the generally somewhat closely shut mouth indicated +unmistakable intellectual power. There is a singular resemblance +between her handwriting and that of my mother. Very numerous letters +must have passed between them. But of all these I have been able to +find but four. + +On the 3rd of April, 1832, she writes from the "Three Mile Cross," so +familiar to many readers, as follows:-- + + * * * * * + +"My dear Mrs. Trollope,--I thank you most sincerely for your very +delightful book, as well as for its great kindness towards me; and I +wish you joy from the bottom of my heart of the splendid success which +has not merely attended but awaited its career--a happy and I trust +certain augury of your literary good fortune in every line which you +may pursue. I assure you that my political prejudices are by no +means shocked at your dislike of Republicanism. I was always a very +aristocratic Whig, and since these reforming days am well-nigh become +a staunch Tory, for pretty nearly the same reason that converted +you--a dislike to mobs in action.... Refinement follows wealth, +but not often closely, as witness the parvenu people even in dear +England.... I heard of your plunge into the Backwoods first from Mr. +Owen himself, with whom I foregathered three years ago in London, +and of whom you have given so very true and graphic a picture. What +extraordinary mildness and plausibility that man possesses! I +never before saw an instance of actual wildness--madness of theory +accompanied by such suavity and soberness of manner. Did you see my +friend, Miss Sedgwick? Her letters show a large and amiable mind, and +a little niece of nine years old, who generally writes in them, has +a style very unusual in so young a girl, and yet most youthful and +natural too.... Can you tell me if Mr. Flint be the author of _George +Mason, or the Young Backwoodsman_? I think that he is; and whether +the name of a young satirical writer be Sams or Sands? Your answering +these questions will stead me much, and I am sure that you will answer +them if you can. + +"Now to your kind questions. I am getting ready a fifth and last +volume of _Our Village_ as fast as I can, though with pain and +difficulty, having hurt my left hand so much by a fall from an +open carriage that it affects the right, and makes writing very +uncomfortable to me. And I am in a most perplexed state about my +opera, not knowing whether it will be produced this season or not, in +consequence of Captain Polhill and his singers having parted. This +would not have happened had my coadjutor the composer kept to his +time. And I have still hopes that when the opera be [shall, omitted +probably] taken in (the music is even now not finished), a sense of +interest will bring the parties together again. I hope that it may, +for it will not only be a tremendous hit for all of us, but it will +take me to London and give me the pleasure of a peep at you, a +happiness to which I look forward very anxiously. I know Mr. Tom, and +like him of all things, as everybody who knows him must, and I hear +that his sisters are charming. God bless you, my dear friend. My +father joins me in every good wish, and + +"I am ever most affectionately yours, + +"M.R. MITFORD." + + * * * * * + +A few weeks later she writes a very long letter almost entirely filled +with a discussion of the desirability or non-desirability of writing +in this, that, and the other "annual" or magazine. Most of those she +alludes to are dead, and there is no interest in preserving her mainly +unfavourable remarks concerning them and their editors and publishers. +One sentence, however, is so singularly and amusingly suggestive +of change in men and women and things, that I must give it. After +reviewing a great number of the leading monthlies she says "as for +Fraser's and Blackwood's, they are hardly such as a lady likes to +write for"! + +After advising my mother to stick to writing novels, she says, "I have +not a doubt that that is by far the most profitable branch of the +literary profession. If ever I be bold enough to try that arduous +path, I shall endeavour to come as near as I can to Miss Austen, my +idol. You are very good about my opera. I am sorry to tell you, and +you will be sorry to hear, that the composer has disappointed me, +that the music is not even yet ready, and that the piece is therefore +necessarily delayed till next season. I am very sorry for this on +account of the money, and because I have many friends in and near +town, yourself amongst the rest, whom I was desirous to see. But +I suppose it will be for the good of the opera to wait till the +beginning of a season. It is to be produced with extraordinary +splendour, and will, I think, be a tremendous hit. I hope also to have +a tragedy out at nearly the same time in the autumn, and _then_ I +trust we shall meet, and I shall see your dear girls. + +"How glad I am to find that you partake of my great aversion to the +sort of puffery belonging to literature. I hate it! and always did, +and love you all the better for partaking of my feeling on the +subject. I believe that with me it is pride that revolts at the trash. +And then it is so false; the people are so clearly flattering to be +flattered. Oh, I hate it!!! + +"Make my kindest regards [_sic_] and accept my father's. + +"Ever most faithfully and affectionately yours, + +"M.R. MITFORD. + +"P.S.--I suppose my book will be out in about a month. I shall desire +Whittaker to send you a copy. It is the fifth and last volume." + + * * * * * + +The following interesting letter, franked by her friend Talfourd, and +shown only by the post-mark to have been posted on the 20th of June, +1836, is apparently only part of a letter, for it is written upon one +page, and the two "turnovers" only; and begins abruptly:-- + + * * * * * + +"My being in London this year seems very uncertain, although if Mr. +Sergeant Talfourd's _Ion_ be played, as I believe it will, for Mr. +Macready's benefit, I shall hardly be able to resist the temptation of +going up for a very few days to be present upon that occasion. But +I scarcely ever stir. I am not strong, and am subject to a painful +complaint, which renders the service of a maid indispensable not only +to my comfort but to my health; and that, besides the expense, has an +appearance of fuss and finery, to which I have a great objection, and +to which indeed I have from station no claim. My father, too, hates to +be left even for a day. And splendid old man as he is in his healthful +and vigorous age, I cannot but recollect that he is seventy-five, and +that he is my only tie upon earth--the only relation (except, indeed, +a few very distant cousins, Russells, Greys, Ogles, and Deans, whom I +am too proud and too poor to hook on upon), my only relation in the +wide world. This is a desolate view of things; but it explains a +degree of clinging to that one most precious parent which people can +hardly comprehend. You can scarcely imagine how fine an old man he is; +how clear of head and warm of heart. He almost wept over your letter +to-day, and reads your book with singular delight and satisfaction, +in spite of the difference in politics. He feels strongly, and so, I +assure you, do I, your kind mention of me and my poor writings--a sort +of testimony always gratifying, but doubly so when the distinguished +writer is a dear friend. Even in this desolation, your success--that +of your last work [_Paris and the Parisians_] especially must be +satisfactory to you. I have no doubt that two volumes on Italy will +prove equally delightful to your readers, whilst the journey will be +the best possible remedy for all that you have suffered in spirits and +health. + +"I am attempting a novel, for which Messieurs Saunders and Ottley have +agreed to give 700_l_. It is to be ready some time in September--I +mean the MS.--and I am most anxious upon every account to make it as +good as possible, one very great reason being the fair, candid, and +liberal conduct of the intended publishers. I shall do my very best. +Shall I, do you think, succeed? I take for granted that our loss is +your gain, and that you see Mr. Milman and his charming wife, who +will, I am sure, sympathise most sincerely in your present[1] +affliction. + +[Footnote 1: Mr. Milman had resigned recently the incumbency of a +parish in Reading. My mother's affliction alluded to was the death of +her youngest daughter, Emily.] + +"Adieu, my dear friend. I am tying myself up from letter-writing until +I have finished my novel. While I cannot but hope for one line from +you to say that you are recovering. Letters to me may always be +inclosed to Mr. Sergeant Talfourd, M.P., 2, Elm Court, Temple. Even if +he be on circuit, they will reach me after a short delay. God bless +you all. My father joins heartily in this prayer, with + +"Your faithful and affectionate, + +"M.R. MITFORD." + + * * * * * + +The next, and last which I have found, is entirely undated, but +post-marked 20th April, 1837. + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR FRIEND,--I don't know when a trifle has pleased me so much as +the coincidence which set us a-writing to each other just at the same +time. I have all the north-country superstition flowing through my +veins, and do really believe in the exploded doctrine of sympathies. +That is to say, I believe in all _genial_ superstitions, and don't +like this steam-packet railway world of ours, which puts aside with so +much scorn that which for certain Shakespeare and Ben Jonson held for +true. I am charmed at your own account of yourself and your doings. +Mr. Edward Kenyon--(whose brother, John Kenyon, of Harley Place, the +most delightful man in London--of course you know him--is my especial +friend)--Mr. Edward Kenyon, who lives chiefly at Vienna, although, +I believe, in great retirement, spending 200_l_. upon himself, and +giving away 2,000_l_.--Mr. Edward Kenyon spoke of you to me as having +such opportunities of knowing both the city and the country as rarely +befell even a resident, and what you say of the peasantry gives me a +strong desire to see your book. + +"A happy subject is in my mind, a great thing, especially for you +whose descriptions are so graphic. The thing that would interest me +in Austria, and for the maintenance of which one almost pardons (not +quite) their retaining that other old-fashioned thing, the State +prisons, is their having kept up in their splendour those grand old +monasteries, which are swept away now in Spain and Portugal. I have +a passion for Gothic architecture, and a leaning towards the +magnificence of the old religion, the foster-mother of all that is +finest and highest in art, and if I have such a thing as a literary +project, it is to write a romance, of which Reading Abbey in its +primal magnificence should form a part, not the least about forms +of faith, understand, but as an element of the picturesque, and as +embodying a very grand and influential part of bygone days. At present +I have just finished (since writing _Country Stories_, which people +seem so good as to like) writing all the prose (except one story about +the fashionable subject of Egyptian magicians, furnished to me by your +admirer, Henry Chorley; I wish you had seen him taking off his hat to +the walls as I showed him your father's old residence at Heckfield), +all the prose of the most splendid of the annuals, Finden's +_Tableaux_, of which my longest and best story--a Young Pretender +story--I have been obliged to omit in consequence of not calculating +on the length of my poetical contributors. But my poetry, especially +that by that wonderful young creature Miss Barrett, Mr. Kenyon, and +Mr. Procter, is certainly such as has seldom before been seen in an +annual, and joined with Finden's magnificent engravings ought to make +an attractive work. + +"I am now going to my novel, if it please God to grant me health. For +the last two months I have only once crossed the outer threshold, and, +indeed, I have never been a day well since the united effects of the +tragedy and the influenza ... [word destroyed by the seal]. What will +become of that poor play is in the womb of time. But its being by +universal admission a far more striking drama than _Rienzi_, and by +very far the best thing I ever wrote, it follows almost of course, +that it will share the fate of its predecessor, and be tossed about +the theatres for three or four years to come. Of course I should be +only too happy that it should be brought out at Covent Garden under +the united auspices of Mr. Macready and Mr. Bartley.[1] But I am in +constitution and in feeling a much older person than you, my dear +friend, as well as in look, however the acknowledgment of age (I +am 48) may stand between us; and belonging to a most sanguine and +confiding person, I am of course as prone to anticipate all probable +evil as he is to forestall impossible good. He, my dear father, is, +I thank Heaven, splendidly well. He speaks of you always with much +delight, is charmed with your writings, and I do hope that you will +come to Reading and give him as well as me the great pleasure of +seeing you at our poor cottage by the roadside. You would like my +flower-garden. It is really a flower-garden becoming a duchess. People +are so good in ministering to this, my only amusement. And the effect +is heightened by passing through a labourer's cottage to get at it, +for such our poor hut literally is. + +[Footnote 1: This gentleman was an old and highly valued friend of my +mother.] + +"You have heard, I suppose, that Mr. Wordsworth's eldest son, who +married a daughter of Mr. Curwen, has lost nearly, if not quite, all +of his wife's portion by the sea flowing in upon the mine, and has now +nothing left but a living of 200_l._ given him by his father-in-law. +So are we all touched in turn. + +"I have written to the Sedgwicks for the scarlet lilies mentioned by +Miss Martineau in her American book. Did you happen to see them in +their glory? of course they would flourish here; and having sent them +primroses, cowslips, ivy, and many other English wild flowers, which +took Theodore Sedgwick's fancy, I have a right to the return. How glad +I am to hear the good you tell me of my friend Tom. His fortune seems +now assured. My father's kindest regards. + +"Ever my dear friend, + +"Very faithfully yours, + +"M.R. MITFORD. + +"P.S.--Mr. Carey, the translator of Dante, has just been here. He +says that he visited Cowper's residence at Olney lately, and that his +garden room, which suggested mine, is incredibly small, and not +near so pretty. Come and see. You know, of course, that the 'Modern +Antiques' in _Our Village_ were Theodosia and Frances Hill, sisters of +Joseph Hill, cousins and friends of poor Cowper." + + * * * * * + +What the "good" was by which my "fortune was assured" I am unable +to guess. But I am sure of the sincerity of the writer's rejoicing +thereat. + +Mary Mitford was a genuinely warm-hearted woman, and much of her talk +would probably be stigmatised by the young gentlemen of the present +generation, who consider the moral temperature of a fish to be "good +form," as "gush." How old Landor, who "gushed" from cradle to grave, +would have massacred and rended in his wrath such talkers! Mary +Mitford's "gush" was sincere at all events. But there is a +"hall-mark," for those who can decipher it, "without which none is +genuine." + +A considerable intimacy grew up between my mother and the author of +_Highways and Byeways_ during the latter part of his residence in +England, and subsequently, when returning from Boston on leave, he +visited Florence and Rome. Many letters passed between them after +his establishment as British Consul at Boston, some characteristic +selections from which will, I doubt not, be acceptable to many +readers. + +The following was written on the envelope enclosing a very long letter +from Mrs. Grattan, and was written, I think, in 1840:-- + + * * * * * + +"I cannot avoid squeezing in a few words more just as the ship is on +the point of sailing or steaming away for England ... 'The President' +has been a fatal title this spring. Poor Harrison, a good and honest +man, died in a month after he was elected, and this fine ship, about +which we have been at this side of the Atlantic so painfully excited +ever since March, is, I fear, gone down with its gallant captain +(Roberts, with whom we crossed the Atlantic in the _British Queen_) +and poor Power, whom the public cannot afford to lose. + +"Since I wrote my letter three days ago--pardon the boldly original +topic--the weather has mended considerably. Tell Tom that every tree +is also striving to turn over a new leaf, and it is well for you that +I have not another to turn too. God bless you. + +"T.C.G." + + * * * * * + +I beg to observe that the exhortation addressed to me had no moral +significance, but was the writer's characteristic mode of exciting me +to new scribblements. + +The following, also written on the envelope enclosing a letter from +Mrs. Grattan, is dated the 30th of July, 1840:-- + + * * * * * + +"I cannot let the envelope go quite a blank, though I cannot quite +make it a prize ... In literature I have done nothing but write a +preface and notes for two new editions of the old _Highways and +Byeways_, and a short sketchy article in this month's number of the +_North American Review_ on the present state of Ireland. I am going to +follow it up in the next number in reference to the state of the Irish +in America, and I hope I shall thus do some good to a subject I have +much at heart. I have had various applications to deliver lectures at +Lyceums, &c, and to preside at public meetings for various objects. +All this I have declined. I have been very much before the public at +dinners for various purposes, and have refused many invitations to +several neighbouring cities. I must now draw back a little. I think I +have hitherto done good to the cause of peace and friendship between +the countries. But I know these continued public appearances will +expose me to envy, hatred, and malice. I hope to do something +historical by and by, and perhaps an occasional article in the _North +American Review_. But anything like light writing I never can again +turn to." + + * * * * * + +From a very long letter written on the 13th of May, 1841, I will give +a, few extracts:-- + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR AND VALUED FRIEND,--Your letter from Penryth [_sic_] without +date, but bearing the ominous post-mark, 'April 1st,' has completely +made a fool of me, in that sense which implies that nothing else can +excuse a grey head and a seared heart for thinking and feeling that +there are such things in the world as affection and sincerity. Being +fond of flying in the face of reason, and despising experience, +whenever they lay down general rules, I am resolved to believe in +exceptions, to delight in instances, and to be quite satisfied that I +have 'troops of friends'--you being one of the troopers--no matter how +few others there may be, or where they are to be found. + +"You really must imagine how glad we were to see your handwriting +again, and I may say also, how surprised; for it passeth our +understanding to discover how you _make_ time for any correspondence +at all. We have followed all your literary doings step by step since +we left Europe, and we never cease wondering at your fertility and +rejoicing at your success. But I am grieved to think that all this is +at the cost of your comfort. Or is it that you wrote in a querulous +mood, when you said those sharp things about your grey goose quill. +Surely composition must be pleasant to you. No one who writes so fast +and so well can find it actually irksome. I am aware that people +sometimes think they find it so. But we may deceive ourselves on the +dark as well as on the bright side of our road, and more easily, +because it _is_ the dark. That is to say, we may not only cheat +ourselves with false hopes of good, but with false notions of +evil, which proves, if it proves anything just now, that you are +considerably mistaken when you fancy writing to be a bore, and that I +know infinitely better than you do what you like or dislike." + +It is rather singular to find a literary _workman_ talking in this +style. Grattan was not a fertile writer, and, I must suppose, was +never a very industrious one. But he surely must have known that talk +about the pleasures of "composition" was wholly beside the mark. +_That_ may be, often is, pleasant enough, and if the thoughts could +be telephoned from the brain to the types it would all be mighty +agreeable; and the world would be very considerably more overwhelmed +with authorship than it is. It is the "grey goose quill" work, the +necessity for incarnating the creatures of the brain in black and +white, that is the world's protection from this avalanche. And I for +one do not understand how anybody who, eschewing the sunshine and +the fields and the song of birds, or the enjoyment of other people's +brain-work, has glued himself to his desk for long hours, can say +or imagine that his task is, or has been, aught else than hard and +distasteful work, demanding unrelaxing self-denial and industry. And +however fine the frenzy in which the poet's eye may roll while he +builds the lofty line, the work of putting some thousands of them on +the paper when built must be as irksome to him as the penny-a-liner's +task is to _him_--more so, in that the mind of the latter does not +need to be forcibly and painfully restrained from rushing on to the +new pastures which invite it, and curbed to the pack-horse pace of the +quill-driving process. + +"You must not," he continues, "allow yourself to be, or even to fancy +that you are tired or tormented, or worn out. Work the mine to the +last. Pump up every drop out of the well. Put money i' thy purse; and +add story after story to that structure of fame, which will enable you +to do as much to that house by the lake side, where I _will_ hope to +see you yet." + + * * * * * + +He then goes on to speak at considerable length of the society of +Boston, praising it much, yet saying that it is made more charming to +a visitor than to a permanent resident. "In this it differs," he says, +"from almost all the countries I have lived in in Europe, except +Holland." + +Speaking of a visit to Washington during the inauguration of General +Harrison, which seems to have delighted him much, he says he travelled +back with a family, "at least with the master and mistress of it, +of whom I must tell you something. Mr. Paige is a merchant, and +brother-in-law of Mr. Webster; Mrs. Paige a niece of Judge Story. From +this double connection with two of the first men in the country their +family associations are particularly agreeable. Mrs. Paige is one of +three sisters, all very handsome, spirited, and full of talent. One is +married to Mr. Webster's eldest son. Another, Mrs. Joy, has for her +husband an idle gentleman, a rare thing in this place. Mrs. Paige was +in Europe two years ago with Mr. and Mrs. Webster senior (the latter +by the bye is a _most_ charming person) and had the advantage of +seeing society in England and France in its best aspect, and is one +who can compare as well as see ... Among the men [of the Boston +society] are Dr. Chinning, a prophet in our country, a pamphleteer +in his own; Bancroft, _the_ historian of America, a man of superior +talents and great agreeability, but a black sheep in society, on +account of his Van Buren politics, against whom the white sheep of the +Whig party will not rub themselves; Prescott, the author of _Ferdinand +and Isabella_, a handsome, half blind shunner of the vanities of the +world, with some others, who read and write a good deal, and no one +the wiser for it. Edward Everett is in Italy, where you will surely +meet him [we saw a good deal of him]. He is rather formal than +cold, if all I hear whispered of him be true; of elegant taste in +literature, though not of easy manners, and altogether an admirable +specimen of an American orator and scholar. At Cambridge, three miles +off, we have Judge Story, of the Supreme Court, eloquent, deeply +learned, garrulous, lively, amiable, excellent in all and every way +that a mortal can be. He is decidedly the gem of this western world. +Mr. Webster is now settled at Washington, though here at this moment +on a visit to Mrs. Paige. Among our neighbouring notabilities is John +Quincy Adams, an ex-President of the United States, ex-Minister at +half the courts in Europe, and now at seventy-five, a simple Member of +Congress, hard as a piece of granite, and cold as a lump of ice." + +Speaking of his having very frequently appeared at public meetings +during the first year of his Consulship, and of his having since that +refrained from such appearances, he continues: "I was doubtful as to +the way my being so much _en evidence_ might be relished _at home_. Of +late public matters have been on so ticklish a footing, that all the +less a British functionary was seen the better. + +"In literature I have done nothing barring a couple of articles on +Ireland and the Irish in America, a subject I have much at heart. +But much as I feel for them and with them, I refused dining with my +countrymen on St. Patrick's Day because they had the _gaucherie_ (of +which I had previous notice), to turn the festive meeting into a +political one, by giving 'O'Connell and success to repeal' as one of +their 'regular' toasts, and by leaving out the Queen's health, which +they gave when I dined with them last year." + +Then after detailed notices of the movements of his sons, he goes on: + +"We have many plans in perspective, Niagara, Canada, Halifax, the +mountains, the springs, the sea; the result of which you shall know as +soon as we receive a true and faithful account of your adventures in +just as many pages as you can afford; but Tom must in the meantime +send me a long letter ... Tell Tom I have half resolved to give up +punning and take to repartee. A young fellow said to me the other day, +'Ah! Mr. Consul (as I am always called), I wish I could discover a +new pleasure.' 'Try virtue!' was my reply. A pompous ex-Governor said +swaggeringly to me at the last dinner party at which I assisted, +'Well, Mr. Consul, I suppose you Europeans think us semi-civilised +here in America?' 'Almost!' said I. Now ask Tom if that was not pretty +considerable smart. But assure him at the same time, it is nothing at +all to what I _could_ do in the way of impertinence! Need I say how +truly and affectionately we all love you? + +"T.C. GRATTAN." + + * * * * * + +I wrote back that I would enter the lists with him in the matter of +impertinence; and as a sample told him that I thought he had better +return to the punning. + +I could, I doubt not, find among my mother's papers some further +letters that might be worth printing or quoting. But my waning space +warns me that I must not indulge myself with doing so. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +I said at the beginning of the last chapter, that during the period, +some of the recollections of which I had been chronicling, the two +greatest sorrows I had ever known had befallen me. A third came +subsequently. But that belonged to a period of my life which does not +fall within the limits I have assigned to these reminiscences. Of the +first, the death of my mother, I have spoken. The other, the death of +my wife, followed it at no great distance, and was of course a far +more terrible one. She had been ailing--so long indeed that I had +become habituated to it, and thought that she would continue to live +as she had been living. We had been travelling in Switzerland, in the +autumn of 1864; and I remember very vividly her saying on board the +steamer, by which we were leaving Colico at the head of the Lake of +Como, on our return to Italy, as she turned on the deck to take a last +look at the mountains, "Good-bye, you big beauties!" I little thought +it was her last adieu to them; but I thought afterwards that she +probably may have had some misgiving that it was so. + +But it was not till the following spring that I began to realise that +I must lose her. She died on the 13th of April, 1865. + +I have spoken of her as she was when she became my wife, but without +much hope of representing her to those who never had the happiness +of knowing her, as she really was, not only in person, which matters +little, but in mind and intellectual powers. And to tell what she was +in heart, in disposition--in a word, in soul--would be a far more +difficult task. + +In her the aesthetic faculties were probably the most markedly +exceptional portion of her intellectual constitution. The often cited +dictum, _les races se feminisent_ was not exemplified in her case. +From her mother, an accomplished musician, she inherited her very +pronounced musical[1] faculty and tendencies, and, I think, little +else. From her father, a man of very varied capacities and culture, +she drew much more. How far, if in any degree, this fact may be +supposed to have been connected in the relation of cause and effect, +with the other fact that her mother was more than fifty years of age +at the time of her birth, I leave to the speculations of physiological +inquirers. In bodily constitution her inheritance from her father's +mother was most marked. To that source must be traced, I conceive, the +delicacy of constitution, speaking medically, which deprived me of +her at a comparatively early age; for both father and mother were +of thoroughly healthy and strong constitutions. But if it may be +suspected that the Brahmin Sultana, her grandmother, bequeathed her +her frail diathesis, there was no doubt or difficulty in tracing to +that source the exterior delicacy of formation which characterised +her. I remember her telling me that the last words a dying sister of +her mother's ever spoke, when Theodosia standing by the bedside placed +her hand on the dying woman's forehead were, "Ah, that is Theo's +little Indian hand," And truly the slender delicacy of hand and foot, +which characterised her, were unmistakably due to her Indian descent. +In person she in nowise resembled either father or mother, unless it +were possibly her father in the conformation and shape of the teeth. + +[Footnote 1: But this she might also have got from her father, who was +passionately fond of music, and was a very respectable performer on +the violin.] + +I have already in a previous chapter of these reminiscences given +a letter from Mrs. Browning in which she speaks of Theodosia's +"multiform faculty." And the phrase, which so occurring, might in +the case of almost any other writer be taken as a mere epistolary +civility, is in the case of one whose absolute accuracy of veracity +never swerved a hair's-breadth, equivalent to a formal certificate of +the fact to the best of her knowledge. And she knew my wife well both +before and after the marriage of either of them. Her faculty was truly +_multiform_. + +She was not a great musician; but her singing had for great musicians +a charm which the performances of many of their equals in the art +failed to afford them. She had never much voice, but I have rarely +seen the hearer to whose eyes she could not bring the tears. She had +a spell for awakening emotional sympathy which I have never seen +surpassed, rarely indeed equalled. + +For language she had an especial talent, was dainty in the use of +her own, and astonishingly apt in acquiring--not merely the use for +speaking as well as reading purposes, but--the delicacies of other +tongues. Of Italian, with which she was naturally _most_ conversant, +she was recognised by acknowledged experts to be a thoroughly +competent critic. + +She published, now many years ago, in the _Athenaeum_, some +translations from the satirist Giusti, which any intelligent reader +would, I think, recognise to be cleverly done. But none save the very +few in this country, who know and can understand the Tuscan poet's +works in the original, can at all conceive the difficulty of +translating him into tolerable English verse. And I have no hesitation +in asserting, that any competent judge, who is such by virtue of +understanding the original, would pronounce her translations of Giusti +to be a masterpiece, which very few indeed of contemporary men or +women could have produced. I have more than once surprised her in +tears occasioned by her obstinate struggles with some passage of +the intensely idiomatic satirist, which she found it almost--but +eventually not quite--impossible to render to her satisfaction. + +She published a translation of Niccolini's _Arnaldo da Brescia_, which +won the cordial admiration and friendship of that great poet. And +neither Niccolini's admiration nor his friendship were easily won. He +was, when we knew him at Florence in his old age, a somewhat crabbed +old man, not at all disposed to make new acquaintances, and, I think, +somewhat soured and disappointed, not certainly with the meed of +admiration he had won from his countrymen as a poet, but with the +amount of effect which his writings had availed to produce in the +political sentiments and then apparent destinies of the Italians. +But he was conquered by the young Englishwoman's translation of +his favourite, and, I think, his finest work. It is a thoroughly +trustworthy and excellent translation; but the execution of it was +child's play in comparison with the translations from Giusti. + +She translated a number of the curiously characteristic _stornelli_ of +Tuscany, and especially of the Pistoja mountains. And here again it +is impossible to make any one, who has never been familiar with these +_stornelli_ understand the especial difficulty of translating them. Of +course the task was a slighter and less significant one than that of +translating Giusti, nor was the same degree of critical accuracy and +nicety in rendering shades of meaning called for. But there were +not--are not--many persons who could cope with the especial +difficulties of the attempt as successfully as she did. She produced +also a number of pen-and-ink drawings illustrating these _stornelli_, +which I still possess, and in which the spirited, graphic, and +accurately truthful characterisation of the figures could only have +been achieved by an artist very intimately acquainted _intus et in +cute_ with the subjects of her pencil. + +She published a volume on the Tuscan revolution, which was very +favourably received. The _Examiner_, among other critics--all of them, +to the best of my remembrance, more or less favourable--said of these +_Letters_ (for that was the form in which the work was published, all +of them, I think, having been previously printed in the _Athenaeum_), +"Better political information than this book gives may be had in +plenty; but it has a special value which we might almost represent by +comparing it to the report of a very watchful nurse, who, without the +physician's scientific knowledge, uses her own womanly instinct in +observing every change of countenance and every movement indicating +the return of health and strength to the patient ... She has written a +very vivid and truthful account." The critic has very accurately, and, +it may be said, graphically, assigned its true value and character to +the book. + +I have found it necessary in a former chapter, where I have given a +number of interesting and characteristic letters from Landor to my +wife's father, to insert a deprecatory _caveat_ against the exuberant +enthusiasm of admiration which led him to talk of the probability of +her eclipsing the names and fame of other poets, including in this +estimate Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The preposterousness of this +no human being would have felt more strongly than Theodosia Garrow, +except Theodosia Trollope, when such an estimate had become yet +more preposterous. But Landor, whose unstinted admiration of Mrs. +Browning's poetry is vigorously enough expressed in his own strong +language, as may be seen in Mr. Forster's pages, would not have +dreamed of instituting any such comparison at a later day. But that +his critical acumen and judgment were not altogether destroyed by the +enthusiasm of his friendship, is, I think, shown by the following +little poem by Theodosia Trollope, written a few years after the birth +of her child. I don't think I need apologise for printing it. + +The original MS. of it before me gives no title; nor do I remember +that the authoress ever assigned one to the verses. + + + I. + + "In the noon-day's golden pleasance, + Little Bice, baby fair, + With a fresh and flowery presence, + Dances round her nurse's chair, + In the old grey loggia dances, haloed by her shining hair. + + II. + + "Pretty pearl in sober setting, + Where the arches garner shade! + Cones of maize like golden netting, + Fringe the sturdy colonnade, + And the lizards pertly pausing glance across the balustrade. + + III. + + "Brown cicala drily proses, + Creaking the hot air to sleep, + Bounteous orange flowers and roses, + Yield the wealth of love they keep, + To the sun's imperious ardour in a dream of fragrance deep. + + IV. + + "And a cypress, mystic hearted, + Cleaves the quiet dome of light + With its black green masses parted + But by gaps of blacker night, + Which the giddy moth and beetle circle round in dubious flight. + + V. + + "Here the well chain's pleasant clanging, + Sings of coolness deep below; + There the vine leaves breathless hanging, + Shine transfigured in the glow, + And the pillars stare in silence at the shadows which they throw. + + VI. + + "Portly nurse, black-browed, red-vested, + Knits and dozes, drowsed with heat; + Bice, like a wren gold-crested, + Chirps and teases round her seat, + Hides the needles, plucks the stocking, rolls the cotton o'er her feet. + + VII. + + "Nurse must fetch a draught of water, + In the glass with painted wings,[1] + Nurse must show her little daughter + All her tale of silver rings, + Dear sweet nurse must sing a couplet--solemn nurse, who _never_ + sings! + + VIII. + + "Blest Madonna! what a clamour! + Now the little torment tries, + Perched on tiptoe, all the glamour + Of her coaxing hands and eyes! + May she hold the glass she drinks from--just one moment, Bice cries. + + IX. + + "Nurse lifts high the Venice beaker, + Bossed with masks, and flecked with gold, + Scarce in time to 'scape the quicker + Little fingers over-bold, + Craving tendril-like to grasp it, with the will of four years old. + + X. + + "Pretty wood bird, pecking, flitting, + Round the cherries on the tree. + Ware the scarecrow, grimly sitting, + Crouched for silly things, like thee! + Nurse hath plenty such in ambush. 'Touch not, for it burns,'[2] quoth + she. + + XI. + + "And thine eyes' blue mirror widens + With an awestroke of belief; + Meekly following that blind guidance, + On thy finger's rosy sheaf, + Blow'st thou softly, fancy wounded, soothing down a painless grief. + + XII. + + "Nurse and nursling, learner, teacher, + Thus foreshadow things to come, + When the girl shall grow the creature + Of false terrors vain and dumb, + And entrust their baleful fetish with her being's scope and sum. + + XIII. + + "Then her heart shall shrink and wither, + Custom-straitened like her waist, + All her thought to cower together, + Huddling sheep-like with the rest, + With the flock of soulless bodies on a pattern schooled and laced. + + XIV. + + "Till the stream of years encrust her + With a numbing mail of stone, + Till her laugh lose half its lustre, + And her truth forswear its tone, + And she see God's might and mercy darkly through a glass alone! + + XV. + + "While our childhood fair and sacred. + Sapless doctrines doth rehearse, + And the milk of falsehoods acrid, + Burns our babe-lips like a curse, + Cling we must to godless prophets, as the suckling to the nurse. + + XVI. + + "As the seed time, so the reaping, + Shame on us who overreach, + While our eyes yet smart with weeping, + Hearts so all our own to teach, + Better they and we lay sleeping where the darkness hath no speech!" + + +[Footnote 1: Those unacquainted with the forms of the old decorated +Venetian glass will hardly understand the phrase in the text. Those +who know them will feel the accuracy of the picture.] + +[Footnote 2: "_Non toccare che brucia_," Tuscan proverb.] + +It is impossible for any but those who know--not Florence, but--rural +Tuscany well, to appreciate the really wonderful accuracy and +picturesque perfection of the above scene from a Tuscan afternoon. But +I think many others will feel the lines to be good. In the concluding +stanzas, in which the writer draws her moral, there are weak lines. +But in the first eleven, which paint her picture, there is not one. +Every touch tells, and tells with admirable truth and vividness of +presentation. In one copy of the lines which I have, the name is +changed from Bice to "Flavia," and this, I take it, because of the +entire non-applicability of the latter stanzas to the child, whose +rearing was in her own hands. But the picture of child and nurse--how +life-like none can tell, but I--was the picture of her "baby +Beatrice," and the description simply the reproduction of things seen. + +I think I may venture to print also the following lines. They are, in +my opinion, far from being equal in merit to the little poem printed +above, but they are pretty, and I think sufficiently good to do no +discredit to her memory. Like the preceding, they have no title. + + I. + + "I built me a temple, and said it should be + A shrine, and a home where the past meets me, + And the most evanescent and fleeting of things, + Should be lured to my temple, and shorn of their wings, + To adorn my palace of memories. + + II. + + "The pearl of the morning, the glow of the noon, + The play of the clouds as they float past the moon, + The most magical tint on the snowiest peak, + They are gone while I gaze, fade before you can speak, + Yet they stay in my palace of memories. + + III. + + "I stood in the midst of the forest trees, + And heard the sweet sigh of the wandering breeze, + And this with the tinkle of heifer bells, + As they trill on the ear from the dewy dells, + Are the sounds in my palace of memories. + + IV. + + "I looked in the face of a little child, + With its fugitive dimples and eyes so wild, + It springs off with a bound like a wild gazelle, + It is off and away, but I've caught my[1] + And here's mirth for my palace of memories. + + V. + + "In the morning we meet on a mountain height, + And we walk and converse till the fall of night, + We hold hands for a moment, then pass on our way, + But that which I've got from the friend of a day, + I'll keep in my palace of memories." + + +[Footnote 1: Word here illegible.] + +The verses which Landor praised with enthusiasm so excessive were +most, or I think all of them, published in the annual edited by his +friend Lady Blessington, and were all written before our marriage. I +have many long letters addressed to her by that lady, and several by +her niece Miss Power, respecting them. They always in every instance +ask for "more." + +Many of her verses she set to music, especially one little poemlet, +which I remember to this day the tune of, which she called the _Song +of the Blackbird_, and which was, if I remember rightly, made to +consist wholly of the notes uttered by the bird. + +Another instance of her "multiform faculty" was her learning landscape +sketching. I have spoken of her figure drawing. And this, I take it, +was the real bent of her talent in that line. But unable to compass +the likeness of a haystack myself, I was desirous of possessing some +record of the many journeys which I designed to take, and eventually +did take with her. And wholly to please me she forthwith made the +attempt, and though her landscape was never equal to her figure +drawing, I possess some couple of hundred of water-colour sketches +done by her from nature on the spot. + +I used to say that if I wanted a Sanscrit dictionary, I had only to +put her head straight at it, and let her feel the spur, and it would +have been done! + +We lived together seventeen happy years. During the five first, I +think I may say that she lived wholly and solely in, by, and for me. +That she should live for somebody other than herself was an absolute +indefeasible necessity of her nature. During the last twelve years I +shared her heart with her daughter. Her intense worship for her "Baby +Beatrice" was equalled only by--that of all the silliest and all the +wisest women, who have true womanly hearts in their bosoms, for their +children. The worship was, of course, all the more absorbing that the +object of it was unique. I take it that, after the birth of her child, +I came second in her heart. But I was not jealous of little Bice. + +I do not think that she would have quite subscribed to the opinion of +Garibaldi on the subject of the priesthood, which I mentioned in a +former chapter--that they ought all to be forthwith put to death. But +all her feelings and opinions were bitterly antagonistic to them. She +was so deeply convinced of the magnitude of the evil inflicted by them +and their Church on the character of the Italians, for whom she ever +felt a great affection, that she was bitter on the subject. And it +is the only subject on which I ever knew her to feel in any degree +bitterly. Many of her verses written during her latter years are +fiercely denunciatory or humorously satirical of the Italian +priesthood, and especially of the Pontifical Government. I wish that +my space permitted me to give further specimens of them here. But I +must content myself with giving one line, which haunts my memory, and +appears to me excessively happy In the accurate truthfulness of its +simile. She is writing of the journey which Pius the Ninth made, and +describing his equipment, says that he started "with strings of cheap +blessings, like glass beads for savages." + +With the exception of this strong sentiment my wife was one of the +most tolerant people I ever knew. What she most avoided in those with +whom she associated was, not so much ignorance, or even vulgarity of +manner, as pure native stupidity. But even of that, when the need +arose, she was tolerant. I never knew her in the selection of an +acquaintance, or even of a friend, to be influenced to the extent +of even a hair's-breadth, by station, rank, wealth, fashion, or any +consideration whatever, save personal liking and sympathy, which was, +in her case, perfectly compatible with the widest divergence of views +and opinions on nearly any of the great subjects which most divide +mankind, and even with divergence of rules of conduct. Her own +opinions were the honest results of original thinking, and her conduct +the outcome of the dictates of her own heart--of her heart rather than +of her reasoning powers, or of any code of law--a condition of mind +which might be dangerous to individuals with less native purity of +heart than hers. + +As a wife, as a daughter, as a daughter-in-law, as a mother, she was +absolutely irreproachable. In the first relationship she was all in +all to me for seventeen years. She brought sweetness and light into +my life and into my dwelling. She was the angel in the house, if ever +human being was. + +Her father became an inmate of our house after the death of his wife +at a great age at Torquay, whither they had returned after the +death of my wife's half-sister, Harriet Fisher. He was a jealously +affectionate, but very exacting father; and few daughters, I think, +could have been more admirable in her affection for him, her attention +to him, her care of him. And I may very safely say that very few +mothers of sons have the fortune of finding such a daughter-in-law. +My mother had been very fond of her before our marriage, and became +afterwards as devotedly attached to her as she was to me, of whom she +knew her to be an indivisible part, while she was to my mother simply +perfect. Her own mother she had always been in the habit of calling by +that name. She always spoke to and of my mother as "mammy." What she +was to her own daughter I have already said. There was somewhat of +the tendency towards "spoiling," which is mostly inseparable from +the adoration which a young mother, of the right sort, feels for her +firstborn child, but she never made any attempt to avert or counteract +my endeavours to prevent such spoiling. When little Bice had to be +punished by solitary confinement for half an hour, she only watched +anxiously for the expiration of the sentence.[1] + +[Footnote 1: I do not remember that little Bice ever consoled herself +under the disgrace of such captivity as my present wife has confessed +to me that she did when suffering under the same condemnation. _Her_ +method of combining the maintenance of personal dignity with revenge +on the oppressor, was to say to the first person who came to take her +out of prison: "No! you can't come into _my_ parlour!"] + +But that her worth, her talent, her social qualities, were recognised +by a wider world than that of her own family, or her own circle of +friends, is testified by the recording stone, which the Municipality +placed on my house at the corner of the Piazza dell' Independenza, +where it may still be seen. Indeed the honour was not undeserved. For +during the whole of her residence in Italy, which nearly synchronised +with the struggle of Italy for her independence and unity, she had +adopted the Italian cause heart and soul, and done what was in her to +do, for its advancement. The honour was rendered the more signal, and +the more acceptable, from the fact that the same had recently been +rendered by the same body to Elizabeth Barrett Browning. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +The house in the Piazza dell' Independenza, which was known in the +city as "Villino Trollope," and of which I have spoken at the close of +the last chapter, was my property, and I had lived in it nearly the +whole of my married life. During that time four deaths had occurred +among its inmates. + +The first to happen was that of the old and highly valued servant +of whom I had occasion to speak when upon the subject of Mr. Hume's +spiritualistic experiences at my house. She had been for many years +a much trusted and beloved servant in the family of Mr. Garrow at +Torquay, and had accompanied them abroad. Her name was Elizabeth +Shinner. Her death was felt by all of us as that of a member of our +family, and she lies in the Protestant cemetery at Florence by the +side of her former master, and of the young mistress whom she had +loved as a child of her own. + +The next to go was Mr. Garrow. His death was a very sudden and +unexpected one. He was a robust and apparently perfectly healthy man. +I was absent from home when he died. I had gone with a Cornishman, a +Mr. Trewhella, who was desirous of visiting Mr. Sloane's copper mine, +in the neighbourhood of Volterra, of which I have before spoken. We +had accomplished our visit, and were returning over the Apennine about +six o'clock in the morning in a little _bagherino_, as the country +cart-gigs are called, when we were hailed by a man in a similar +carriage meeting us, whom I recognised as the foreman of a carpenter +we employed. He had been sent to find me, and bring me home with all +speed, in consequence of the sudden illness of Mr. Garrow. As far as +I could learn from him there was little probability of finding my +father-in-law alive. I made the best of my way to Florence. But he had +been dead several hours when I arrived. He had waked with a paralytic +attack on him, which deprived him of the power of moving on the left +side, and drawing his face awry, made speech almost impossible to him. +He assured his servant--who was almost immediately with him--speaking +with much difficulty, that it was nothing of any importance, and that +he should soon get over it. But these were the last words he ever +spoke, and in two or three hours afterwards he breathed his last. + +Then in a few years more the _crescendo_ wave of trouble took my +mother from me at the age of eighty-three. For the last two or three +years she had entirely lost her memory, and for the last few months +the use of her mental faculties. And she did not suffer much. The last +words she uttered were "Poor Cecilia!"--her mind reverting in her +latest moments to the child whose loss had been the most recent. She +had for years entertained a great horror and dread of the possibility +of being buried alive, in consequence of the very short time allowed +by the law for a body to remain unburied after death; and she had +exacted from me a promise that I would in any case cause a vein to be +opened in her arm after death. In her case there could be no possible +room for the shadow of doubt as to the certainty of death; but I was +bound by my promise, and found some difficulty in the performance of +it. The medical man in attendance, declaring the absolute absurdity of +any doubt on the subject, refused to perform an operation which, he +said, was wholly uncalled for, and argued that my promise could only +be understood to apply to a case of possible doubt. I had none; but +was none the less determined to be faithful to my promise. But it +was not till I declared that I would myself sever a vein, in however +butcher-like a manner, that I induced him to accompany me to the +death-chamber and perform under my eyes the necessary operation. + +My mother, the inseparable companion of so many wanderings in so many +lands, the indefatigable labourer of so many years, found her rest +near to the two who had gone from my house before, in the beautiful +little cemetery on which the Apennine looks down. + +But it was not long before this sorrow was followed by a very much +sorer one--by the worst of all that could have happened to me! After +what I have written in the last chapter it is needless to say anything +of the blank despair that fell upon me when my wife died, on the 13th +of April, 1865. She also lies near the others. + +My house was indeed left unto me desolate, and I thought that life and +all its sweetness was over for me! + +I immediately took measures for disposing of the house in the Piazza +dell' Independenza, and before long found a purchaser for it. I had +bought it when the speculator, who had become the owner of the ground +at the corner of the space which was beginning to assume the semblance +of a "square" or "piazza," had put in the foundations but had not +proceeded much further with his work. I completed it, improving +largely, as I thought, on his plan; adapted it for a single residence, +instead of its division into sundry dwellings; obtained possession of +additional ground between the house and the city wall, sufficient for +a large garden; built around it, looking to the south, the largest and +handsomest "stanzone"[1] for orange and lemon plants in Florence, and +gathered together a collection of very fine trees, the profits from +which (much smaller in my hands than would have been the case in those +of a Florentine to the manner born) nevertheless abundantly sufficed +to defray the expenses of the garden and gardeners. In a word, I made +the place a very complete and comfortable residence. Nearly the whole +of my first married life was spent in it. And much of the literary +work of my life has been done in it. + +[Footnote 1: "Stanzone" is the term used in Tuscany to signify the +buildings destined to shelter the "Agrumi," as the orange and lemon +plants are called generically, in the winter; which in Florence is too +severe to permit of their being left in the open air.] + +I used in those days, and for very many years afterwards, to do all +my writing standing; and I strongly recommend the practice to brother +quill-drivers. Pauses, often considerable intervals, occur for thought +while the pen is in the hand. And if one is seated at a table, one +remains sitting during these intervals. But if one is standing, it +becomes natural to one, during even a small pause, to take a turn up +and down the room, or even, as I often used to do, in the garden. And +such change and movement I consider eminently salutary both for mind +and body. + +I had specially contrived a little window immediately above the desk +at which I stood, fixed to the wall. The room looking on the "loggia," +which was the scene of the little poem transcribed in the preceding +chapter, was abundantly lighted, but I liked some extra light close to +my desk. + +In that room my Bice was born. For it was subsequently to her birth +that the destination of it was changed from a bedroom to a study. + +Few men have passed years of more unchequered happiness than I did in +that house. And I was very fond of it. + +But, as may be readily imagined, it became all the more odious and +intolerable to me when the "angel in the house" had been taken from +me. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +CONCLUSION. + + +Assuredly it seemed to me that all was over; and the future a dead +blank. And for a time I was as a man stunned. + +But in truth it was very far otherwise! I was fifty-five; but I was in +good health, young for my years, strong and vigorous in constitution, +and before a year had passed it began to seem to me that a future, +and life and its prospects, might open to me afresh; that the curtain +might be dropped on the drama that was passed, and a new phase of life +begun. + +I had had, and vividly enjoyed an entire life, according to the +measure that is meted out to many, perhaps I may say to most men. +But I felt myself ready for another! And--thanks this time also to +a woman--I have _had_ another, _in no wise_ less happy, in some +respects, as less chequered by sorrows--more happy than the first! I +am in better health too, having outgrown apparently several of the +maladies which young people are subject to! + +Of this second life I am not now going to tell my readers anything. +"What I remember" of my first life may be, and I hope has been, told +frankly without giving offence or annoyance to any human being. I +don't know that the telling of the story of my second life would +necessarily lead me to say anything which could hurt anybody. But +mixed up as its incidents and interests and associations have been +with a great multitude of men and women still living and moving and +talking and writing round about me, I should not feel myself so +comfortably at liberty to write whatever offered itself to my memory. + +Ten years hence, perhaps ("Please God, the public lives!" as a +speculative showman said), I may tell the reader, if he cares to hear +it, the story of my second life. For the present we will break off +here. + +But not without some words of parting kindness--and shall we say, +wisdom!--from an old man to readers, most of whom probably might be +his sons, and many doubtless his grandsons. + +Especially, my young friends, don't pay overmuch attention to what the +Psalmist says about "the years of man." I knew _dans le temps_ a fine +old octo-and-nearly-nonogenarian, one Graberg de Hemsö, a Swede (a man +with a singular history, who passed ten years of his early life in the +British navy, and was, when I knew him, librarian at the Pitti Palace +in Florence), who used to complain of the Florentine doctors that "Dey +doosen't know what de nordern constitooshions is!" and I take it the +same may be said of the Psalmist. The years beyond three score and +ten need not be all sorrow and trouble. Depend upon it kindly +nature--_prudens_, as that jolly fellow, fine gentleman, and true +philosopher, Horace, says in a similar connection--kindly nature knows +how to make the closing decade of life every whit as delightful as any +of the preceding, if only you don't baulk her purposes. Don't weigh +down your souls, and pin your particles of divine essence to earth by +your yesterday's vices; be sure that when you cannot jump over the +chairs so featly as you can now, you will not want to do so; tell the +girls with genial old Anacreon, when the time comes, that whether the +hairs on your forehead be many or few, you know not, but do know +well that it behoves an old man to be cheery in proportion to the +propinquity of his exit, and go on your way rejoicing through this +beautiful world, which not even the Radicals have quite spoilt yet. + +And so _à rivederci_--_au revoir_--_auf Wiedersehn_--why have we no +English equivalent better than "Here's to our next pleasant meeting!" + + + +INDEX. + +A. + +Abbey, Reading, Mary Mitford's project concerning +Aberdeen, Lord, and Lord Cowley +Abrams, the Misses +Absolute, Sir A., my representation of +Ackland, Captain +Adam, Sir Frederick +Adam the forger, Dante's +Adams, John Quincy, Grattan on +Affinities Elective +Age not counted by years +Aladdin's lamp, G. Eliot wishes for +Albani, Margherita +Albèri, Signor +Albertazzi in 1840 +Alinari, photographer at Florence +_All the Year Round_, contributions to +American lady at Tuileries +Americans at the Pitti Palace + anecdote of + meeting Lewes at an +America, my brother's book on + criticised by Lewes + Irish in, Grattan on +Amiens, excursion to +Ampère, his éloge at the Academy by Arago +Amphytrion, Venice as +Anacreon on old age +Antagonism with G. Eliot, subject of +Antagonist, G. Eliot as an +Antiboini, the +Antiques, modern, in _Our Village_ +Antonelli, Cardinal +Apennines, Grand Duke crossing the + figure representing the, by Michael Angelo + scenery among the +Apoplexy, man dying of, anecdote of +Appony, Comte d', his receptions in Paris +April fool, Grattan an +Arago, M., at the Academy +Archduchesses, sweetness of +Archduchess Sophie +Arezzo, marshes near + Pulszky at + G. Eliot wishes to see +Aristotle's Natural Science +Army, Tuscan attitude of at the Revolution +_Arnaldo da Brescia_, Niccolini's +Arno river in flood + the +Articulation, George Eliot's +Ashley, Lord, letter from +Aspirates, Landor used to drop them +Aspirations, early +_Athenaeum_, my wife's letters in the +_Atlantic Monthly_ on Landor +Aubrey, Miss +Aumale, Duke of +Aunt, Dante's +Aural circulation, Lewes on +_Aurora Leigh_, Mrs. Browning's +Austen, Miss, Mary Mitford's idol +Austin, Alfred +Austrian troops in Florence + officers, anecdote of +Austria, Mary Mitford on + Napoleon III.'s negotiations with +Autobiography, G. Eliot on +Autograph collectors +Autolycus, his song +Auvergne, pedestrianising in + dialect of +Aylmer, Admiral + Lord +Azeglio d'Massimo, anecdote of + +B. + +Baby Beatrice +_Backwoodsman, Young_, Mary Mitford asks about +Baden in Switzerland +Bagni Caldi at Lucca Baths +Baiae, excursion to, G. Eliot's +Balzac's suppressed play +Bamberg, Baroness Zandt at +Banagher, my brother at +Bancroft, the Historian, Grattan on + his anti-Whig politics +Bandi, the family at Florence +Barbaras, Hermolaus +Bargello, at Florence, Dante's portrait in +Baritone of our way, Lewes +Barrett, Elizabeth, at Torquay + Theodosia Garrow's appreciation of + her affection for Isa Blagden + Landor on + Mary Mitford's admiration for +Bartley, Mrs., and Mary Mitford +Bartolomei, Marchese +Bath, and W.S. Landor +Bavaria, ramble in +Bay tree, Wordsworth's +Beacon Terrace, Torquay, Mrs. Browning at +_Beata, La_, my novel, Lewes and G. Eliot on + Mrs. Carlyle on +Beatrice, my daughter, George Eliot on +Beaufort, Duke of +Belial, Bishop, Landor calls Philpotts a +Bellosguardo, at Florence +Benjamin, my mother's +Ben Jonson's superstition, Mary Mitford on +Bereavements, different +Berkeley, Grantley, and Landor +Berington's _Middle Ages_ +Berti Palazzo, in Florence, +Bezzi, Signor A. and Landor +Bible, persecution for reading the +Bier, open, used in Florence +_Biglow Papers_, Lowell's +Biographies, G. Eliot on +Birmingham, my return from +Blackbird, Song of the +Black Down, Tennyson's house at +Black Forest, Leweses in the +_Blackwood's Magazine_, Mary Mitford on +Blagden, Isa, Miss + her poems + her death + note from + Lewes inquires after + and George Eliot +Blandford Square, Leweses at +Blaze de Bury, Madame +Blessington, Lady +Bob Acres, my representation of +Boboli Gardens, the, at Florence + anecdote of Lady Bulwer in +Bohemia, Grand Duke's estates in +Bologna, Grand Duke on way to + Austrians at +Bologna, "la Grassa" +Boodh, Landor on +_Book of Beauty_, Lady Blessington's +Booksellers, Landor eschews all +Bordeaux, Conversations at +Borgo, San Sepolcro, Pulszky at +Boston Consulate, Grattan on leave from + Society of, Grattan on the +"Boto," Florentine for "Voto" +Bourbonnais, travels in +Boutourlin family +Braddons, the, at Torquay +Brahman Princess, my wife's grandmother +Brest +Bretons, changes in character of +Brightness, my mother's value for +Brittany, book on + costume in +Broons in Brittany, costume of + innkeeper's daughter, at +Brougham Castle +Browning, Oscar +Browning, Robert + at Florence + his care for Landor in Florence +Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, specialties of her character + letters from + her absolute truthfulness + on Napoleon III + and Theodosia Garrow + her handwriting + her death, Lewes on + on Theodosia Trollope's faculty +Bull, Rev. Mr., of Bradford +Bullock, Reuben +Bully, an Irish +Bulwer, Lord, Landor on +Bulwer, Henry, at Paris +Bulwer, Lady, at Florence + her character + anecdote of + in Boboli gardens + letters from her +Burial, manner of, in Florence +Burial, premature fear of +Burridge, Landor's landlady at Torquay +Butcher's wife, anecdote of the +Butter, not used by Tuscans +Byron + +C + +Cadogan, Lady Honoria +Calais, crossing to, Lewes on +Camaldoli, with George Eliot to + _Padre forestieraio_ at +Cambridge, near Boston, notable men there +Canada +Cancellieri, Francesco, his mode of writing +Canigiani family at Florence +Canino, Prince + is marched off to the frontier + his sale of his title + his personal appearance +Capstone Hill, at Ilfracombe +Caravan, _summum bonum_ +Carlo, San, theatre at Naples, G. Eliot at +Carlsruhe +Carlton Hill at Penrith +Carlyle, Thomas, his description of Dickens's person + Landor on + and Anthony Trollope +Carlyle, Mrs., her description of Dickens's personal appearance + on my novel _La Beata_ +Carnival at Rome + at Florence +Carey, translator of Dante, with Miss Mitford +"Casa Colonica," Tuscan +Casentino, the +Casino dei Nobili at Florence +Cathedral in Florence and Mr. Sloane + burial of priest in, anecdote of +Cavour, my wife's account of his death, George Eliot on +Cemetery, Protestant, at Florence +Champion, the, at the Pitti, anecdote of +Charming, Dr., of Boston, Grattan on +Chappell, Mr. Arthur, dinner with +Chateaubriand +Cheapness at the Baths of Lucca +Chelsea, tea at +Chiaja at Naples, G. Eliot on the +Chiana, draining marshes of +Chianti wine, price of +Chiusi, marshes near +Chorley, Henry, and Mary Mitford, + at Heckfield +Church, the, Landor on +Church, English, Dickens on the +Città di Castello, Pulszky at +Clarke, Miss (Mme. Mohl) +Clemow, Mr. and Mrs., of the Royal Hotel, Ilfracombe +Clergy, French, in 1840 + Guizot on the +Clericalism at Florence +Clifden, Turbot at +_Cobler, Northern, The_, read by Tennyson +Coins in use at Florence +Coker, Mrs. +Colburn, Mr. + and Lady Bulwer +Colico on Lake Como +Collins, Wilkie, story by + dinner with +Colloquial use of a language must be learned young +Cologne +Colonna Vittoria +Commons, House of, Dickens on +_Commonwealth of Florence_, my history of the +Como, Lake of + George Eliot at +"Compagnatico." Tuscan +Composition, George Eliot's difficulty in +Composition, literary, Grattan on +_Confessor's Manual_ +Congress, member of +Congresses, Italian Scientific +Conservatism forced on me +Consolation, child's, in confinement +Consul, British, at Boston, Grattan + Mr. Grattan addressed as +Consulship at Boston, Grattan on the +Consultations and plans, my mother's and mine +"Contadini," Tuscan +Convocation, Dickens on +Copper mine near Volterra +Coquerel, Athanase, his preaching +Corinne, a new +_Cornhill Magazine_ +Cornish jury, verdict of +Correggio, book on, by Signor Mignaty +Correspondence of London paper +_Country Stories_, Mary Mitford's +Court Supreme, American judge, story of the +Cousin, his philosophy obsolete +Covent Garden Theatre, Mary Mitford's play at +Cowley, Lord, ambassador in Paris +Cowley, Lady, as ambassadress +Cowper's home at Olney, Mary Mitford on +Cramer, John +_Crazy Jane_, authoress of +Crime almost unknown in Grandducal Florence +Croce, Santa, church of, in Florence and Mr. Sloane +Cross, Mr., his _Life of George Eliot_ +Cruikshank and Lady Bulwer +Curwen, Mr., flooding of his mine + +D. + +Dalling, Lord, at Paris + at Florence +Dall' Ongaro, the Poet +Dante, his portrait at Florence +Deak, Pulszky's visits to +Deans, cousins of Mary Mitford +Death in the street at Florence, anecdote of +Death of Lewes's son +Deathbeds, taste for, George Eliot's +Decade of Italian Women, my book on +Decade, last of life + how to enjoy the +Decision, a momentous +D'Henin + Mdlle + her letters to my mother, _et seq._ + at Tuileries ball + her death +"Dehors Trompeurs, les;" Mdlle. Mars in +_Democrat Le_, French newspaper anecdote of +Departure of the Duke from Florence +Deputies, Chamber of, opening of in 1840 + at the +Desk, writing, standing at +Devonshire farmer, a +De Whelpdale, Lord of Manor Penrith +Dexter, Arthur, of Boston +Dialect, Florentine + anecdote of lady speaking +Dialect, provincial, as read by Tennyson +Dialect, George Eliot on use of +Dibden, Dr. + his preaching +Dickens, Charles, first meeting with + personal appearance of in early youth + subsequently + was near-sighted + his manner + his so-called exaggerations + his character + his opinions on Italy + on public schools + letters from + on conversation + on Gibson the sculptor + on Italian political situation + on Louis Napoleon + on Home the Medium + introduces me to my first wife + on the general elections + on the House of Commons + on the English Church + on my brothers standing for Beverley + last letter from +Dinner, going with glee to +Director of Museum, Pesth +Disaffection in Tuscany, beginning of +Doherty, John, +Doney's coffee-house at Florence +Don Giovanni, Protestant, +Douarnenez, sardine fishing, etc +Doubt of death +Doyle, Sir F., his reminiscences +Dramatic College, Royal, Dickens at +Dresden as a residence +Drinking-song, sung by Mr. Du Maurier +Duel at Baths of Lucca, +Du Maurier, Mrs. +Du Maurier, Mr. and Mrs. +Dupin, at the Chamber +Dupin and Lady Bulwer +Dyer, Lady + Sir Thomas +Dymock, Champion, at Florence + +E. + +Easter devotions +Edenhall in Cumberland + Luck of +Election in Ireland + General, Dickens on + in Hungary, cost of + Hungarian +Elm Court, Temple, Sergeant Talfourd's address +English Government and Tuscany +English language, George Eliot on the +Enunciation, George Eliot's +Eotvös, Baron, and Pulszky +Eremo, Sagro at Camaldoli + rule there + ride up to + inmates of +Error in post-mark, singular +Erysipelas, attack of, cured by Homoeopathy +Esterhazy, his picture gallery +Eternal City, French hated in +Everett, Ed, Grattan on +_Examiner_, the, criticism of, on my first wife's letters +Exchange of portraits +Ex-governor, pompous, and Grattan + +F. + +Factory legislation + Lords, leaders of +Faculty, multiform, my first wife's +"Falkland" in the _Rivals_, by Sir F. Vincent +"Falstaff House," of Dickens +Falterona, rivers rising in Mount + the mountain +Fanny Bent +Fauche, Mrs. +Fauriel, M. +Fête, National, at Florence +Field, Miss, + a favourite with Landor + returns his present of a scrap book +Fiesole, Leader's villa at +Filippo Strozzi, my book on +Finance Committee, Pesth, Pulszky on +Finden's tableaux +Fine Arts Society at Pesth, Pulszky chairman of +Finisterre, at + anecdote of +_Firenze la Gentile_ + no longer such +Firing on Florence, orders for + Duke never gave such +Fisher, Harriet, my wife's half sister + her character + her death +Fisher, Harriet, her brother + always a peacemaker + her beneficent influence +Flanders, French, rambles in +Flavia, verses on, by my first wife +Flint, Mrs. and Mary Mitford +Flood in Florence +Florence decided on as a residence + departure from London for + society of + flood at + coins in use at + cheapness of life at + police at + revolution at + number of English residing at + singular social change at + social changes in, causes of + my History of + Lewes criticises + leading medical practitioner at +Florentine nobles + Municipality places a tablet to the memory of my first wife + characteristics +Flower garden, Mary Mitford's +Fonblanque, Mr. Landor on +Fontebranda fountain +Fool, April, Grattan is made an +Foreign Affairs Committee at Pesth, Pulszky on +Forster, Mr., on Dickens + his life of Landor + portraits prefixed to + Landor gives him all his works +Fortezza da Basso at Florence, Grand Duke at + in Florentine revolution +_Fortnightly Review_ +France, Central, Journey through + which portion most interesting +Franchi, book by G.H. Lewes, reading +Francis, St., and Pulszky +_Fraser's Magazine_, Mary Mitford on +French hated at Rome +Frescobaldi family, at Florence +Friday receptions, my mother's in Florence + my mother's whist parties +Friends, my mother's, in youth and age +Fun, my mother's love of + +G. + +Gabell, Miss +Gabell, Dr., of Winchester +Galileo, new edition of work of + Milan edition of +Gambling tables at Lucca Baths +Garcia, P., in 1840 +Garibaldi and Dickens + Col. Peard's judgment of + my remembrance of him + visits me at Ricorboli + his personal appearance + dispute with him, a + at Palermo +Garrow, Mr. Joseph + Landor's letters to + his musical talent + a very exacting father + his death +Garrow, Mrs. +Garrow, Judge +Garrow, Theodosia + her position in her family + her fortune and prospects + her personal appearance + her ancestors + in Rome + her Church opinions + as an inmate + at the "Braddons," + her appreciation of Miss Barrett + and Landor +Genoa, fishing near + La Superba +George Eliot. _See_ Lewes, Mrs. +Germany, Lewes's in +Ghosts of memory +Gianchetti and whitebait +Gibson the sculptor + Dickens on +Giglio, Via del, at Florence +Gilchrist, Dr., dinner given by +Giotto's tower at Florence + anecdote concerning + G.H. Lewes on +Giusti, the poet, and Grand Duke of Tuscany + my first wife's translations from +Gladstone, his age, G. Eliot on + when a High Tory +"Glass beads for savages," +Glee, going to dinner with +Gore House +Gothard, St. over the, Lewes's journey +Gothic architecture, Mary Mitford on +Grand Duke of Tuscany + anecdote of + exit of, from Tuscany +Grand Duchess Florentini, burial of +Grant, General +Granville, Lord + his receptions in Paris +Grattan, T.C., consul at Boston + letters from + his message to me + blank, no prize, Grattan + prepares new edition of _Highways and Byeways_ + writes in _North American Review_ + endeavours to promote peace between England and America + speaks of his seared heart + pessimism as often deceptive as optimism + not a fertile writer + his advice to my mother as a writer + visits Washington + doubts respecting his conduct as consul + writes on Ireland + proposes various travels + resolves to give up punning + his repartees +Grattan, Mrs +Graves, Miss, at Florence +Green tea and laudanum, effects of +Gregory XVI. a Camaldolese + beans annually sent to +Grey goose quill work, Grattan on +Greys, cousins of Mary Mitford +Grisi in 1840 +Guidi Casa, visits to +Guizot on the French clergy +"Gush" and Mary Mitford +Gyöngyös in Hungary, election for + +H + +Haddon Hall +Haine, Notre Dame de la +Hahnemann's favourite pupil +Halifax +Hall, Mr. Horace, and Mr. Sloane +Hall, Alfred, and family at Florence +Haller, Dr., of Berlin + on Lewes's philosophic work +Hamilton, Mr., Minister at Florence +Hamilton, Captain, author of _Cyril Thornton_ + his boat on lake +Handwriting, Mary Mitford's +Hare, Landor's friend +Harrison, American President +Harrow days, old +Hatred, Our Lady of +Hebraist, learned +Heckfield, Mary Mitford at +Heenan the pugilist +Heidelberg +Heights, Witley +Hennell, Miss Sara, Mrs. Lewes to +Heretics, persecution of +Hermolaus, Barbarus +Hervieu, M., his portrait of my mother +High Church opinions, my sister's +_Highways and Byeways_, Grattan's + new edition of +Hill, Herbert, Southey's nephew +Hill, Theodosia, in _Our Village_ +Hill, Frances, in _Our Village_ +Hill, Joseph, Cowper's cousin +_History of Philosophy_, G.H. Lewes's +_History of Florence_, my, G.H. Lewes's criticism of +Hoche, General, his daughter, anecdote of +Hobhouse, Edward, at Florence +Hofwyl, Lewes's at +Holland, society of, Grattan on +Holland, Lord, Minister at Florence + anecdote of + saved my mother's life + Lady +Homoeopathic cure of erysipelas +_Household Words_, my contributions to +Hügel, Baron +Hume, Mr., the "Medium," Dickens on +Humour, that of George Eliot + that of Lewes, different + my mother's sense of +Hungarian politics, Pulszky on + elections +Hungarians, Pulszky proud of the +Huntingford, Bishop of Hereford + his handwriting +Hustings, fall of + +I. + +Ilfracombe, visit to + Royal Clarence Hotel, at +Impudence, Irish, notable case of +Independenza, Piazza, dell', in Florence +Index, the Roman Catholic +Indian hand, my first wife's +Influenza and tragedy, Mary Mitford suffers from +Inghirami Marchese +Intimates, my mother's, in youth and age +_Ion_, Sergeant Talfourd's +Ireland in 1841 + Grattan on +Irish in America, Grattan on the +Italy, my mother's book on + takes to political thinking + +J. + +James, G.P.R., Lander's friend +Jealousy, professional, at Florence +Joy, Mr., of Boston +Joyce's Inn, dinner at +Judge Story, Grattan on + +K. + +Kenyon, Mr. + and Landor + his poems, Landor on + Landor on + and Miss Mitford +Kenyon, Mr. Edward, and Miss Mitford + his munificence +Keppel Street days, old +Killeries, excursion to +Kingstown, landing at +Kirkup, Seymour, and Signor Bezzi + +L. + +_La Beata_, my novel, George Eliot on + Lewes on +Lablache in 1840 +"Lady" for wife, used by Landor +Laffarge, Madame +Lake of Como, George Eliot at +Lamartine, cited +Landor, Walter Savage + at Siena + circumstances under which he left England + his character + personal appearance + last days at Florence + anecdote of + his deafness + dropped his aspirates + threw his dinner service out of window + his vivacity of manner + his objection to scattering his photograph + letters to Mr. Garrow + offers to let his villa at Florence + his extravagant exaggerations + anger respecting Lieutenantcy of Monmouth + abuses the Whigs + at a breakfast at Milman's + and Mary Mitford +Land's End, the +Landseer, Edwin +Langdale, Little, Wordsworth's lines on +Lanleff, Temple of +_Lascia Passare_ extraordinary +Laudanum and green tea, effects of +La Vernia + ride to + _forestieria_, &c, + night-lodging at +Layard, visit to Dickens + and G.P. Marsh +Leaf, turning over a new, Grattan on +"Lenten Journey," my +Leopoldine laws at Florence +Le Roi, Madame, anecdote of +Letters, my first wife's in the _Athenaeum_ +Lewes, G.H., my first acquaintance with + a delightful companion + his incessant care for his wife + his anxiety about Mrs. Lewes's fatigue + his fourth visit to Italy + as a _raconteur_ + at the house of the American Minister + his adieu to me about my novel + happier than previously + last adieu to him and Mrs. Lewes + his saying of George Eliot's person and constitution + his literary influence on George Eliot + his faith in her powers + his insistance on her superiority to him + his delight in talking of her + letters from him and George Eliot + letter criticizing my novel _La Beata_ + his remarks on Mrs. Browning's death + visits Malvern + his criticism of my _Marietta_ + his ill health + _Fortnightly Review_, his editing of + at Tunbridge Wells + his _History of Philosophy_ + in the Black Forest + at a pantomime + on crossing to Calais + on my corresponding with a London paper + death of his son + no biography of + his special advantages in writing on philosophy + photograph of him +Lewes, Mrs. excursion to Camaldoli + her cheerfulness under fatigue + her sensitiveness to all matters of interest +passes the night in the cow-house + at La Vernia + her fourth visit to Italy + her intellectual power + consideration for others + as a companion + her Catholic tolerance + would have been an admirable confessor + not happy + subsequently more so + her sense of humour + my visit to her at Witley + her growth + optimism in her case + her articulation + her love for a drinking song + her improved health + last adieu to her and Lewes + her personal appearance + her likeness to Savonarola + to Dante + her voice + and mode of speaking + her opinion of Lewes's scientific attainments + Bohemianism in Lewes pleasant to her + letters from her and Lewes + questions concerning Florentine history, letter on + her remarks on my novel _La Beata_ +speaks of her interest in deathbeds + her handwriting + on letter-writing + her Sunday musical evenings + her poor state of health + at Venice + difficulties in composing + in the Black Forest + wishes to see Arezzo and Perugia + at Naples + as an antagonist + and my second wife + her affection for Lewes's son + her wishes concerning her husband + after her husband's death + on her husband's photograph +Lewes, Charles +Liberalism, my mother's +_Life and Mind, Problems of_, G.H. Lewes's book on +Lilies, scarlet, American +Lima, river +Lira, Tuscan +Literature, English, biographies in +"Loggia," Tuscan, picture of afternoon in a +Lombard nobles +Lombardy under the Austrians +_London Quarterly_ on G.H. Lewes +Longfellow and Sir G. Musgrave +Lorraine, ramble in +Lottery, Italian, scheme of +Louis Philippe, history of reign of + his hobby +Louis Philippe opens French Chambers + his grief at death of Duc d'Orleans + anecdote of + his wealth + his debts + his reign, character of +Lowell, his _Biglow Papers_, read by him +L.S.D, origin of our +Lucca, Scientific Congress at +Lucca Baths + journey thither from Florence + English Church at + tragedy at + _La Industriosa_ +Lucca, Duke of + at the Baths + his protestantizing tendencies + his English chamberlains + opposed to duelling + by his chamberlain's dying bed +Lucchesi, character of +Lucerne, visit to the Garrows at +"Luck of Edenhall" +"Lung' Arno," at Florence +Luscombe, Bishop, his preaching + anecdote of +Lydia Languish played by Madame di Parcieu + +M. + +Macaulay, Landor on +_Macchiavelli, Life of_, Villari's +"Macchie" in Italian landscape +Macleod, Col., at Penrith +Macready and Mary Mitford + and G.H. Lewes + plays _Ion_ for his benefit +M'Queen, Col. Potter +Madiai, the story of the +Magazines, writing in, Mary Mitford on +Mahomet, Landor on +Malcontenti, Via dei, Florence +Malvern, Mr. and Mrs. Lewes's visit +Manelli, family at Florence +Mannheim +Manual for Confessors +_Marietta_, my novel, criticized by Lewes +Mario, Jessie White +Mario, Alberto +Marriage, my first, opposition to + imprudence of + performed in Florence +Mars, Madame, in _Les Dehors Trompeurs_ +Marsellaise, in 1840 +Marsh, G.P., American Minister to Italy + dean of the diplomatic body + his work, _Man in Nature_ + letter from him + difficulty with the Italian Ministry + his death + and G. Eliot + Mrs. Marsh + and G. Eliot + at Rome +Martineau, Miss, her American book +"Mason, George," Mary Mitford inquires about +Massy, Dawson +Master of Foxhounds, Irish +Mazzinists, Col. Peard on +Medical practice, and whist +_Medici, Catherine de, Girlhood of_, my book on +Medici, General, his departure from Genoa +Mediterranean, the +Melanie, Princess Metternich + letter from + exchange of portraits +Melbourne, Lord, his family, Landor on +Member of Congress +"Memories, Palace of," verses by my first wife +Ménage and Ménagerie +"Mercato in," Italian phrase +Merimée, M. +Messenger, King's +Metternich, influence of, on my mother + Princess, influence of +Mezzeria system in Tuscany +Michael Angelo, his figure representing the Apennine +_Michael Armstrong_, novel by my mother +Mignaty, Signora +Mignaty, Signor +Mignet, M. +Milan, Scientific Congress at +Milk not used by Tuscans +Milman, Landor breakfasts with + Lander's criticism on + quits incumbency at Reading +Minerva Hotel, Rome, Lewes's at +Mitford, Mary + her personal appearance + letters from + her handwriting + an aristocratic Whig + remarks on Owen, of Lanark + and Captain Polhill + her opera + on writing in magazines + her hopes for her tragedy + her hatred of puffery + anxious to go to London for the performance of Talfourd's _Ion_ + necessity for travelling with a maid + her father + her cousins + writes a novel for Saunders and Ottley + her belief in sympathies + opinions on Austria + admiration for Gothic architecture + purposes a novel on Reading Abbey + her _Country Stories_ + her admiration for Miss Barrett + her garden + sends wild flowers to the Sedgwicks + Carey, translator of Dante, visits her + her "gush" +Misericordia, the Florentine + origin of + dress of + members of + proceedings of + anecdotes of + Roman +Modena, frontier line between it and Lucca + political feeling at + under the Este dukes +"Modern Antiques" in _Our Village_ +Mohl, Jules, at Madame Récamier's + anecdote told by + his great work + character of + Madam, life of, by K. O'Meara + note from +Monasteries, sites of +Monday Popular Concerts, at the +Monmouth, Deputy Lieutenantcy of +Montalembert, Dickens's remarks on +Mont Cenis, crossing in February +Moore, Thomas, Landor on +Monthlies, writing in, Mary Mitford on +Moses, Landor on +Mountains, last look on the +Movement of mind towards Conservatism +Mowatt, Mrs. +Mozzi family at Florence +Mulgrave, Lady +Municipality, Florentine, place a tablet to the memory of my first wife +Municipalities, rivalry between +Murder at Florence, anecdote of a +Murder, singular method of +Murray, John, of Albemarle Street +Museum, National, at Pesth +Museum, British, George Eliot reading at +Musgraves of Edenhall + Sir George + and the Holy Well + and Longfellow + walks with + Lady +Mutton, no more good + +N. + +Naples, Scientific Congress at + under the Bourbons + compared with Torquay + the Lewes's at + G. Eliot on quarters at +Napoleon, Louis, Dickens on + his Italian policy, Mrs. Browning on + W.S. Landor writes on +Nemours, Duc de, anecdote of + his grief for his brother's death +Nerli family at Florence +"Netto dispecchio," query of George Eliot respecting the phrase +Neuilly, body of Duc d'Orleans lying at +Niagara +Niccolini, the poet, my first wife's translations from + in his old age + a disappointed man +Nicholson, Dr., of Penrith + walks with +Nicholson, Dr. Wm., of Penrith +Nihilist, opinions of a + appearance of a +Noble, name of Landor's grandmother +Northampton, Lord +_North American Review_, Grattan writes in +_Northern Cobbler_, the, read by Tennyson +Northernhay, at Exeter +Novels, my +Novel-writing, Mary Mitford on +Nunziatina, Via, in Florence +Nurse and child, picture of +Nymzevitch, ex-chancellor of Poland, anecdote of + +O. + +Oastler, Mr. +Oberland, the +O'Connell's health drunk at Boston +Octroi of London +Officer, Austrian and Tuscan mob, anecdote of +Ogles, cousins of Mary Mitford +Old school, practitioner of the +Olney, Cowper's residence at, Mary Mitford on +Olympus for forgotten authors +O'Meara, Miss K., on Jules Mohl +Opera, Mary Mitford's +Optimism in George Eliot +Orleans, Duke of + his death + grief of royal family for + anecdote of +Ostend +Osteria, near Lucca baths, scene at +_Our Village_, last volume of +Owen, Mrs., of Lanark, Miss Mitford on + +P. + +Packing and Sitz baths +Paddington, Bishop Luscombe at +"Padre forestieraio" at Camaldoli + plans for his holiday +Padua "la dotta" +Paige, Mr., of Boston, Grattan on +Paige, Mrs. +"Palace of Memories," verses by my first wife +Pan, God, Mrs. Browning's poem on + morality of +Pantomime, Lewes at a +Papal Legion, the +Parcieu, Madame de, as Lydia Languish +Paris, second visit to + residence at + lodgings, cost of + society in 1840 + as a permanent residence +_Paris and the Parisians_, my mother's book, Mary Mitford on +Parma, Duke of, his death +Parma, political feeling at +Partington, Mr., my uncle +Pasolini, Count and Countess +Passerini, Palazzo, at Florence +Patrick's, Saint, day, Grattan on +_Paul the Pope and Paul the Friar_, my book on +Paynter, Fred +Peard, Colonel + letters from +Pelago in the Val d'Arno + Antonio da +Penini, Browning's son, at Siena + anecdote of +Penna de la Vernia + origin of word + appearance of +Penrith, at + my sister's confinement at + house at +Pepe, General, his marriage + my mother's intimacy with +Pergola Theatre at Florence, prices at + habits and manners at + crush room at +Persecution of heretics +Persiani in 1840 +Perugia, G. Eliot wishes to see + at +Pesth, museum at + ladies of + University + Museum +_Philosophy, History of_, Lewes's +Philpotts, Bishop of Exeter, Landor on + anecdote of +Phlebotomy _versus_ port wine + _versus_ whist +Photograph, Landor's +Physician, Princess Metternich's +Piastre, Landor fined one +Piazza del Duomo at Florence, café in +Piazza dell' Independenza at Florence +"Piazza in," Italian phrase +Picardy, ramble in +Picnics at Florence +Pigott, Edward, and G. Eliot +Pisa, Congress at + region between it and the sea +Pistoja, mountains in the +Pitti Palace, presentations, anecdote of + _versus_ Vatican +Pitti Palace, balls at + suppers at + Grand Duke at + Duchess at + Dowager Duchess at +Pitti Palace, the, at Florence +Pius IX., anecdote of + line on +Place Vendôme +Plantation bitters, G.H. Lewes recommends +Plowden, Mr., at the baths of Lucca + his duel with the Duke's chamberlain +Plunkett, Mr., Minister at Florence +Poem by Theodosia Trollope +Pointer, French, anecdote of +Polhill, Captain, and Mary Mitford +Police at Florence under the Grand Duke +Political opinion, Parisian, in 1840 +Politics, Street, in Paris + an affair of the heart +Ponte Vecchio at Florence in danger + the +Ponte at baths of Lucca +Pontifical government, my first wife's hatred of +Populace, Florentine, anecdote of + violence of +"Por' Santa Maria," in Florence +Port wine _versus_ phlebotomy +Portugal, destruction of monasteries in, Mary Mitford on +Post-mark, singular error in +Potatoes, cost of +Power, Miss, Lady Blessington's niece +Power, lost in the _President_ +Prato Vecchio, town in the Apennines + osteria at, 272 +Pratolino, picnics at + Medician villa + view from +Premature burial, fear of +Prescott, the historian, Grattan on +"President," the, a fatal title +Pretender, Young, Mary Mitford's story of the +Priest, rescuing the + burial of, in Florence Cathedral +Priory, the, Mrs. Lewes at +_Problems of Life and Mind_, G.H. Lewes's book on +Proby, Mrs., as Mrs. Malaprop +Procter, Mr., his poetry, Mary Mitford on +Prolétaire, French +Promise, my, to my mother +Protestant cemetery at Florence +Provincialism, affected + Tuscan +_Psychology, Study of_, Lewes's book on the +Puffery, Mary Mitford on +Pulszky, Franz + his talk + his villa at Florence + letters from + our tobacco parliament + and Deak + and Baron Eotvös + on Hungarian politics + his children + at Vienna + his multifarious occupations + visit to, at Pesth +Pulszky, Madame +Punning, Grattan abandons +"Puseyite," my sister a + +Q. + +Quadruple Alliance, the +_Quarterly, London_, on G.H. Lewes +Quattro Fontane, Via della +Quincy Adams, John +Queen of the Adriatic, monograph on +Queen's health not drunk at Boston +_Queen, British_, the, steamship +Queen of the Baths, Lucca +Queen, the, should be Pope, says Landor +Quotations, Landor on + +R. + +Rachel, Mademoiselle, in _Cinna_ + her specialties + in _Marie Stuart_ + in _Adrienne_ +Railways, social effect of + the Lewes's wish to avoid +Ratcliffe, Mrs. anecdote of +Ratisbonne, M., his conversion +Ravenna, scene of a novel of mine +Reading, visits to +Reading Abbey, Mary Mitford's project concerning +Récamier, Madame, talk in her salon + and Lady Bulwer +Refinement, its connection with wealth, Mary Mitfoid on +Refugees, political, in Florence +Regicides, would-be +Religion in France in 1840 +Repartee, Grattan takes to +_Review, Fortnightly_ + _North American_,, Grattan writes in +Revolution at Florence + entirely bloodless + orders to fire on the city in the +Rialto, on the +Richie, Mrs. +Richelieu, Duc de, anecdote of +Ricorboli, my villa at +_Rienzi_, Mary Mitford's +Ristori, Madame, in _Mirra_ +_Rivals, The_, acted at Florence +Riviera, the, Whitebait on +_Rizpah_, read by Tennyson +_Road to Ruin, The_, Arthur Vansittart in +"Roba usata," +Robbins, English, clergyman at Florence +Roberts, Captain of the _President_ +Rogers, Landor on + at Milman's breakfast +_Rôle_, Liberal, profession of +Rome "la Eterna," +Romagna under the Pope +Romagnoli, the +Rome as a residence + takes no part in scientific congresses + winter in +_Romola_, George Eliot's, faults of + merits of +Romuald, Saint +Rossi family at Florence +Rousseau +Rubini in 1840 +Rule and example +Russells, cousins of Mary Mitford + +S. + +Sagro Eremo, the, at Camaldoli + rule there + ride up to + inmates of +Sainte-Beuve, cited +Saint Francis, sisters of the Order +Saint Patrick's Day, Giattan on +Sams or Sands? Miss Mitford asks +Sanctuaries, Tuscan +San Carlo Theatre at Naples, George Eliot at +San Gallo gate at Florence +Sainta Maria Maggiore in Rome +San Niccolò gate of Florence +Sanscrit dictionary, if wanted +Sardine fishing +_Saturday Review_, George Eliot on +Saunders and Ottley publish novel for Mary Mitford +Savonarola in George Eliot's _Romola_ + likeness of George, Eliot to +Savoy, tour in +Saws, Tuscan, for children +Sayers the pugilist +Sciatica, attack of +Scientific Congresses, Italian +Scrivelsby Manor +Seal, old, Landor loses his +Sedgwick Miss, Mary Mitford on + Theodore asks for English wild flowers +Segni, the historian +Serchio, river + upper valley of +Servite Monastery on the Apennines +Sestri di Ponente, fishery at + whitebait at +Sevestre, Lady + Sir Thomas +Shaftesbury, Lord +Shakespeare's superstition, Mary Mitford on +Shedden, Mr. +Shinner, Elizabeth, her death +Sicily and South Italy, Col. Peard on + departure of volunteers for +Siena, Mrs. Browning at + always Conservative +_Siren, A_, my novel + advice of Lewes concerning +Sledges on Mont Cenis +Sloane, Mr. at Florence + and Grand Duke + his Friday dinners +Smith, Sydney + his manner in the pulpit +Sophie, Austrian Archduchess +Sorrows, two greatest of my life +Soult, English frenzy about + at the Chamber of Deputies +Southampton, Landor goes to +Southey, Landor on his marriage + Landor on +Spain, destruction of monasteries, Mary Mitford on +"Specchio, netto di," query of George Eliot concerning +Standing to write +Stanley, Ed., Landor on +State prisons in Austria +Sterne quoted +Stephens, Mr., preacher +Stewart, Miss Rosa +Stisted, Mrs. + was Queen of the Baths + her harp playing + brings her husband's body from Rome + Colonel + his death + and bunal +"Stornelli," Tuscan + my first wife's translations from +Story, Judge, Grattan on +Story, the Misses, at Penrith + Charlotte +Sugaring jam tart, Lewes on +Sultana, my first wife's grandmother +Sunshine, George Eliot's, in London +Superstition, local +Suppers at the Pitti Palace +Supreme Court, American, Judge Story of the +Surrey, G. Eliot's home in +Swedenborgianism +Switzerland, Baden in, cured my sciatica + travel in +Sympathies, Mary Mitford's belief in +Szecseny, in Hungary, election for + +T. + +Tablet, monumental, to my first wife +Taffy, Lady Bulwer's dog +Talfourd, Sergeant, Mary Mitford's friend + his _Ion_ + franks Mary Mitford's letters +Tamburini, in 1840 +Taylor, Jeremy +Telesio, works of +Tennyson, visit to + his reading +Teste, at the Chamber +"Testor inferos," +Thackeray, W.M., his dictum about humour +Theatres in London and abroad, G.H. Lewes on +Theatricals, private, at Florence +Thibeaudeau, President +Thiers, M. + anecdote of + flatters the masses + and Lady Bulwer +Thorn, Colonel +_Three Clerks, The_, my brother's novel, Mrs. Browning on +Three Mile Cross, Miss Mitford's residence +_Three Peers, The_, by Lady S--, Lady Bulwer on +Tiber, river +Tirley, Sir John, married to my sister +_Times_, the, on Italian politics +Tito in George Eliot's _Romola_, merit of +Token, meaning of the term +Torquay, Landor at + compared with Naples +Torrens, Mr., as Sir Lucius o'Trigger +Tory, process of becoming a + Mary Mitford becomes a +Tours in France +Townsend, C.H. +Traditions of Landor in Florence +Travel, books of +Treguier in Brittany +Trewhella, Mr. +Trooper, Austrian, falls in streets of Florence +Trollope, Beatrice, my daughter, poem on, by her mother + her mother's worship of + early discipline of +Trollope, Cecilia, my sister, winters in Rome +Trollope, General Sir Charles, at Venice + his membership of the Congress at Venice +Trollope, Theodosia, my first wife, her death + her intellectual and moral qualities + influence of race on + Mrs. Browning on her multiform faculty + her musical talent + her talent for language + poem by + her landscape painting + her opinions + her hatred of the Pontifical Government + her social preferences + her rule of life + as a daughter-in-law +Trollope, Frances, my mother, winters in Rome + as Mrs. Malaprop + serious illness of, was wrongly treated + was my inseparable companion + her intense power of enjoyment + her last days + my brother Anthony's mistaken judgment of + portrait of, for Princess Metternich + attacked by erisypelas + her death + my promise to her, the keeping of +Trollope, Anthony, my brother, in Ireland + walk at the Killeries + his standing for Beverley, Dickens on + his criticism on Mrs. Browning + his _Three Clerks_, Mrs. Browning on + dines with G.H. Lewes + with Carlyle + comes to see me at Baden + his letter to my wife + his autobiography, a passage in + his mistaken judgment of my mother +Trollope, T. Adolphus, early literary work + a born rambler + taste for sermons + offends Wordsworth + first book + early habits of rambling + book on Brittany + second visit to Paris + preparation of house at Penrith + visit to Ireland + plans and consultations + acquaintance with Dickens + building a house + _Daily News_ correspondent + first marriage, opposition to + imprudence of + first meeting with future wife + with her at Venice + first marriage + book on _Tuscany in 1849 and 1859_ + acts Sir Anthony Absolute + three Thespian avatars + literary work at Florence + writes novels good and bad + knowledge of Italian + visits Pesth + visits to Landor + visits Camaldoli with Lewes and his wife + talk with her + receives her and Lewes + visits them at Witley + visit to Tennyson, at Black Down + my conversatism + attack of sciatica + closeness of association with my mother + my political opinions + sorrows come upon me + keeping my promise to my mother + end of first life + beginning of second life +Troops, Tuscan, and the Revolution +Tuckerman, Mr., American writer +Tuileries, _bal monstre_ at + suspected conspiracy at +Tunbridge Wells, G.H. Lewes at +Turrite Cava, gorge of +Tuscan cities, wedding trip among + Stornelli, my first wife's translations from +Tuscans, not progressive +Tuscany and Papal States + condition of, in 1840 + Duke of, his justice + Grandducal, disliked at the Vatican +Tyrol, ramble in + +U. + +Upper Arno, the valley of the + +V. + +Vallombrosa +Van Buren politics, Grattan on +Vansittart, Arthur +Varchi, the historian +Vatican, Dickens on the +Vein, opening of a +Venice as a residence + autumn at + Scientific Congress at + magnificent reception of the Congress + under the Austrians + George Eliot at + glass and child +Venetian ambassadors, reports of +Verey's in Regent Street, Dickens at + Dickens's "God speed" dinner at +Via Nazionale in Rome +Vienna Exhibition + Mr. E. Kenyon at +Villa, the, at Lucca Baths +Villafranca +_Village, Our_, last volume of +Villages on hills around Baths of Lucca + mode of keeping time at +Villani, the historian +Villari, Professor Pasquale + Linda +"Villino Trollope," at Florence + my study in the +Vincent, Sir Francis, at Florence +Visconti, Mademoiselle +Visits, two important +Vol-au-vent, true pronunciation of +Volterra, copper mines near, and Mr. Sloane +Volunteers, Colonel Peard on, 223 + +W. + +Wackerbarth, Mr., High Church curate +Walker and Wood, Memoirs of Bradford +Walter, Madame +Ward, Baron, his extraordinary career + anecdote of +Warwickshire, Landor goes to +Washington, Grattan's visit to +Watts, portrait of Lady Holland by +Webster, Mr., of Boston, Grattan on Mrs. +Wellington Street, No. 20, visits to +West India, Book on, Anthony's +Whig, aristocratic +Whigs, the, Landor on +Whist and medical practice +White, Linda +Whitebait and Gianchetti +Whittaker, Mr., Mary Mitford's publisher +Wife, my second, and G. Eliot +Wills, Mr., dinner with +Winchester, Dr. Gabell of +Wise, Mr. +Wiseman, Cardinal, in Casa Sloane +Witley, the Heights +Wood, Mr., of Bradford + and Walker, Messieurs +"Woonderful," favourite word with Landor +Wordsworth, visit to + his recitation of his own lines + manner of reciting + his eldest son's misfortune +Work the great consoler, Lewes on + +X. + +Ximenes, Palazzo, in Florence + +Y. + +York Street, in + return to + house in given up +"Young Backwoodsman," Mary Mitford asks about +"Young Pretender, the," Mary Mitford's story of + +Z. + +Zandt, Baroness + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT I REMEMBER, VOLUME 2
*** + + +******* This file should be named 12471-8.txt or 12471-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/4/7/12471 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS,' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + +https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + +https://gutenberg.org/etext06 + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** diff --git a/old/12471-8.zip b/old/12471-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..10b05e6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12471-8.zip diff --git a/old/12471.txt b/old/12471.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7477420 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12471.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11796 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, What I Remember, Volume 2, by Thomas +Adolphus Trollope + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: What I Remember, Volume 2
+ +Author: Thomas Adolphus Trollope + +Release Date: May 28, 2004 [eBook #12471] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT I REMEMBER, VOLUME 2
*** + + +E-text prepared by the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading +Team from images provided by the Million Book Project. + + + +WHAT I REMEMBER + +BY + +THOMAS ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE + +IN TWO VOLUMES + +VOL. II + +1887 + + + + + + +CONTENTS. + +CHAPTER I. +IN THE NORTH OF ENGLAND + +CHAPTER II. +JOURNEY IN BRITTANY + +CHAPTER III. +AT PENRITH.--AT PARIS + +CHAPTER IV. +IN WESTERN FRANCE.--AGAIN IN PARIS + +CHAPTER V. +IN IRELAND.--AT ILFRACOMBE--IN FLORENCE + +CHAPTER VI. +IN FLORENCE + +CHAPTER VII. +CHARLES DICKENS + +CHAPTER VIII. +AT LUCCA BATHS + +CHAPTER IX. +THE GARROWS.--SCIENTIFIC CONGRESSES.--MY FIRST MARRIAGE + +CHAPTER X +ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING + +CHAPTER XI. +REMINISCENCES AT FLORENCE + +CHAPTER XII. +REMINISCENCES AT FLORENCE + +CHAPTER XIII. +LETTERS FROM PEARD--GARIBALDI--LETTERS FROM PULSZKY + +CHAPTER XIV. +WALTER S. LANDOR.--G.P. MARSH + +CHAPTER XV. +MR. AND MRS. LEWES + +CHAPTER XVI. +LETTERS FROM MR. AND MRS. LEWES + +CHAPTER XVII. +MY MOTHER.--LETTERS OF MARY MITFORD.--LETTERS OF T.C. GRATTAN + +CHAPTER XVIII. +THEODOSIA TROLLOPE + +CHAPTER XIX. +DEATH OF MR. GARROW--PROTESTANT CEMETERY.--ANGEL IN THE HOUSE NO MORE + +CHAPTER XX. +CONCLUSION + +INDEX + + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +No! as I said at the end of the last chapter but one, before I was led +away by the circumstances of that time to give the world the benefit +of my magnetic reminiscences--_valeat quantum!_--I was not yet bitten, +despite Colley Grattan's urgings, with any temptation to attempt +fiction, and "passion, me boy!" But I am surprised on turning over my +old diaries to find how much I was writing, and planning to write, +in those days, and not less surprised at the amount of running about +which I accomplished. + +My life in those years of the thirties must have been a very busy +one. I find myself writing and sending off a surprising number of +"articles" on all sorts of subjects--reviews, sketches of travel, +biographical notices, fragments from the byeways of history, and the +like, to all kinds of periodical publications, many of them long since +dead and forgotten. That the world should have forgotten all these +articles "goes without saying." But what is not perhaps so common an +incident in the career of a penman is, that _I_ had in the majority +of cases utterly forgotten them, and all about them, until they were +recalled to mind by turning the yellow pages of my treasured but +almost equally forgotten journals! I beg to observe, also, that all +this pen-work was not only printed, but _paid for_. My motives were of +a decidedly mercenary description. "_Hic scribit fama ductus, at ille +fame._" I belonged emphatically to the latter category, and little +indeed of my multifarious productions ever found its final resting +place in the waste-paper basket. They were rejected often, but +re-despatched a second and a third time, if necessary, to some other +"organ," and eventually swallowed by some editor or other. + +I am surprised, too, at the amount of locomotion which I contrived to +combine with all this scribbling. I must have gone about, I think, +like a tax-gatherer, with an inkstand slung to my button-hole! And +in truth I was industrious; for I find myself in full swing of some +journey, arriving at my inn tired at night, and finishing and sending +off some article before I went to my bed. But it must have been only +by means of the joint supplies contributed by all my editors that +I could have found the means of paying all the stage-coaches, +diligences, and steamboats which I find the record of my continually +employing. "_Navibus atque Quadrigis petimus bene vivere!_" And +I succeeded by their means in living, if not well, at least very +pleasantly. + +For I was born a rambler. + +I heard just now a story of a little boy, who replied to the common +question, "What he would like to be when he grew up?" by saying that +he should like to be either a giant or a _retired_ stockbroker! I find +the qualifying adjective delicious, and admire the pronounced taste +for repose indicated by either side of the alternative. But my +propensities were more active, and in the days before I entered my +teens I used always to reply to similar demands, that I would be a +"king's messenger"! I knew no other life which approached so nearly to +perpetual motion. "The road" was my paradise, and it is a true saying +that the child is father to the man. The Shakespearian passage which +earliest impressed my childish mind and carried with it my heartiest +sympathies was the song of old Autolycus: + + "Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way, + And merrily hent the stile-a: + Your merry heart goes all the day, + Your sad tires in a mile-a." + +Over how many miles of "foot-path way," under how many green hedges, +has my childish treble chanted that enlivening ditty! + +But that was in much earlier days to those I am now writing of. + +During the years between my dreary time at Birmingham and my first +departure for Italy, I find the record of many pedestrian or other +rambles in England and abroad. There they are, all recorded day by +day--the qualities of the inns and the charges at them (not so much +less than those of the present day as might be imagined, with the +exception of the demands for beds), the beauty and specialties of the +views, the talk of wayfaring companions, the careful measurements of +the churches, the ever-recurring ascent of the towers of them, &c. &c. + +Here and there in the mountains of chaff there may be a grain worth +preserving, as where I read that at Haddon Hall the old lady who +showed the house, and who boasted that her ancestors had been +servitors of the possessors of it for more than three hundred +years, pointed out to me the portrait of one of them, who had been +"forester," hanging in the hall. She also pointed out the window from +which a certain heiress had eloped, and by doing so had carried the +hall and lands into the family of the present owners, and told me that +Mrs. Radcliffe, shortly before the publication of her _Mysteries +of Udolpho_, had visited Haddon, and had sat at that window busily +writing for a long time. + +I seem to have been an amateur of sermons in those days, from the +constant records I find of sermons listened to, by no means always, +or indeed generally, complimentary to the preachers. Here is an entry +criticising, with young presumption, a sermon by Dr. Dibdin, whose +bibliophile books, however, I had much taste for. + +"I heard Dr. Dibdin preach. He preached with much gesticulation, +emphasis, and grimace the most utterly trashy sermon I ever heard; +words--words--words--without the shadow of an idea in them." + +I remember, as if it were yesterday, a shrewd sort of an old lady, the +mother, I think, of the curate of the parish, who heard me, as we were +leaving the church, expressing my opinion of the doctor's discourse, +saying, "Well, it is a very old story, young gentleman, and it is +mighty difficult to find anything new to say about it!" + +The bibliomaniacal doctor, however, seems to have pleased me better +out of the pulpit than in it, for I find that "he called in the +afternoon and chatted amusingly for an hour. He fell tooth and nail +upon the Oxford Tracts men, and told us of a Mr. Wackerbarth, a curate +in Essex, a Cambridge man, who, he says, elevates the host, crosses +himself, and advocates burning of heretics. It seems to me, however," +continues this censorious young diarist, "that those who object to the +persecution, even to extermination of heretics, admit the uncertainty +and dubiousness of all theological doctrine and belief. For if it be +_certain_ that God will punish disbelief in doctrines essential to +salvation, and _certain_ that any Church possesses the knowledge what +those doctrines are, does it not follow that a man who goes about +persuading people to reject those doctrines should be treated as we +treat a mad dog loose in the streets of a city?" Thus fools, when they +are young enough, rush in where wise men fear to tread! + +I had entirely forgotten, but find from my diary that it was our +pleasant friend but indifferent preacher, Dr. Dibdin, who on the 11th +of February, 1839, married my sister, Cecilia, to Mr., now Sir John, +Tilley. + +It appears that I was not incapable of appreciating a good sermon +when I heard one, for I read of the impression produced upon me by an +"admirable sermon preached by Mr. Smith" (it must have been Sydney, I +take it) in the Temple Church. The preacher quoted largely from Jeremy +Taylor, "giving the passages with an excellence of enunciation and +expression which impressed them on my mind in a manner which will not +allow me to forget them." Alack! I _have_ forgotten every word of +them! + +I remember, however, perfectly well, without any reference to my +diary, hearing--it must have been much about the same time--Sydney +Smith preach a sermon at St. Paul's, which much impressed me. He took +for his text, "Knowledge and wisdom shall be the stability of thy +times" (I write from memory--the memory of half a century ago--but I +think the words ran thus). Of course the gist of his discourse may be +readily imagined. But the manner of the preacher remains more vividly +present to my mind than his words. He spoke with extreme rapidity, and +had the special gift of combining extreme rapidity of utterance with +very perfect clearness. His manner, I remember thinking, was unlike +any that I had ever witnessed in the pulpit, and appeared to me to +resemble rather that of a very earnest speaker at the hustings than +the usual pulpit style. His sentences seemed to run downhill, with +continually increasing speed till they came to a full stop at the +bottom. It was, I think, the only sermon I ever heard which I wished +longer. He carried me with him completely, for the century was in +those days, like me, young. But if I were to hear a similarly fervid +discourse now on the same subject, I should surely desire some clearer +setting forth of the difference between "knowledge" and "wisdom." + +It was about this time, _i.e._, in the year 1839, that my mother, who +had been led, by I forget what special circumstances, to take a great +interest in the then hoped-for factory legislation, and in Lord +Shaftesbury's efforts in that direction, determined to write a novel +on the subject with the hope of doing something towards attracting the +public mind to the question, and to visit Lancashire for the purpose +of obtaining accurate information and local details. + +The novel was written, published in the then newly-invented fashion of +monthly numbers, and called _Michael Armstrong_. The publisher, Mr. +Colburn, paid a long price for it, and did not complain of the result. +But it never became one of the more popular among my mother's novels, +sharing, I suppose, the fate of most novels written for some +purpose other than that of amusing their readers. Novel readers are +exceedingly quick to smell the rhubarb under the jam in the dose +offered to them, and set themselves against the undesired preachment, +as obstinately as the naughtiest little boy who ever refused to be +physicked with nastiness for his good. + +My mother neglected no means of making the facts stated in her book +authentic and accurate, and the _mise en scene_ of her story graphic +and truthful. Of course I was the companion of her journey, and was +more or less useful to her in searching for and collecting facts in +some places where it would have been difficult for her to look +for them. We carried with us a number of introductions from Lord +Shaftesbury to a rather strange assortment of persons, whom his +lordship had found useful both as collectors of trustworthy +information, and energetic agitators in favour of legislation. + +The following letter from the Earl of Shaftesbury, then Lord Ashley, +to my mother on the subject, is illustrative of the strong interest he +took in the matter, and of the means which he thought necessary for +obtaining information respecting it: + + * * * * * + +"MADAM,--The letters to Macclesfield and Manchester shall be sent by +this evening's post. On your arrival at Macclesfield be so kind as +to ask for Reuben Bullock, of Roe Street, and at Manchester for John +Doherty, a small bookseller of Hyde's Cross in the town. They will +show you the secrets of the place, as they showed them to me. + +"Mr. Wood himself is not now resident in Bradford, he is at present in +Hampshire; but his partner, Mr. Walker, carries out all his plans with +the utmost energy. I will write to him to-night. The firm is known +by the name of 'Wood and Walker,' Mr. Wood is a person whom you may +easily see in London on your return to town. With every good wish and +prayer for your success, + +"I remain your very obedient servant, + +"ASHLEY. + +"P.S.--The _Quarterly Review_ of December, 1836, contains an article +on the factory system, which would greatly assist by the references to +the evidence before Committee, &c. &c." + + * * * * * + +It is useless here and now to say anything of the horrors of +uncivilised savagery and hopeless abject misery which we witnessed. +They are painted in my mother's book, and should any reader ever refer +to those pages for a picture of the state of things among the factory +hands at that time, he may take with him my testimony to the fact that +there was no exaggeration in the outlines of the picture given. What +we are there described to have seen, we saw. + +And let doctrinaire economists preach as they will, and Radical +socialists abuse a measure, which helps to take from them the fulcrum +of the levers that are to upset the whole existing framework of +society, it is impossible for one who _did_ see those sights, and +who has visited the same localities in later days, not to bless Lord +Shaftesbury's memory, ay, and the memory, if they have left any, of +the humble assistants whose persistent efforts helped on the work. + +But the little knot of apostles to whom Lord Shaftesbury's letters +introduced us, and into whose intimate _conciliabules_ his +recommendations caused our admittance, was to my mother, and yet more +to me, to whom the main social part of the business naturally fell, a +singularly new and strange one. They were all, or nearly all of them, +men a little raised above the position of the factory hands, to the +righting of whose wrongs they devoted their lives. They had been at +some period of their lives, in almost every case, factory workers +themselves, but had by various circumstances, native talent, industry, +and energy, or favouring fortune--more likely by all together--managed +to raise themselves out of the slough of despond in which their +fellows were overwhelmed. One, I remember, a Mr. Doherty, a very small +bookseller, to whom we were specially recommended by Lord Shaftesbury. +He was an Irishman, a Roman Catholic, and a furious Radical, but a +_very_ clever man. He was thoroughly acquainted with all that had been +done, all that it was hoped to do, and with all the means that were +being taken for the advancement of those hopes, over the entire +district. + +He came and dined with us at our hotel, but it was, I remember, with +much difficulty that we persuaded him to do so, and when at table his +excitement in talking was so great and continuous that he could eat +next to nothing. + +I remember, too, a Rev. Mr. Bull, to whom he introduced us +subsequently at Bradford. We passed the evening with this gentleman at +the house of Mr. Wood, of the firm of Walker and Wood, to whom also we +had letters from Lord Shaftesbury. He, like our host, was an ardent +advocate of the ten hours' bill, but unlike him, had very little hope +of legislative interference. Messrs. Walker and Wood employed three +thousand hands. At a sacrifice of some thousands per annum, they +worked their hands an hour less than any of their neighbours, which +left the hours, as Mr. Wood strongly declared, still too long. Those +gentlemen had built and endowed a church and a school for their hands, +and everything was done in their mill which could humanise and improve +the lot of the men, women, and children. Mr. Bull, who was to be the +incumbent of the new church, then not quite finished, was far less +hopeful than his patron. He told me that he looked forward to some +tremendous popular outbreak, and should not be surprised any night to +hear that every mill in Bradford was in flames. + +But perhaps the most remarkable individual with whom this Lancashire +journey brought us into contact, was a Mr. Oastler. He was the Danton +of the movement. He would have been a remarkable man in any position +or calling in life. He was a very large and powerfully framed man, +over six feet in height, and proportionately large of limb and +shoulder. He would, perhaps, hardly have been said to be a handsome +man. His face was coarse, and in parts of it heavy. But he had a most +commanding presence, and he was withal a picturesque--if it be not +more accurate to say a statuesque--figure. Some of the features, too, +were good. He had a very keen and intelligent blue eye, a mass of iron +grey hair, lips, the scornful curl of which was terrible, and with all +this a voice stentorian in its power, and yet flexible, with a flow +of language rapid and abundant as the flow of a great river, and as +unstemmable--the very _beau-ideal_ of a mob orator. + +"In the evening," says my diary, "we drove out to Stayley Bridge to +hear the preaching of Stephens, the man who has become the subject of +so much newspaper celebrity," (Does any one remember who he was?) "We +reached a miserable little chapel, filled to suffocation, and besieged +by crowds around the doors. We entered through the vestry with very +great difficulty, and only so by the courtesy of sundry persons who +relinquished their places, on Doherty's representing to them that we +were strangers from a distance and friends to the cause. Presently +Stephens arrived, and a man who had been ranting in the pulpit, +merely, as it seemed, to occupy the people till he should come, +immediately yielded his place to him. Stephens spoke well, and said +some telling words in that place, of the cruel and relentless march of +the great Juggernauth, Gold. But I did not hear anything which seemed +to me to justify his great reputation. Really the most striking part +of the performance, and that which I thought seemed to move the people +most, was Oastler's mounting the pulpit and giving out the verses of a +hymn, one by one, which the congregation sang after him." So says my +diary. Him I remember well, though Stephens not at all. I remember, +too, the pleasure with which I listened to his really fine delivery of +the lines; his pronunciation of the words was not incorrect, and when +he spoke, as I heard him on sundry subsequent occasions, his language, +though emphasised rather, as it seemed, than marred by a certain +roughness of Lancashire accent, was not that of an uncultivated man. +Yes! Oastler, the King of Lancashire as the people liked to call +him, was certainly a man of power, and an advocate whom few platform +orators would have cared to meet as an adversary. + +When my mother's notes for her projected novel were completed, we +thought that before turning our faces southwards, we would pay a +flying visit to the lake district, which was new ground to both of +us. I remember well my intense delight at my first introduction to +mountains worthy of the name. But I mean to mention here two only of +my reminiscences of that first visit to lake-land. + +The first of these concerns an excursion on Windermere with Captain +Hamilton, the author of _Cyril Thornton_, which had at that time made +its mark. He had recently received a new boat, which had been built +for him in Norway. He expected great performances from her, and as +there was a nice fresh wind idly curling the surface of the lake, he +invited us to come out with him and try her, and in a minute or two we +were speeding merrily before the breeze towards the opposite shore. +But about the middle of the lake we found the water a good deal +rougher, and the wind began to increase notably. Hamilton held the +tiller, and not liking to make fast the haulyard of the sail, gave me +the rope to hold, with instructions to hold on till further orders. He +was a perfect master of the business in hand, and so was the new boat +a perfect mistress of _her_ business, but this did not prevent us from +getting thoroughly ducked. My attention was sufficiently occupied in +obeying my orders, and keeping my eye on him in expectation of fresh +ones. The wind meanwhile increased from minute to minute, and I could +not help perceiving that Hamilton, despite his cheery laughter, was +becoming a little anxious. We got back, however, to the shore we had +left after a good buffeting, and in the condition of drowned rats. My +mother was helped out of the boat, and while she was making her way +up the bank, and I was helping him to make the boat secure, I said, +"Well! the new boat has done bravely!" "Between you and me, my dear +fellow," said he, as he laid his hand on my shoulder with a grip, that +I think must have left his thumb-mark on the skin, "if the boat had +not behaved better than any boat of her class that I ever saw, there +would have been a considerable probability of our being dined on by +the fishes, instead of dining together, as I hope we are going to do! +I have been blaming myself for taking your mother out; but the truth +is that on these lakes it is really impossible to tell for half an +hour what the next half hour may bring forth." + +The one other incident of our visit to lake-land which I will record, +was our visit to Wordsworth. + +For my part I managed to incur his displeasure while yet on the +threshold of his house. We were entering it together, when observing +a very fine bay-tree by the door-side, I unfortunately expressed +surprise at its luxuriance in such a position. "Why should you be +surprised?" he asked, suddenly turning upon me with much displeasure +in his manner. Not a little disconcerted, I hesitatingly answered +that I had imagined the bay-tree required more and greater warmth of +sunshine than it could find there. "Pooh!" said he, much offended at +the slight cast on his beloved locality, "what has sunshine got to do +with it?" + +I had not the readiness to reply, that in truth the world had +abundance of testimony that the bay could flourish in those latitudes! +But I think, had I done so it might have made my peace--for the +remainder of that evening's experiences led me to imagine that the +great poet was not insensible to incense from very small and humble +worshippers. + +The evening, I think I may say the entire evening, was occupied by +a monologue addressed by the poet to my mother, who was of course +extremely well pleased to listen to it. I was chiefly occupied in +talking to my old schoolfellow, Herbert Hill, Southey's nephew, who +also passed the evening there, and with whom I had a delightful walk +the next day. But I did listen with much pleasure when Wordsworth +recited his own lines descriptive of Little Langdale. He gave them +really exquisitely. But his manner in conversation was not impressive. +He sat continuously looking down with a green shade over his eyes even +though it was twilight; and his mode of speech and delivery suggested +to me the epithet "maundering," though I was ashamed of myself for the +thought with reference to such a man. As we came away I cross-examined +my mother much as to the subjects of his talk. She said it had been +all about himself and his works, and that she had been interested. But +I could not extract from her a word that had passed worth recording. + +I do not think that he was popular with his neighbours generally. +There were stories current, at Lowther among other places, which +imputed to him a tendency to outstay his welcome when invited to visit +in a house. I suspect there was a little bit of a feud between him and +my brother-in-law, Mr. Tilley, who was the Post Office surveyor of the +district. Wordsworth as receiver of taxes, or issuer of licenses or +whatever it was, would have increased the profits of his place if the +mail coach had paid its dues, whether for taxes or license, at his end +of the journey instead of at Kendal, as had been the practice. But of +course any such change would have been as much to the detriment of the +man at Kendal as to Wordsworth's advantage. And my brother-in-law, +thinking such a change unjust, would not permit it. + +I cannot say that on the whole the impression made on me by the poet +on that occasion (always with the notable exception of his recital of +his own poetry) was a pleasant one. There was something in the manner +in which he almost perfunctorily, as it seemed, uttered his long +monologue, that suggested the idea of the performance of a part got +up to order, and repeated without much modification as often as +lion-hunters, duly authorised for the sport in those localities, might +call upon him for it. I dare say the case is analogous to that of the +hero and the valet, but such was my impression. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +I had been for some time past, as has been said, trying my hand, +not without success, at a great variety of articles in all sorts of +reviews, magazines, and newspapers. I already considered myself a +member of the guild of professional writers. I had done much business +with publishers on behalf of my mother, and some for other persons, +and talked glibly of copyrights, editions, and tokens. + +(I fancy, by the by, that the latter term has somewhat fallen out of +use in these latter days, whether from any change of the methods used +by printers or publishers I do not know. But it strikes me that many +youngsters, even of the scribbling tribe, may not know that the phrase +"a token" had no connection whatever with signs and wonders of any +sort, but simply meant two hundred and fifty copies.) + +And being thus equipped, I began to think that it was time that I +should attempt _a book_. During a previous hurried scamper in Normandy +I had just a glimpse of Brittany, which greatly excited my desire to +see more of it. So I pitched on a tour in Brittany as the subject of +my first attempt. + +Those were happy days, when all the habitable globe had not been +run over by thousands of tourists, hundreds of whom are desirous of +describing their doings in print--not but that the notion, whether +a publisher's or writer's notion, that new ground is needed for the +production of a good and amusing book of travels, is other than a +great mistake. I forget what proposing author it was, who in answer +to a publisher urging the fact that "a dozen writers have told us all +about so and so," replied, "But _I_ have not told you what _I_ have +seen and thought about it." But if I had been the publisher I should +at once have asked to see his MS. The days when a capital book may be +written on a _voyage autour de ma chambre_ are as present as ever they +were. And "A Summer Afternoon's Walk to Highgate" might be the subject +of a delightful book if only the writer were the right man. + +Brittany, however, really was in those days to a great extent fresh +ground, and the strangely secluded circumstances of its population +offered much tempting material to the book-making tourist. All this is +now at an end; not so much because the country has been the subject of +sundry good books of travel, as because the people and their mode of +life, the country and its specialties have all been utterly changed by +the pleasant, convenient, indispensable, abominable railway, which in +its merciless irresistible tramp across the world crushes into a +dead level of uninteresting monotony so many varieties of character, +manners, and peculiarities. And thus "the individual withers, and the +world is more and more!" But _is_ the world more and more in any sense +that can be admitted to be desirable, in view of the eternity of that +same Individual? + +As for the Bretons, the individual has withered to that extent that +he now wears trousers instead of breeches, while his world has become +more and more assimilated to that of the Faubourg St. Antoine, with +the result of losing all those really very notable and stiff and +sturdy virtues which differentiated the Breton peasant, when I first +knew him, while it would be difficult indeed to say what it has +gained. At all events the progress which can be stated is mainly to be +stated in negatives. The Breton, as I first knew him, believed in all +sorts of superstitious rubbish. He now believes in nothing at all. +He was disposed to honour and respect God, and his priest, and his +seigneur perhaps somewhat too indiscriminately. Now he neither honours +nor respects any earthly or heavenly thing. These at least were the +observations which a second, or rather third visit to the country a +few years ago suggested to me, mainly, it is true, as regards the +urban population. And without going into any of the deeper matters +which such changes suggest to one's consideration, there can be no +possible doubt as to the fact that the country and its people are +infinitely less interesting than they were. + +My plans were soon made, and I hastened to lay them before Mr. +Colburn, who was at that time publishing for my mother. The trip was +my main object, and I should have been perfectly contented with terms +that paid all the expenses of it. _Di auctius fecerunt_, and I came +home from my ramble with a good round sum in my pocket. + +I was not greedy of money in those days, and had no unscriptural +hankerings after laying up treasure upon earth. All I wanted was a +sufficient supply for my unceasing expenditure in locomotion and inn +bills--the latter, be it observed, always on a most economical scale. +I was not a profitable customer; I took nothing "for the good of the +house." I had a Gargantuesque appetite, and needed food of some sort +in proportion to its demands. I neither took, or cared to take, any +wine with my dinner, and never wanted any description of "nightcap." +As for accommodation for the night, anything sufficed me that gave me +a clean bed and a sufficient window-opening on fresh air, under such +conditions as made it possible for me to have it open all night. To +the present day I cannot sleep to my liking in a closed chamber; and +before now, on the top of the Righi, have had my bed clothes blown off +my bed, and snow deposited where they should have been. + +But _quo musa tendis?_ I was talking about my travels in Brittany. + +I do not think my book was a bad _coup d'essai_. I remember old John +Murray coming out to me into the front office in Albemarle Street, +where I was on some business of my mother's, with a broad good-natured +smile on his face, and putting into my hands the _Times_ of that +morning, with a favourable notice of the book, saying as he did so, +"There, so _you_ have waked this morning to find yourself famous!" +And, what was more to the purpose, my publisher was content with the +result, as was evidenced by his offering me similar terms for another +book of the same description--of which, more anon. + +As my volumes on Brittany, published in 1840, are little likely to +come under the eye of any reader at the present day, and as the +passage I am about to quote indicates accurately enough the main point +of difference between what the traveller at that day saw and what the +traveller of the present day may see, I think I may be pardoned for +giving it. + +"We had observed that at Broons a style of _coiffure_ which was new +to us prevailed; and my companion wished to add a sketch of it to his +fast-increasing collection of Breton costumes. With this view, he had +begun making love to the maid a little, to induce her to do so much +violence to her maiden modesty, as to sit to him for a few minutes, +when a far better opportunity of achieving his object presented +itself. + +"The landlady's daughter, a very pretty little girl about fourteen +years old, was going to be confirmed, and had just come down stairs +to her mother, who was sitting knitting in the _salle a manger_, for +inspection and approval before she started. Of course, upon such an +occasion, the art of the _blanchisseuse_ was taxed to the utmost. Lace +was not spared; and the most _recherche coiffure_ was adopted, that +the rigorous immutability of village modes would permit. + +"It would seem that the fickleness of fashion exercises in constant +local variations that mutability which is utterly denied to it in +Brittany with regard to time. Every district, almost every commune +has its own peculiar 'mode' (for both sexes) which changes not from +generation to generation. As the mothers dress, so do their daughters, +so did their grandmothers, and so will their grand-daughters." [But I +reckoned when writing thus without the railroad and its consequences.] +"If a woman of one parish marries, or takes service, or for any other +cause resides in another, she still retains the mode of her native +village; and thus carries about her a mark, which is to those, among +whom she is a sojourner, a well-recognised indication of the place +whence she comes, and to herself a cherished souvenir of the home +which she never ceases to consider her own country. + +"But though the form of the dress is invariable, and every inhabitant +of the commune, from the wealthy farmer's wife to the poorest cottager +who earns her black bread by labour in the fields, would as soon think +of adopting male attire as of innovating on the immemorial _mode du +pays_, yet the quality of the materials allows scope for wealth and +female coquetry to show themselves. Thus the invariable _mode de +Broons_, with its trifling difference in form, which in the eye of the +inhabitants made it as different as light from darkness from the _mode +de St. Jouan_,' was equally observable in the coarse linen _coiffe_ of +the maid, and the richly-laced and beautifully 'got up' head-dress of +the daughter of the house. + +"A very slight observation of human nature under a few only of its +various phases may suffice to show that the instinct which prompts a +woman to adorn her person to the best possible advantage is not the +hot-house growth of cities, but a genuine wild flower of nature. No +high-born beauty ever more repeatedly or anxiously consulted her +wax-lit _psyche_ on every faultless point of hair, face, neck, feet, +and figure, before descending to the carriage for her first ball, than +did our young Bretonne again and again recur to the mirror, which +occupied the pier between the two windows of the _salle a manger_, +before sallying forth on the great occasion of her confirmation. + +"The dear object of girlish ambition was the same to both; but the +simplicity of the little _paysanne_ showed itself in the utter absence +of any wish to conceal her anxiety upon the subject. Though delighted +with our compliments on her appearance, our presence by no means +prevented her from springing upon a chair every other minute to obtain +fuller view of the _tout ensemble_ of her figure. Again and again the +modest kerchief was arranged and rearranged to show a hair's breadth +more or a hair's breadth less of her brown but round and taper throat. +Repeatedly, before it could be finally adjusted to her satisfaction, +was the delicate fabric of her _coiffure_ moved with cautious care and +dainty touch a _leetle_ backwarder or a _leetle_ forwarder over her +sun-browned brow. + +"Many were the pokings and pinchings of frock and apron, the +smoothings down before and twitchings down behind of the not less +anxious mother. Often did she retreat to examine more correctly the +general effect of the _coup d'oeil_, and as often return to rectify +some injudicious pin or remodel some rebellious fold. When all was at +length completed, and the well-pleased parent had received from the +servants, called in for the express purpose, the expected tribute of +admiration, the little beauty took _L'Imitation de la Vierge_ in her +hand, and tripped across to a convent of _Soeurs Grises_ on the other +side of the way to receive their last instructions and admonitions +respecting her behaviour when she should be presented to the bishop, +while her mother screamed after her not to forget to pull up her frock +when she kneeled down. + +"All the time employed in this little revision of the toilet had not +been left unimproved by my companion, who at the end of it produced +and showed to the proud mother an admirable full-length sketch of her +pretty darling. The delighted astonishment of the poor woman, and her +accent, as she exclaimed, '_O, si c'etait pour moi_!' and then blushed +to the temples at what she had said, were irresistible, and the +good-natured artist was fain to make her a present of the drawing." + +My Breton book ("though I says it as shouldn't") is not a bad one, +especially as regards the upper or northern part of the province. That +which concerns Lower Brittany is very imperfect, mainly, I take it, +because I had already nearly filled my destined two volumes when I +reached it. I find there, however, the following notice of the sardine +fishery, which has some interest at the present day. Perhaps the +majority of the thousands of English people who nowadays have +"sardines" on their breakfast-table every morning are not aware that +the contents of a very large number of the little tin boxes which are +supposed to contain the delicacy are not sardines at all. They are +very excellent little fishes, but not sardines; for the enormously +increased demand for them has outstripped the supply. In the days when +the following sentences were written sardines might certainly be had +in London (as what might not?) at such shops as Fortnum and Mason's, +but they were costly, and by no means commonly met with. + +On reaching Douarnenez in the summer of 1839 I wrote:--"The whole +population and the existence of Douarnenez depend on the sardine +fishery. This delicious little fish, which the _gourmands_ of Paris so +much delight in, when preserved in oil, and sent to their capital in +those little tin boxes whose look must be _familiar to all who have +frequented the Parisian breakfast-houses_" [but is now more familiar +to all who have entered any grocers shop throughout the length and +breadth of England], "is still more exquisite when eaten fresh on the +shores which it frequents. They are caught in immense quantities along +the whole of the southern coast of Brittany, and on the western shore +of Finisterre as far to the northward as Brest, which, I believe, is +the northern limit of the fishery. They come into season about the +middle of June, and are then sold in great quantities in all the +markets of southern Brittany at two, three, or four sous a dozen, +according to the abundance of the fishery and the distance of the +market from the coast. I was told that the commerce in sardines along +the coast from l'Orient to Brest amounted to three millions of francs +annually." + +At the present day it must be enormously larger. I remember well the +exceeding plentifulness of the little fishes--none of them so large as +many of those which now fill the so-called sardine boxes--when I was +at Douarnenez in 1839. All the men, women, and children in the place +seemed to be feasting upon them all day long. Plates with heaps of +them fried and piled up crosswise, like timber in a timber-yard, were +to be seen outdoors and indoors, wherever three or four people could +be found together. All this was a thing of the past when I revisited +Douarnenez in 1866. Every fish was then needed for the tinning +business. They were to be had of course by ordering and paying for +them, but very few indeed were consumed by the population of the +place. + +And this subject reminds me of another fishery which I witnessed a +few months ago--last March--at Sestri di Ponente, near Genoa. We +frequently saw nearly the whole of the fisher population of the place +engaged in dragging from the water on to the sands enormously long +nets, which had been previously carried out by boats to a distance not +more I think than three or four hundred yards from the shore. From +these nets, when at last they were landed after an hour or so of +continual dragging by a dozen or twenty men and women, were taken huge +baskets-full of silvery little fish sparkling in the sun, _exactly_ +like whitebait. I had always supposed that whitebait was a specialty +of the Thames. Whether an icthyologist would have pronounced the +little Sestri fishes to be the same creatures as those which British +statesmen consume at Greenwich I cannot say; but we ate them +frequently at the hotel under the name of _gianchetti_, and could find +_no_ difference between them and the Greenwich delicacy. The season +for them did not seem to last above two or three weeks. The fishermen +continued to drag their net, but caught other fishes instead of +_giancketti_. But while it lasted the plenty of them was prodigious. +All Sestri was eating them, as all Douarnenez ate sardines in the old +days. When the net with its sparkling cargo was dragged up on the sand +and the contents were being shovelled into huge baskets to be carried +up into the town, the men would take up handfuls of them, fresh, and I +suppose still living, from the sea, and plunging their bearded mouths +in them, eat them up by hundreds. The children too, irrepressibly +thronging round the net, would pick from its meshes the fishes which +adhered to them and eat them, as more inland rising generations eat +blackberries. I did not try the experiment of eating them thus, as one +eats oysters, but I can testify that, crisply fried, and eaten with +brown bread and butter and lemon juice, they were remarkably good. + +Fortified by the excellent example of Sir Francis Doyle, who in his +extremely amusing volume of _Reminiscences_ gives as a reason for +disregarding the claims of chronology in the composition of it, the +chances that he might forget the matter he had In his mind if he did +not book it at once, I have ventured for the same reason to do the +same thing here. But I have an older authority for the practice in +question, which Sir Francis is hardly likely to have lighted on. +That learned antiquary and portentously voluminous writer, Francesco +Cancellieri, who was well known to the Roman world in the latter years +of the last, and the earliest years of the present, century, used +to compose his innumerable works upon a similar principle. And when +attacked by the critics his cotemporaries, who Italian-like supposed +academically correct form to be the most important thing in any +literary work, he defended himself on the same ground. "If I don't +catch it _now_, I may probably forget it; and is the world to be +deprived of the information it is in my power to give it, for the sake +of the formal correctness of my work?" + +There is another passage in my book on Brittany respecting which it +would be interesting to know whether recent travellers can report +that the state of things there described no longer exists. I wrote in +1839-- + +"Very near Treguier, on a spot appropriately selected for such a +worship--the barren top of a bleak unsheltered eminence--stands the +chapel of _Notre Dame de la Haine!_ Our Lady of HATRED! The most +fiendish of human passions is supposed to be under the protection of +Christ's religion! What is this but a fragment of pure and unmixed +Paganism, unchanged except in the appellation of its idol, which has +remained among these lineal descendants of the Armorican Druids for +more than a thousand years after Christianity has become the professed +religion of the country! Altars, professedly Christian, were raised +under the protection of the Protean Virgin, to the demon _Hatred_; and +have continued to the present day to receive an unholy worship from +blinded bigots, who hope to obtain Heaven's patronage and assistance +for thoughts and wishes which they would be ashamed to breathe to man. +Three _Aves_ repeated with devotion at this odious and melancholy +shrine are firmly believed to have the power to cause, within the +year, the certain death of the person against whom the assistance of +Our Lady of Hatred has been invoked. And it is said that even yet +occasionally, in the silence and obscurity of the evening, the figure +of some assassin worshipper at this accursed shrine may be seen +to glide rapidly from the solitary spot, where he has spoken the +unhallowed prayer whose mystic might has doomed to death the enemy he +_hates_." + +I must tell one other story of my Breton recollections, which refers +to a time much subsequent to the publication of the book I have been +quoting. It was in 1866 that I revisited Brittany in company with +my present wife; and one of the objects of our little tour was the +Finisterre land's end at the extreme point of the horn-like promontory +which forms the department so named. We found some difficulty in +reaching the spot, not the least part of which was caused by the +necessity of threading our way, when in the immediate neighbourhood of +the cliffs, among enormous masses of seaweed stacked in huge heaps +and left to undergo the process of decay, which turns it into very +valuable manure. The odour which impregnated the whole surrounding +atmosphere from these heaps was decidedly the worst and most +asphyxiating I ever experienced. + +We stood at last on the utmost _Finis terrae_ and looked over the +Atlantic not only from the lighthouse, which, built three hundred feet +above the sea level, is often, we were told, drenched by storm-driven +spray, but from various points of the tremendous rocks also. They are +tremendous, in truth. The scene is a much grander one than that at our +own "Land's End," which I visited a month or two ago. The cliffs are +much higher, the rocks are more varied in their forms--more cruelly +savage-looking, and the cleavages of them are on a larger scale. The +spot was one of the most profound solitude, for we were far from the +lighthouse, and the scream of the white gulls as they started from +their roosting-places on the face of the rocks, or returned to them +from their swirling flights, were the only indication of the presence +of any creature having the breath of life. + +The rock ledges, among which we were clambering, were in many places +fearful spots enough--places where a stumble or a divagation of +the foot but six or eight inches from the narrow path would have +precipitated the blunderer to assured and inevitable destruction. +"Here," said I to my wife, as we stood side by side on one such ledge, +"would be the place for a husband, who wanted to get rid of his +wife, to accomplish his purpose. Done in ten seconds! With absolute +certainty! One push would suffice! No cry of any more avail than the +screams of those gulls! And no possibility of the deed being witnessed +by any mortal eye!" + +I had hardly got the words out of my mouth before our ears were +startled by a voice hailing us; and after some searching of the eye +we espied a man engaged in seeking sea-fowls' eggs, who had placed +himself in a position which I should have thought it absolutely +impossible to reach, whence he had seen us, as we now saw him! + +Let this then, my brethren, be a warning to you! + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +Returning from my Breton journey, I reached my mother's house in York +Street on the 23rd of July, 1839, and on the 26th of the same month +left London with her to visit my married sister in her new home at +Penrith, where Mr. Tilley had established himself as Post Office +surveyor of the northern district. His home was a pretty house +situated between the town and the well-known beacon on the hill to the +north of it. + +The first persons I became acquainted with in this, to me, entirely +new region, were Sir George Musgrave, of Edenhall, and his wife, who +was a sister of Sir James Graham. My brother-in-law took me over to +Edenhall, a lovely walk from Penrith, and we found both Sir George +and Lady Musgrave at home. We--my mother and I--had not at that +time conceived the idea of becoming residents at Penrith. But when +subsequently we were led to do so, we found extremely pleasant and +friendly neighbours at Edenhall, and though not in strict chronology +due in this place, I may throw together my few reminiscences of Sir +George. + +He was the _beau-ideal_ of a country gentleman of the old school. He +rarely or never went to London--not, as was the case with some of his +neighbours, because the expense of a season there was formidable, for +his estate was a fine one, and he was a rich man living largely within +his income, but because his idea was, that a country gentleman's +proper place was on his own acres, and because London had no +temptations for him. He was said to be the best landlord in the +county, and really seemed to look upon all his numerous tenants, +and all their labourers, as his born subjects, to whom protection, +kindness, assistance, and general looking after were due, in return +for their fealty and loyal attachment. I think he would have kicked +off his land (and he was a man who could kick) any man who talked in +his hearing of the purely commercial relationship between a landlord +and his tenants. Of course he was adored by all the country side. No +doubt the stout Cumberland and Westmoreland farmers and hinds were +good and loyal subjects of Queen Victoria, but for all practical +purposes of reverence and obedience, Musgrave was king at Edenhall. + +Lady Musgrave was a particularly lady-like woman, the marked elegance +of whose breeding might, with advantage, have given the tone to many a +London drawing-room. I have seen her surrounded by country neighbours, +and though she was _velut inter ignes luna minores_, I never saw the +country squire's or country parson's wife, who was not perfectly happy +and at ease in her drawing-room, while unconsciously all the time +taking a lesson in good breeding and lady-like manners. She was +thoroughly a help-meet for her husband in all his care for his people. +I believe that both he and she were convinced at the bottom of their +hearts that Cumberland and Westmoreland constituted the choicest, +best, and most highly civilised part of England. And she was one of +those of whom I was thinking, when in a former chapter I spoke of +highly educated people whom I had known to affect provincialism of +speech. Lady Musgrave always, or perhaps it would be more correct to +say generally, called a cow a "coo," and though I suspect she would +have left Westmoreland behind if evil fate had called her to London, +on her own hill-sides she preferred the accents of the native speech. + +Sir George had, or affected to have, considerable respect for all the +little local superstitions and beliefs which are so prevalent in +that "north countree." And the kindness with which he welcomed us as +neighbours, when we built a house and came to live there, was shown +despite a strong feeling which he had, or affected to have, with +regard to an incident which fatally marked our _debut_ in that +country. + +We bought a field in a very beautiful situation overlooking the ruins +of Brougham Castle and the confluence of the Eden with the Lowther, +and proceeded to build a house on the higher part of it. But there was +a considerable drop from the lower limit of our ground to the road +which skirted the property, and furnished the only access to it. There +was some difficulty, therefore, in contriving a tolerable entrance +from the road for wheel traffic, and it was found necessary to cause a +tiny little spring that rose in the bank by the roadside to change +its course in some small degree. The affair seemed to us a matter of +infinitesimal importance, but Sir George was dismayed. We had moved, +he said, a holy well, and the consequence would surely be that we +should never succeed in establishing ourselves in that spot. + +And surely enough we never did so succeed; for, after having built a +very nice little house, and lived in it one winter and half a summer, +we--for I cannot say that it was my mother more than I, or I more than +my mother--made up our minds that "the sun yoked his horses too far +from Penrith town," and that we had had enough of it. Sir George, +of course, when he heard our determination, while he expressed +all possible regret at losing us as neighbours, said that he knew +perfectly well that it must be so, from the time that we so recklessly +meddled with the holy well. + +He was the most hospitable man in the world, and could never let many +days pass without asking us to dine with him. But his hospitality was +of quite the old world school. One day, but that was after our journey +to Italy and when he had become intimate with us, being in a hurry to +get back into the drawing-room to rejoin a pretty girl next whom I had +sat at dinner, I tried to escape from the dining-room. "Come back!" +he roared, before I could get to the door, "we won't have any of your +d--d forineering habits here! Come back and stick to your wine, or by +the Lord I'll have the door locked." + +He was, unlike most men of his sort, not very fond of riding, but was +a great walker. He used to take the men he could get to walk with him +a tramp over the hill, till they were fain to cry "Hold! enough!" But +_there_ I was his match. + +Most of my readers have probably heard of the "Luck of Edenhall," for +besides Longfellow's[1] well-known poem, the legend relating to it +has often been told in print. I refer to it here merely to mention a +curious trait of character in Sir George Musgrave in connection with +it. The "Luck of Edenhall" is an ancient decorated glass goblet, which +has belonged to the Musgraves time out of mind, and which bears on it +the legend:-- + + "When this cup shall break or fall, + Farewell the luck of Edenhall." + +[Footnote 1: Subsequently to the publication of his poem Musgrave +asked Longfellow to dine at Edenhall, and "picked a crow" with him on +the conclusion of the poem, which represents the "Luck" to have been +broken, which Sir George considered a flight of imagination quite +transcending all permissible poetical licence.] + +After what I have written of Sir George and the holy well, which we so +unfortunately moved from its proper site, it will be readily imagined +that he attached no small importance to the safe keeping of the +"Luck;" and truly he did so. But instead of simply locking it up, +where he might feel sure it could neither break nor fall, he would +show it to all visitors, and not content with that, would insist +on their taking it into their hands to examine and handle it. He +maintained that otherwise there was no fair submission to the test of +luck, which was intended by the inscription. It would have been mere +cowardly prevarication to lock it away under circumstances which took +the matter out of the dominion of "luck" altogether. I wonder +that under such circumstances it has not fallen, for the nervous +trepidation of the folks who were made to handle it may be imagined! + +I made another friend at Penrith in the person of a man as strongly +contrasted with Sir George Musgrave as two north-country Englishmen +could well be. This was a Dr. Nicholson, who has died within the last +few months, to my great regret, for I had promised myself the great +pleasure of taking him by the hand yet once again before starting on +the journey on which we may, or may not meet. He was my senior by a +few years, but not by many. Nicholson was a man of very extensive +reading and of profound Biblical learning. It may be deemed surprising +by others, as it was, and is, to me, that such a man should have been +an earnest and thoroughly convinced Swedenborgian--but such was the +case. And I can conscientiously give this testimony to the excellence +of that creed--that it produced in the person of its learned +north-country disciple at least one truly good and amiable man. Dr. +Nicholson was emphatically such in all the relations of life. He was +the good and loving husband of a very charming wife, the unremittingly +careful and affectionate father of a large family, a delightful host +at his own table, an excellent and instructive companion over a cigar +(hardly correctly alluded to in the singular number!) and a most +_jucundus comes_ in a tramp over the hills. + +Amusing to me still is the contrast between those Cumberland walks +with Sir George and my ramblings over the same or nearly the same +ground with the meditative Swedenborgian doctor;--the first always +pushing ahead as if shouldering along a victorious path through life, +knowing the history of every foot of ground he passed over, interested +in every detail of it, and with an air of continually saying "Ha! +ha!" among the breezy trumpets of those hills, like the scriptural +war-horse; the second with his gaze very imperfectly turned +outward, but very fruitfully turned inward, frequently pausing with +argumentative finger laid on his companion's breast, and smile half +satirical half kindly as the flow of discourse revealed theological +_lacunae_ in my acquirements, which, I fear, irreparably and most +unfairly injured the Regius professor of divinity in the mind of the +German graduate. For Nicholson was a theological "doctor" by virtue of +a degree from I forget what German university, and had a low estimate, +perhaps more justified at that day than it would be now, of the extent +and calibre of Oxford theological learning. He was himself a disciple, +and an enthusiastic admirer of Ewald, a very learned Hebraist, and an +unflagging student. + +I was more capable of appreciating at its due value the extent and +accuracy of his knowledge upon another subject--a leg of mutton! It +_may_ be a mere coincidence, but certainly the most learned Hebraist +it was ever my lot to know was also the best and most satisfactory +carver of a leg of mutton. + +Nobody knows anything about mutton in these days, for the very +sufficient reason that there is no mutton worth knowing anything about. +Scientific breeding has improved it off the face of the earth. The +immature meat is killed at two years old, and only we few survivors of a +former generation know how little like it is to the mutton of former +days. The Monmouthshire farmers told me the other day that they could +not keep Welsh sheep of pure breed, because nothing under an eight-foot +park paling would confine them. Just as if they did not jump in the days +when I jumped too! Believe me, my young friends, that George the Third +knew what he was talking about (as upon certain other occasions) when he +said that very little venison was equal to a haunch of four-year-old +mutton. And the gravy!--chocolate-coloured, not pink, my innocent young +friends. Ichabod! Ichabod! + +My uncle, too, Mr. Partington--who married my father's sister, and +lived many years chairman of quarter sessions at Offham, among the +South Downs, near Lewes--there was a man who understood mutton! A +little silver saucepan was placed by his side when the leg of mutton, +or sometimes two, about as big as fine fowls, were placed in one +dish before him. Then, after the mutton had been cut, the abundantly +flowing gravy was transferred to the saucepan, a couple of glasses of +tawny old port, and a _quantum suff._ of currant jelly and cayenne +were added, the whole was warmed in the dining-room, and then--we ate +mutton, as I shall never eat it again in this world! + +Well! _revenir a nos moutons_ we never, never shall! So we must, alas! +do the reverse in returning to my Penrith reminiscences. + +I remember specially an excellent old fellow and very friendly +neighbour, Colonel Macleod, a bachelor, who having fallen in love with +a very beautiful spot, in the valley of the Lowther, built an ugly +brick house, three stories high, because, as he said, he was so greedy +of the view, forgetful apparently that he was providing it mainly for +his maid servants. Then there was the old maiden lady, with a name +that might have been found in north-country annals at almost any +date during the last seven hundred years, who mildly and maternally +corrected my sister at table for speaking of _vol-au-vent_, telling +her that the correct expression was _voulez-vous!_ My sister always +adopted the old lady's correction in future, at least when addressing +her. + +Then there were two pretty girls, Margaret and Charlotte Story, the +nieces of old De Whelpdale, the lord of the manor. I think he and Mrs. +De Whelpdale never left their room, for I do not remember to have ever +seen either of them; nor do I remember that I at all resented their +absence from the drawing-room when I used to call at the manor house. +One of the girls was understood to be engaged to be married to a far +distant lieutenant, of whom Penrith knew nothing, which circumstance +gave rise to sundry ingenious conceits in the acrostic line, based on +allusions to "his story" and "mystery!" I wonder whether Charlotte is +alive! If she is, and should see this page, she will remember! It was +for her sake that I deserted, or tried to desert, Sir George's port, +as related above. + +We left Penrith on that occasion without having formed any decided +intention of establishing ourselves there, and returned to London +towards the end of August, 1839. During the next two months I was hard +at work completing the MS. of my volumes on Brittany. And in November +of the same year, after that long fast from all journeying, my mother +and I left London for a second visit to Paris. But we did not on this +occasion travel together. + +I left London some days earlier than she did, and travelled by Ostend, +Cologne, and Mannheim, my principal object being to visit my old +friend, Mrs. Fauche, who was living at the latter place. I passed +three or four very pleasant days there, including, as I find by my +diary, sundry agreeable jaunts to Heidelberg, Carlsruhe, &c. My mother +and I had arranged to meet at Paris on the 4th of December, and at +that date I punctually turned up there. + +I think that I saw Paris and the Parisians much more satisfactorily on +this occasion than during my first visit; and I suspect that some of +the recollections recorded in these pages as connected with my first +visit to Paris, belong really to this second stay there, especially I +think that this must have been the case with regard to my acquaintance +with Chateaubriand, though I certainly was introduced to him at the +earlier period, for I find the record of much talk with him about +Brittany, which was a specially welcome subject to him. + +It was during this second visit that I became acquainted with Henry +Bulwer, afterwards Lord Dalling, and at that time first secretary of +the British legation. My visits were generally, perhaps always, paid +to him when he was in bed, where he was lying confined by, if I +remember rightly, a broken leg, I used to find his bed covered with +papers and blue-books, and the like. And I was told that the whole, or +at all events the more important part of the business of the embassy +was done by him as he lay there on the bed, which must have been for +many a long hour a bed of suffering. + +Despite certain affectations--which were so palpably affectations, and +scarcely pretended to be aught else, that there was little or nothing +annoying or offensive in them--he was a very agreeable man, and was +unquestionably a very brilliant one. He came to dine with me, I +remember, many years afterwards at my house in Florence, when he +insisted (the dining-room being on the first floor) on being carried +up stairs, as we thought at the time very unnecessarily. But for +aught I know such suspicion may have wronged him. At all events his +disability, whatever it may have been, did not prevent him from making +himself very agreeable. + +One of our guests upon that same occasion (I must drag the mention of +the fact in head and shoulders here, or else I shall forget it), was +that extraordinary man, Baron Ward, who was, or perhaps I ought to say +at that time had been, prime minister and general administrator to the +Duke of Lucca. Ward had been originally brought from Yorkshire to be +an assistant in the ducal stables. There, doubtless because he knew +more about the business than anybody else concerned with it, he soon +became chief. In that capacity he made himself so acceptable to the +Duke, that he was taken from the stables to be his highness's personal +attendant. His excellence in that position soon enlarged his duties +to those of controller of the whole ducal household. And thence, by +degrees that were more imperceptible in the case of such a government +than they could have been in a larger and more regularly administered +state, Ward became the recognised, and nearly all-powerful head, +manager, and ruler of the little Duchy of Lucca. And I believe the +strange promotion was much for the advantage of the Duke and of the +Duke's subjects. Ward, I take it, never robbed him or any one else. +And this eccentric specialty, the Duke, though he was no Solomon, +had the wit to discover. In his cups the ex-groom, ex-valet, was not +reticent about his sovereign master, and his talk was not altogether +of an edifying nature. One sally sticks in my memory. "Ah, yes! He was +a grand favourite with the women. But _I_ have had the grooming of +him; and it was a wuss job than ever grooming his hosses was!" + +Ward got very drunk that night, I remember, and we deemed it fortunate +that our diplomatist guest had departed before the outward signs of +his condition became manifest. + +Henry Bulwer, by mere circumstance of synchronism, has suggested the +remembrance of Ward, Ward has called up the Duke of Lucca, and he +brings with him a host of Baths of Lucca reminiscences respecting his +Serene Highness and others. But all these _must_ be left to find their +places, if anywhere, when I come to them later on, or we shall never +get back to Paris. + +It was on this our second visit to _Lutetia Parisiorum_ that my mother +and I made acquaintance with a very specially charming family of the +name of D'Henin. The family circle consisted of General le Vicomte +D'Henin, his English wife, and their daughter. The general was a +delightful old man, more like an English general officer than any +other Frenchman I ever met. Madame D'Henin was like an Englishwoman +not unaccustomed to courts and wholly unspoiled by them. Mademoiselle +D'Henin, very pretty, united the qualities of a denizen of the inmost +circles of the fashionable world with those of a really serious +student, to a degree I have never seen equalled. They were great +friends of the Bishop of London, and Mademoiselle D'Henin used to +correspond with him. She was earnestly religious, and I remember her +telling me of a _demele_ she had had with her confessor. She had told +him in confession that she was in the habit of reading the English +Bible. He strongly objected, and at last told her that he could not +give her absolution unless she promised to discontinue the practice. +She told him that rather than do so, she would take what would be to +her the painful step of declaring herself a Protestant, whereupon he +undertook to obtain a special permission for her to read the English +Bible. Whether he did really take any such measures I don't know, and +I fancy she never knew; but the upshot was that she continued to read +the heretical book, and nothing more was ever said of refusing her +absolution. + +I have a large bundle of letters from this highly accomplished young +lady to my mother. Many passages of them would be interesting and +valuable to an historian of the reign of Louis Philippe. She writes at +great length, and her standpoint is the very centre of the monarchical +side of the French political world of that day. But as I am _not_ +writing a history of the reign of Louis Philippe, I must content +myself with extracting two or three suggestive notices. + +In a letter dated from Paris, 19th July, 1840, she writes:--"You shew +much hospitality towards your royal guests. But I assure you it will +not in this instance be taken as an homage to superior merit--words +which I have heard frequently applied here to John Bull's frenzy +about Soult, and to the hospitality of the English towards the Duc de +N[emours], When I told him how much I should like to be in his place +(_i.e._, about to go to England), he protested that he would change +places with no one, '_quand il s'agissait d'aller dans un aussi +delicieux pays, que cette belle Angleterre, que vous avez si bonne +raison d'aimer et d'admirer._'" + +On the 29th of August in the same year she writes at great length of +the indignation and fury produced in Paris by the announcement of +the Quadruple Alliance. She is immensely impressed by the fact that +"people gathered in the streets and discussed the question in the open +air." "Ireland, Poland, and Italy are to rise to the cry of Liberty." +But she goes on to say, "Small causes produce great effects. Much of +this warlike disposition has arisen from the fact of Thiers having +bought a magnificent horse to ride beside the King at the late +review." She proceeds to ridicule the minister in a tone very +naturally suggested by the personal appearance of the little great man +under such circumstances, which no doubt furnished Paris with much +fun. But she goes on to suggest that the personal vanity which +made the prospect of such a public appearance alluring to him +was reinforced by "certain other secondary but still important +considerations of a different nature, looking to the results which +might follow from the exhibition of a war policy. This desirable end +being attained beyond even the most sanguine hopes, the martial fever +seems on the decline." + +Now all this gossip may be accepted as evidencing the tone prevailing +in the very inmost circles of the citizen king's friends and +surroundings, and as such is curious. + +Writing on the 8th of October in the same year, after speaking at +great length of Madame Laffarge, and of the extraordinary interest +her trial excited, dividing all Paris into Laffargists and +anti-Laffargists, and almost superseding war as a general topic +of conversation, she passes to the then burning subject of the +fortification of Paris, and writes as follows--curiously enough, +considering the date of her letter:-- + +"Louis Philippe, whose favourite hobby it has ever been, from the idea +that it makes him master of Paris, lays the first stone to-day. Some +people consider it the first stone of the mausoleum of his dynasty. +I sincerely hope not; for everything that can be called lady or +gentleman runs a good chance of forming part of the funeral pile. The +political madness which has taken possession of the public mind is +fearful. Foreign or civil war! Such is the alternative. Thiers, who +governs the masses, flatters them by promises of war and conquest. The +_Marsellaise_, so lately a sign of rebellion, is sung openly in the +theatres; the soldiers under arms sing it in chorus. The Guarde +Nationale urges the King to declare war. He has resisted it with all +his power, but has now, they say, given way, and has given Thiers +_carte blanche_. He is in fact entirely under his control. The +Chambers are not consulted. Thiers is our absolute sovereign. We call +ourselves a free people. We have beheaded one monarch, exiled three +generations of kings merely to have a dictator, '_mal ne, mal fait, et +mal eleve_.' There has been a rumour of a change of ministry, but no +one believes it. The overthrow of Thiers would be the signal for a +revolution, and the fortifications are not yet completed to master it. +May not all these armaments be the precursors of some _coup d'etat_? A +general gloom is over all around us. All the faces are long; all the +conversations are sad!" + +This may be accepted as a thoroughly accurate and trustworthy +representation of the then state of feeling and opinion among the +friends of Louis Philippe's Government, whether _Parceque Bourbon_ or +_Quoique Bourbon_, and as such is valuable. It is curious too, to find +a staunch friend of the existing government, who may be said to have +been even intimate with the younger members of the royal family, +speaking of the Prime Minister with the detestation which these +letters again and again express for Thiers. + +In a letter of the 19th November, 1840, the writer describes at great +length the recent opening of the Chamber by the King. She enlarges on +the intensity of the anxiety felt for the tenor of the King's speech, +which was supposed to be the announcement of war or peace; and +describes the deep emotion, with which Louis Philippe, declaring his +hope that peace might yet be preserved, called upon the nation to +assist him in the effort to maintain it; and expresses the scorn and +loathing with which she overheard one republican deputy say to another +as the King spoke, "_Voyez donc ce Robert Macaire, comme il fait +semblant d'avoir du coeur_!" + +A letter of the 14th March, 1842, is written in better spirits and +a lighter tone. Speaking of the prevalent hostile feeling towards +England the writer wishes that her countrymen would remember +Lamartine's observation that "_ce patriotisme coute peu! Il suffit +d'ignorer, d'injurier et de hair_." She tells her correspondent that +"if Lord Cowley has much to do to establish the exact line between +Lord Aberdeen's _observations_ and _objections_, Lady Cowley has +no less difficulty in keeping a nice balance between dignity and +popularity," as "the Embassy is besieged by all sets and all parties; +the tag and rag, because pushing is a part of their nature; the _juste +milieu_ [how the very phrase recalls a whole forgotten world!] because +they consider the English Embassy as their property; the noble +Faubourg because they are tired of sulking, and would not object +to treating Lady Cowley as they treated Colonel Thorn,[1] viz., +establishing their quarters at the 'Cowley Arms,' as they did at +the 'Thorn's Head,' and inviting their friends on the recognised +principle, '_C'est moi qui invite, et Monsieur qui paie_'" + +[Footnote 1: Colonel Thorn was an American of fabulous wealth, who was +for a season or two very notorious in Paris. He was the hero of the +often-told story of the two drives to Longchamps the same day; first +with one gorgeous equipment of _liveries_, and a second time with +other and more resplendently clothed retainers.] + +Then follows an account of a fancy _bal monstre_ at the Tuileries, +which might have turned out, says the writer, to deserve that title +in another sense. It was believed that a plot had been formed for +the assassination of the King, at the moment, when, according to his +invariable custom, he took his stand at the door of the supper-room to +receive the ladies there. Four thousand five hundred tickets had been +issued and a certain number of these, still blank, had disappeared. +That was certain. And it was also certain that the King did not go to +the door of the supper-room as usual. But the writer remarks that the +tickets may have been stolen by, or for, people who could not obtain +them legitimately. But the instantly conceived suspicion of a plot is +illustrative of the conditions of feeling and opinions in Paris at the +time. + +"For my part," continues Mademoiselle D'Henin, "I never enjoyed a +ball so much; perhaps because I did not expect to be amused; perhaps +because all the royal family, the Jockey Club, and the fastidious +Frenchwomen congratulated me upon my toilet, and voted it one of the +handsomest there. They _said_ the most becoming (but that was _de +l'eau benite de Cour_); perhaps it was because the Dukes of Orleans, +Nemours, and Aumale, who never dance, and did so very little that +evening, all three honoured me with a quadrille. You see I expose to +you all the very linings of my heart I dissect it and exhibit all +the vanity it contains. But you will excuse me when I tell you of a +compliment that might have turned a wiser head than mine. The fame of +my huntress's costume (Mademoiselle D'Henin was in those days the very +_beau-ideal_ of a Diana!) was such that it reached the ears of the +wife of our butcher, who sent to beg that I would lend it to her to +copy, as she was going to a fancy ball!" + +A letter of the 8th of August, 1842, written from Fulham Palace, +contains some interesting notices of the grief and desolation caused +by the sad death of the Duke of Orleans. + +"Was there ever a more afflicting calamity!" she writes. "When last +I wrote his name in a letter to you, it was to describe him as the +admired of all beholders, the hero of the _fete_, the pride and honour +of France, and now what remains of him is in his grave! The affliction +of his family baffles all description. I receive the most touching +accounts from Paris. Some ladies about the Court write to me that +nothing can equal their grief. As long as the coffin remained in the +chapel at Neuilly, the members of the family were incessantly kneeling +by the side of it, praying and weeping. The King so far mastered his +feelings, that whenever he had official duties to perform, he was +sufficiently composed to perform _son metier de Roi_. But when the +painful task was done he would rush to the chapel, and weep over the +dead body of his son, till the whole palace rang with his cries and +lamentations. When the body was removed from Neuilly to Notre Dame, +the scene at Neuilly was truly heartrending. My father has seen the +King and the Princes several times since the catastrophe, and he says +it has done the work of years on their personal appearance, The Due de +Nemours has neither eaten nor slept since his brother died, and +looks as if walking out of his grave. Mamma wrote him a few lines +of condolence, which he answered by a most affecting note. Papa was +summoned to attend the King to the House, as _Grand Officier_, and +says he never witnessed such a scene. Even the opposition shed their +crocodile tears. Placed immediately near the King on the steps of +the throne, he saw the struggle between kingly decorum and fatherly +affliction. Nature had the victory. Three times the King attempted to +speak, three times he was obliged to stop, and at last burst into a +flood of tears. The contagion gained all around him. And it was only +interrupted by sobs that he could proceed. And it is in the face of +this despair, when the body of the prince is scarcely cold, that +that horrid Thiers and his associates begin afresh their infernal +manoeuvres!" + +A letter of the 3rd April, 1842, contains among a quantity of the +gossip of the day an odd story, which, the writer says, "is putting +Rome in a ferment, and the clergy in raptures." I think I remember +that it made a considerable stir in ecclesiastic circles at the time. +A certain M. Ratisbonne, a Jew, it seems entered a church in Rome (the +writer does not say so, but if I remember rightly, it was the "Gesu"), +with a friend, a M. de Bussieres, who had some business to transact in +the sacristy. The Jew, who professed complete infidelity, meantime was +looking at the pictures. But M. de Bussieres, when his business was +done, found him prostrate on the pavement in front of a picture of the +Madonna. The Jew on coming to himself declared that the Virgin had +stepped from her frame, and addressed him, with the result, as he +said, that having fallen to the ground an infidel, he rose a convinced +Christian! Mademoiselle D'Henin writes in a tone which indicates small +belief in the miracle, but seems to accept as certain the further +facts, that the convert gave all he possessed to the Church and became +a monk. + +I have recently--even while transcribing these extracts from her +letters--heard of the death, within the last few years, of the writer +of them. She died in England, I am told, and unmarried. Her sympathies +and affections were always strongly turned to her mother's country, as +indeed may be in some degree inferred from even those passages of her +letters which have been given. And I can well conceive that the events +which, each more disastrous than its predecessor, followed in France +shortly after the date of the last of them, may have rendered, +especially after the death of her parents, a life in France +distasteful to her. But I, and, I think, my mother also, had entirely +lost sight of her for very many years. Had I imagined that she was +living in England, I should undoubtedly have endeavoured to see her. + +I have known many women, denizens of _le grand monde_, who have +adorned it with equally brilliant talents, equally captivating beauty, +equally sparkling wit and vivacity of intelligence. And I have known +many, denizens of the studious and the book world, gifted with larger +powers of intellect, and more richly dowered with the results of +thought and study But I do not think that I ever met with one who +possessed in so large a degree the choice product resulting from +conversance with both these worlds. She was in truth a very brilliant +creature. + +Madame D'Henin I remember made us laugh heartily one evening by +telling us the following anecdote. At one of those remarkable +_omnium-gatherum_ receptions at the Tuileries, of which I have spoken +in a former chapter, she heard an American lady, to whom Louis +Philippe was talking of his American recollections and of various +persons he had known there, say to him, "Oh, sire, they all retain the +most lively recollections of your majesty's sojourn among them, _and +wish nothing more than that you should return among them again_!" The +Duke of Orleans, who was standing behind the King, fairly burst into a +guffaw. + +There was a story current in Rome, in the days of Pius the Ninth, +which may be coupled with this as a good _pendant_. His Holiness, when +he had occupied the papal throne for a period considerably exceeding +the legendary twenty-five years of St. Peter, was one day very affably +asking an Englishman, who had been presented to him, whether he had +seen everything in Rome most calculated to interest a stranger, and +was answered; "Yes indeed, your Holiness, I think almost everything, +except one which I confess I have been particularly anxious to +witness--a conclave!" + +Here are a few jottings at random from my diary, which may still have +some little interest. + +"Madame Le Roi, a daughter of General Hoche, told me (22nd January, +1840), that as she was driving on the boulevard a day or two ago, +a sou piece was thrown with great violence at the window of her +carriage, smashing it to pieces. This, she said, was because her +family arms were emblazoned on the panel. Most of the carriages in +Paris, she said, had no arms on them for fear of similar attacks." + +Then we were active frequenters of the theatres. We go, I find, to the +Francais, to see Mars, then sixty years old, in _Les Dehors Trompeurs_ +and in the _Fausses Confidences_; to the opera to hear _Robert le +Diable_ and _Lucia di Lammermuir_, with Persiani, Tamburini, and +Rubini; and the following night to the Francais again, to see Rachel +in _Cinna_. + +I thought her personally, I observe, very attractive. But that, and +sundry other subsequent experiences, left me with the impression +that she was truly very powerful in the representation of scorn, +indignation, hatred, and all the sterner and less amiable passions of +the soul, but failed painfully when her _role_ required the exhibition +of tenderness or any of the gentler emotions. These were my +impressions when she was young and I was comparatively so. But when, +many years afterwards, I saw her repeatedly in Italy, they were not, I +think, much modified. + +The frequent occasions on which subsequently I saw Ristori produced an +impression on me very much the reverse. I remember thinking Ristori's +"Mirra" too good, so terribly true as to be almost too painful for the +theatre. I thought Rachel's "Marie Stuart" upon the whole her finest +performance, though "Adrienne" ran it hard. + +Persiani, I note, supported by Lablache and Rubini, had a most +triumphant reception in _Inez de Castro_, while Albertazzi was very +coldly received in _Blanche de Castille_. Grisi in _Norma_ was +"superb." "Persiani and P. Garcia sang a duet from _Tancredi_; it was +divine! I think I like Garcia's voice better than any of them. Nor +could I think her ugly, as it is the fashion to call her, though it +must be admitted that her mouth and teeth are alarming." + +Then there were brilliant receptions at the English Embassy (Lord +Granville) and at the Austrian Embassy (Comte d'Appony). My diary +remarks that stars and gold lace and ribbons of all the Orders in +Christendom were more abundant at the latter, but female beauty at the +former. I remember much admiring that of Lady Honoria Cadogan, and +that of a very remarkably lovely Visconti girl, a younger sister of +the Princess Belgiojoso. But despite this perfect beauty, my diary +notes, that it was "curious to observe the unmistakable superiority +as a human being of the young English patrician." I remember that the +"sit-down" suppers at the Austrian Embassy--a separate little table +for every two, three, or four guests--were remarked on as a novelty +(and applauded) by the Parisians. + +Then at Miss Clarke's (afterwards Madame Mohl) I find Fauriel, "the +first Provencal scholar in Europe," delightful, and am disgusted with +Merimee, because he manifested self-sufficiency, as it seemed to my +youthful criticism, by pooh-poohing the probability of the temple +at Lanleff in Brittany having been aught else than a church of the +Templars. + +Then Arago reads an _Eloge_ on "old Ampere," of which I only remark +that it lasted two hours and a half. Then there was a dinner at Dr. +Gilchrist's whose widow our old friend Pepe, who for many years had +always called her "Madame Ghee-cree," subsequently married. My notes, +written the same evening, remind me that "I did not much like the +radical old Doctor (his wife was an old acquaintance, but I had +never seen him before); he is eighty, and ought to know better. Old +Nymzevitch (I am not sure of the spelling), the ex-Chancellor of +Poland, dined with us. He is eighty-four. When he said that he had +conversed with the Duc de Richelieu, I started as if he had announced +himself as the Wandering Jew. But, in fact, he had had, when a young +man, an interview with the Duc, then ninety. He was, Nymzevitch told +me, dreadfully emaciated, but dressed very splendidly in a purple +coat all bedizened with silver lace. He received me, said the old +ex-Chancellor, with much affable dignity."' + +Then comes a breakfast with Pepe, at which I met the President +Thibeaudeau, "a grey old man who makes a point of saying rude, coarse, +and disagreeable things, which his friends call dry humour. He found +fault with everything at the breakfast table." + +Then a visit to the Chamber (where I heard Soult, Dupin, and Teste +speak, and thought it "a terrible bear-garden)" is followed by +attendance at a sermon by Athanase Coquerel, the Protestant preacher +whose reputation in the Parisian _beau monde_ was great in those days. +He was, says my diary, "exceedingly eloquent, but I did not like his +sermon;" for which dislike my notes proceed to give the reasons, which +I spare the, I hope grateful, reader. Then I went to hear Bishop +Luscombe at the Ambassador's chapel, and listened to "a very stupid +sermon." I seem, somewhat to my surprise as I read the records of it, +to have had a pronounced taste for sermons in those days, which I fear +I have somehow outgrown. But then I have been very deaf during my +later decades. + +Bishop Luscombe may perhaps however be made more amusing to the reader +than he was to me in the Embassy chapel by the following fragment of +his experience. The Bishop arrived one day at Paddington, and could +not find his luggage. He called a porter to find it for him, telling +him the name to be read on the articles. The man, very busy with other +people, answered hurriedly, "You must go to hell for your luggage." +Now, Luscombe, who was a somewhat pompous and very _bishopy_ man, was +dreadfully shocked, and felt, as he said, as if the porter had struck +him in the face. In extreme indignation he demanded where he could +speak with any of the authorities, and was told that "the Board" +was then sitting up stairs. So to the boardroom the Bishop went +straightway, and announcing himself, made his complaint. The chairman, +professing his regret that such offence should have been given, +said he feared the man must have been drunk, but that he should be +immediately summoned to give an account of his conduct. So the porter +in great trepidation appeared in a few minutes before the august +tribunal of "the Board." + +"Well, sir," said he in reply to the chairman's indignant questioning, +"what could I do? I was werry busy at the time. So when the gentleman +says as his name was Luscombe, I could do no better than tell him to +go to h'ell for his luggage, and he'd have found it there all right!" + +"Oh! I see," said the chairman, "it is a case of misplaced aspirate! +We have spaces on the wall marked with the letters of the alphabet, +and you would have found your luggage at the letter L. You will see +that the man meant no offence. I am sorry you should have been so +scandalised, but though we succeed, I hope, in making our porters +civil to our customers, it would be hopeless, I fear, to attempt to +make them say L correctly." _Solvuntur risu tabulae_. + +I find chronicled a long talk with Mohl one evening at Madame +Recamier's. The room was very full of notable people of all sorts, and +the tide of chattering was running very strong. "How can anything last +long in France?" said he, in reply to my having said (in answer to +his assertion that Cousin's philosophy had gone by) that it had been +somewhat short-lived. "Reputations are made and pass away. It is +impossible that they should endure. It is in such places as this that +they are destroyed. The friction is prodigious!" + +We then began to talk of the state of religion in France. He said +that among a large set, religion was now _a la mode_. But he did not +suppose that many of the fine folks who _patronised_ it had much +belief in it. The clergy of France were, he said, almost invariably +very illiterate. Guizot, I remembered, calls them in his _History of +Civilisation doctes et crudits_, but I abstained from quoting him. +Mohl went on to tell me a story of a newspaper that had been about to +be established, called _Le Democrat_. The shareholders met, when it +appeared that one party wished to make it a Roman Catholic, and the +other an atheist organ. Whereupon the existence of God was put to the +vote and carried by a majority of one, at which the atheist party were +so disgusted that they seceded in a body. + +I got to like Mohl much, and had more conversation, I think, with him +than with any other of the numerous men of note with whom I became +more or less acquainted. On another occasion, when I found him in his +cabinet, walled up as usual among his books, our talk fell on his +great work, the edition of the oriental MSS. in the _Bibliotheque +Royale_, which was to be completed in ten folio volumes, the first +of which, just out, he was showing me. He complained of the extreme +slowness of the Government presses in getting on with the work. This +he attributed to the absurd costliness, as he considered it, of the +style in which the work was brought out. The cost of producing that +first volume he told me had been over 1,600_l_. sterling. It was to be +sold at a little less than a hundred francs. Something was said (by +me, I think) of the possibility of obtaining assistance from the King, +who was generally supposed to be immensely wealthy. Mohl said that he +did not believe Louis Philippe to be nearly so rich a man as he was +supposed to be. He had spent, he said, enormous sums on the chateaux +he had restored, and was affirmed by those who had the means of +knowing the fact, to be at that time twelve millions of francs in +debt. + +My liking for Mohl seems to have been fully justified by the +estimation he was generally held in. I find in a recently published +volume by Kathleen O'Meara on the life of my old friend, Miss Clarke, +who afterwards became his wife, the following passage quoted from +Sainte-Beuve, who describes him as "a man who was the very embodiment +of learning and of inquiry, an oriental _savant_--more than a +_savant_--a sage, with a mind clear, loyal, and vast; a German mind +passed through an English filter, a cloudless, unruffled mirror, open +and limpid; of pure and frank morality; early disenchanted with all +things; with a grain of irony devoid of all bitterness, the laugh of a +child under a bald head; a Goethe-like intelligence, but free from all +prejudice." "A charming and _spirituelle_ Frenchwoman," Miss O'Meara +goes on to say, "said of Julius Mohl that Nature in forming his +character had skimmed the cream of the three nationalities to which he +belonged by birth, by adoption and by marriage, making him deep as a +German, _spirituel_ as a Frenchman, and loyal as an Englishman." + +I may insert here the following short note from Madame Mohl, because +the manner of it is very characteristic of her. It is, as was usual +with her, undated. + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR MR. TROLLOPE,--By accident I have just learned that you are +in London. If I could see you and talk over my dear old friend (Madame +Recamier) I should be so much obliged and so glad. I live 68 Oxford +Terrace, Hyde Park. If you would write me a note to say when I should +be at home for the purpose. But if you can't, I am generally, not +always, found after four. But if you could come on the 10th or 12th +after nine we have a party. I am living at Mrs. Schwabe's just now +till 16th this month. Pray write me a note, even If you can't come. + +"Yours ever, + +"MARY MOHL." + + * * * * * + +All the capital letters in the above transcript, except those in her +name are mine, she uses none. The note is written in headlong hurry. + +Mignet, whom I met at the house of Thiers, I liked too, but Mohl was +my favourite. + +It was all very amusing, with as much excitement and interest of +all kinds crammed into a few weeks as might have lasted one for a +twelvemonth. And I liked it better than teaching Latin to the youth of +Birmingham. But it would seem that there was something that I liked +better still. For on March 30th, leaving my mother in the full swing +of the Parisian gaieties, I bade adieu to them all and once again +"took to the road," bound on an excursion through Central France. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +My journey through central France took me by Chartres, Orleans, down +the Loire to Nantes, then through La Vendee to Fontenay, Niort, +Poitiers, Saintes, Rochefort, La Rochelle, Bordeaux, Angouleme, +Limoges, and thence back to Paris. On looking at the book for the +first time since I read the proof-sheets I find it amusing. The fault +of it, as an account of the district traversed, is, that it treats +of the localities described on a scale that would have needed twenty +volumes, instead of two, to complete the story of my tour in the same +proportion. I do not remember that any of my critics noted this fault. +Perhaps they feared that on the first suggestion of such an idea I +should have set about mending the difficulty by the production of a +score of other volumes on the subject! I could easily have done so. I +was in no danger of incurring the anathema launched by Sterne--I think +it was Sterne--against the man who went from Dan to Beersheba and +found all barren. I found matter of interest everywhere, and could +have gone on doing so, as it seemed to me in those days, for ever. + +The part of France I visited is not much betravelled by Englishmen, +and the general idea is that it is not an interesting section of the +country. I thought, and still think, otherwise. My notion is, that +if a line were drawn through France from Calais to the centre of the +Pyrenean chain, by far the greater part of the prettiest country and +most interesting populations, as well as places, would be found to the +westward of it. I do not think that my bill of fare excited any great +interest in the reading world. But I suppose that I contrived to +interest a portion of it; for the book was fairly successful. + +I wrote a book in many respects of the same kind many years +subsequently, giving an account of a journey through certain +little-visited districts of central Italy, under the title of a +_Lenten Journey_. It is not, I think, so good a book as my French +journeys furnished, mainly to my mind because it was in one small +volume instead of two big ones, and both for want of space and want of +time was done hurriedly and too compendiously. The true motto for the +writer of such a book is _nihil a me alienum puto_, whether _humanum_ +or otherwise. My own opinion is, to make a perfectly clean breast of +it, that I could now write a fairly amusing book on a journey from +Tyburn turnpike to Stoke Pogis. But then such books should be +addressed to readers who are not in such a tearing hurry as the +unhappy world is in these latter days. + +It would seem that I found my two octavo volumes did not afford me +nearly enough space to say my say respecting the country traversed, +for they are brought to an end somewhat abruptly by a hurried return +from Limoges to Paris; whereas my ramble was much more extended, +including both the upper and lower provinces of Auvergne and the +whole of the Bourbonnais. My voluminous notes of the whole of these +wanderings are now before me. But I will let my readers off easy, +recording only that I walked from Murat to St. Flour, a distance of +fifteen miles, in five minutes under three hours. Not bad! My diary +notes that it was frequently very difficult to find my way in walking +about Auvergne, from the paucity of people I could find who could +speak French, the _langue du pays_ being as unintelligible as Choctaw. +This would hardly be the case now. + +I don't know whether a knot of leading tradesmen at Bordeaux could +now be found to talk, as did such a party with whom I got into +conversation in that year, 1840. It was explained to me that England, +as was well known, had liberated her slaves in the West Indies +perfectly well knowing that the colonies would be absolutely ruined by +the measure, but expecting to be amply compensated by the ruin of +the French colonies, which would result from the example, and the +consequent extension of trade with the East Indies, from which France +would be compelled to purchase all the articles her own colonies now +supplied her with. One of these individuals told me and the rest of +his audience, that he had the means of _knowing_ that the interest of +the English national debt was paid every year by fresh borrowing, and +that bankruptcy and absolute smash must occur within a few years. +"Ah!" said a much older, grey-headed man, who had been listening +sitting with his hands reposing on his walking-stick before him, and +who spoke with a sort of patient, long-expecting hope and a deep sigh, +"ah! we have been looking for that many a year; but I am beginning to +doubt whether I shall live to see it." My assurances that matters were +not altogether so bad as they supposed in England of course met with +little credence. Still, they listened to me, and did not show angry +signs of a consciousness that I was audaciously befooling them, till +the talk having veered to London, I ventured to assure them that +London was not surrounded by any _octroi_ boundary, and that no impost +of that nature was levied there.[1] Then in truth I might as well have +assured them that London streets were literally paved with gold. + +[Footnote 1: It may possibly be necessary to tell untravelled +Englishmen that the _octroi_, universal on the Continent, is an impost +levied on all articles of consumption at the gates of a town.] + +On the 30th of May, 1840, I returned with my mother from Paris to +her house in York Street. Life had been very pleasant there to her +I believe, and certainly to me during those periods of it which my +inborn love of rambling allowed me to pass there. But in the following +June it was determined that the house in York Street should be given +up. Probably the _causa causans_ of this determination was the fact of +my sister's removal to far Penrith. But I think too, that there was +a certain unavowed feeling, that we had eaten up London, and should +enjoy a move to new pastures. + +I remember well a certain morning in York Street when we--my mother +and I--held a solemn audit of accounts. It was found that during her +residence in York Street she had spent a good deal more than she had +supposed. She had entertained a good deal, giving frequent "little +dinners." But dinners, however little, are apt in London to leave +tradesmen's bills not altogether small in proportion to their +littleness. "The fact is," said my mother, "that potatoes have been +quite exceptionally dear." For a very long series of years she never +heard the last of those exceptional potatoes. But despite the alarming +deficit caused by those unfortunate vegetables, I do not think +the abandonment of the establishment in York Street was caused by +financial considerations. She was earning in those years large sums +of money--quite as large as any she had been spending--and might have +continued in London had she been so minded. + +No doubt I had much to do with the determination we came to. But +for my part, if it had at that time been proposed to me, that our +establishment should be reduced to a couple of trunks, and all our +worldly possessions to the contents of them, with an opening vista of +carriages, diligences, and ships _ad libitum_ in prospect, I should +have jumped at the idea. A caravan, which in addition to shirts and +stockings could have carried about one's books and writing tackle +would have seemed the _summum bonum_ of human felicity. + +So we turned our backs on London without a thought of regret and once +again "took the road;" but this time separately, my mother going to +my sister at Penrith and I to pass the summer months in wanderings +in Picardy, Lorraine, and French Flanders, and the ensuing winter in +Paris. + +I hardly know which was the pleasanter time. By this time I was +no stranger to Paris, and had many friends there. It was my first +experiment of living there as a bachelor, as I was going to say, but I +mean "on my own hook," and left altogether to my own devices. I found +of course that my then experiences differed considerably from those +acquired when living _en famille_. But I am disposed to think that the +tolerably intimate knowledge I flatter myself I possessed of the Paris +and Parisians of Louis Philippe's time was mainly the result of this +second residence. I remember among a host of things indicating the +extent of the difference between those days and these, that I lived +in a very good apartment, _au troisieme_, in one of the streets +immediately behind the best part of the Rue de Rivoli for one hundred +francs a month! This price included all service (save of course a tip +to the porter), and the preparation of my coffee for breakfast if I +needed it. For dinner, or any other meal, I had to go out. + +"Society" lived in Paris in those days--not unreasonably as the result +soon showed--in perpetual fear of being knocked all to pieces by an +outbreak of revolution, though of course nobody said so. But I lived +mainly (though not entirely) among the _bien pensants_ people, who +looked on all anti-governmental manifestations with horror. Perhaps +the restless discontent which destroyed Louis Philippe's government +is the most disheartening circumstance in the whole course of recent +French history. That the rule of Charles Dix should have occasioned +revolt may be regrettable, but is not a matter for surprise. But that +of Louis Philippe was not a stagnant or retrogressive _regime. "La +carriere_" was very undeniably open to talent and merit of every +description. Material well-being was on the increase. And the door +was not shut against any political change which even very advanced +Liberalism, of the kind consistent with order, might have aspired to. +But the Liberalism which moved France was not of that kind. + +One of my most charming friends of those days, Rosa Stewart, who +afterwards became and was well known to literature as Madame Blaze de +Bury, was both too clever and too shrewd an observer, as well as, to +me at least, too frank to pretend any of the assurance which was then +_de mode_. She saw what was coming, and was fully persuaded that it +must come. I hope that her eye may rest on this testimony to her +perspicacity, though I know not whether she still graces this planet +with her very pleasing presence. For as, alas! in so many scores of +other instances, our lives have drifted apart, and it is many years +since I have heard of her. + +One excursion I specially remember in connection with that autumn was +partly, I think, a pedestrian one, to Amiens and Beauvais, made +in company with the W---- A----, of whom my brother speaks in his +autobiography; which I mention chiefly for the sake of recording my +testimony to the exactitude of his description of that very singular +individual. If it had not been for the continual carefulness +necessitated by the difficulty of avoiding all cause of quarrel, I +should say that he was about the pleasantest travelling companion I +have ever known. + +In the beginning of April, 1841, after a little episode of spring +wandering in the Tyrol and Bavaria (in the course of which I met my +mother at the chateau of her very old friend the Baroness de Zandt, +who has been mentioned before, and was now living somewhat solitarily +in her huge house in its huge park near Bamberg), my mother and I +started for Italy. Neither of us had at that time conceived the idea +of making a home there. The object of the journey, which had been long +contemplated by my mother, was the writing of a book on Italy, as she +had already done on Paris and on Vienna. + +Our journey was a prosperous one in all respects, and our flying visit +to Italy was very pleasant. My mother's book was duly written, and +published by Mr. Bentley in 1842. But the _Visit to Italy_, as the +work was entitled (with justly less pretence than the titles of either +of its predecessors had put forward), was in truth all too short. And +I find that almost all of the huge mass of varied recollections which +are connected in my mind with Italy and Italian people and things +belong to my second "visit" of nearly half a century's duration! + +We made, however, several pleasant acquaintances and some fast +friends, principally at Florence, and thus paved the way, although +little intending it at the time, for our return thither. + +Our visit was rendered shorter than it would probably otherwise have +been by my mother's strong desire to be with my sister, who was +expecting the birth of her first child at Penrith. And for this +purpose we left Rome in February, 1842, in very severe weather. We +crossed the Mont Cenis in sledges--which to me was a very acceptable +experience, but to my mother was one, which nothing could have induced +her to face, save the determination not to fail her child at her need. + +How well I remember hearing as I sat in the _banquette_ of the +diligence which was just leaving Susa for its climb up the mountain +amid the snow, then rapidly falling, the driver of the descending +diligence, which had accomplished its work and was just about entering +the haven of Susa, sing out to our driver--"_Vous allez vous amuser +joliment la haut, croyez moi_!" + +We did not, however, change the diligence for the sledges till we came +to the descent on the northern side. But as we made our slow way to +the top our vehicle was supported from time to time on either side by +twelve strapping fellows, who put their shoulders to it. + +I appreciated during that journey, though I was glad to see the +mountain in its winter dress, the recommendation not to let your +flight be in the winter. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +I accompanied my mother to Penrith, and forthwith devoted myself heart +and body to the preparation of our new house, and the beautifying +of the very pretty paddock in which it was situated. I put in some +hundreds of trees and shrubs with my own hands, which prospered +marvellously, and have become, I have been told, most luxuriant +shrubberies. I was bent on building a cloistered walk along the entire +top of the field, which would have afforded a charming ambulatory +sheltered from the north winds and from the rain, and would have +commanded the most lovely views, while the pillars supporting the +roof would have presented admirable places for a world of flowering +climbing plants. And doubtless I should have achieved it, had we +remained there. But it would have run into too much money to be +undertaken immediately,--fortunately; for, inasmuch as there was +nothing of the sort in all that country side, no human being would +have given a stiver more for the house when it came to be sold, and +the next owner would probably have pulled it down. There was no +authority for such a thing. Had it been suffered to remain it would +probably have been called "Trollope's folly!" + +Subsequently, but not immediately after we left it, the place--oddly +enough I forget the name we gave it--became the property and the +residence of my brother-in-law. + +Of my life at Penrith I need add nothing to the jottings I have +already placed before the reader on the occasion of my first visit to +that place. + +My brother, already a very different man from what he had been in +London, came from his Irish district to visit us there; and I returned +with him to Ireland, to his head-quarters at Banagher on the Shannon. +Neither of this journey need I say much. For to all who know anything +of Ireland at the present day--and who does not? worse luck!--anything +I might write would seem as _nihil ad rem_, as if I were writing of +an island in the Pacific. I remember a very vivid impression that +occurred to me on first landing at Kingstown, and accompanied me +during the whole of my stay in the island, to the effect, that the +striking differences in everything that fell under my observation from +what I had left behind me at Holyhead, were fully as great as any that +had excited my interest when first landing in France. + +One of my first visits was to my brother's chief. He was a master of +foxhounds and hunted the country. And I well remember my astonishment, +when the door of this gentleman's residence was opened to me by an +extremely dirty and slatternly bare-footed and bare-legged girl. I +found him to be a very friendly and hospitable good fellow, and his +wife and her sister very pleasant women. I found too that my brother +stood high in his good graces by virtue of simply having taken the +whole work and affairs of the postal district on his own shoulders. +The rejected of St. Martin's-le-Grand was already a very valuable and +capable officer. + +My brother gave me the choice of a run to the Killeries, or to +Killarney. We could not manage both. I chose the former, and a most +enjoyable trip we had. He could not leave his work to go with me, but +was to join me subsequently, I forget where, in the west. Meantime +he gave me a letter to a bachelor friend of his at Clifden. This +gentleman immediately asked me to dinner, and he and I dined +_tete-a-tete._ Nevertheless, he thought it necessary to apologise for +the appearance of a very fine John Dory on the table, saying, that he +had been himself to the market to get a turbot for me, but that he had +been asked half-a-crown for a not very large one, and really he could +not give such absurd prices as that! + +Anthony duly joined me as proposed, and we had a grand walk over +the mountains above the Killeries. I don't forget and never shall +forget--nor did Anthony ever forget; alas! that we shall never more +talk over that day again--the truly grand spectacular changes from +dark thick enveloping cloud to brilliant sunshine, suddenly revealing +all the mountains and the wonderful colouring of the intertwining +sea beneath them, and then back to cloud and mist and drifting sleet +again. It was a glorious walk. We returned wet to the skin to "Joyce's +Inn," and dined on roast goose and whisky punch, wrapped in our +blankets like Roman senators! + +One other scene I must recall. The reader will hardly believe that it +occurred in Ireland. There was an election of a member for I forget +what county or borough, and my brother and I went to the hustings--the +only time I ever was at an election in Her Majesty's dominions. What +were the party feelings, or the party colours, I utterly forget. It +was merely for the fun of the thing that we went there. The fun indeed +was fast and furious. The whole scene on the hustings, as well +as around them, seemed to me one seething mass of senseless but +good-humoured hustling and confusion. Suddenly in the midst of the +uproar an ominous cracking was heard, and in the next minute the +hustings swayed and came down with a crash, heaping together in a +confused mass all the two or three hundreds of human beings who were +on the huge platform. Some few were badly hurt. But my brother and I +being young and active, and tolerably stout fellows, soon extricated +ourselves, regained our legs, and found that we were none the worse. +Then we began to look to our neighbours. And the first who came to +hand was a priest, a little man, who was lying with two or three +fellows on the top of him, horribly frightened and roaring piteously +for help. So Anthony took hold of one of his arms and I of the other, +and by main force dragged him from under the superincumbent mass of +humanity. When we got him on his legs his gratitude was unbounded. +"Tell me your names," he shouted, "that I'll pray for ye!" We told him +laughingly that we were afraid it was no use, for we were heretics. +"Tell me your names," he shouted again, "that I'll pray for ye all the +more!" + +I wonder whether he ever did! He certainly was very much in earnest +while the fright was on him. + +Not very long after my return from this Irish trip, we finally left +Penrith on the 3rd of April, 1843; and I trust that the nymph of the +holy well, whose spring we had disturbed, was appeased. + +My mother and I had now "the world before us where to choose." She had +work in hand, and more in perspective. I also had some in hand and +very much more in perspective, but it was work of a nature that might +be done in one place as well as another. So when "Carlton Hill" (all +of a sudden the name comes back to my memory!) was sold, we literally +stood with no _impedimenta_ of any sort save our trunks, and +absolutely free to turn our faces in whatsoever direction we pleased. + +What we did in the first instance was to turn them to the house of our +old and well-beloved cousin, Fanny Bent, at Exeter. There after a few +days we persuaded her to accompany us to Ilfracombe, where we +spent some very enjoyable summer weeks. What I remember chiefly in +connection with that pleasant time, was idling rambles over the rocks +and the Capstone Hill, in company with Mrs. Coker and her sister Miss +Aubrey, the daughters of that Major A. who needs to the whist-playing +world no further commemoration. The former of them was the wife and +mother of Wykehamists (founder's kin), and both were very charming +women. Ilfracombe was in those days an unpretending sort of fishing +village. There was no huge "Ilfracombe Hotel," and the Capstone Hill +was not strewed with whitey-brown biscuit bags and the fragments of +bottles, nor continually vocal with nigger minstrels and ranting +preachers. The "Royal Clarence" did exist in the little town, whether +under that name or not, I forget. But I can testify from experience, +acquired some forty years afterwards, that Mr. and Mrs. Clemow now +keep there one of the best inns of its class, that I, no incompetent +expert in such matters, know in all England. + +Then, when the autumn days began to draw in, we returned to Exeter, +and many a long consultation was held by my mother and I, sallying +forth from Fanny Bent's hospitable house for a _tete-a-tete_ stroll on +Northernhay, on the question of "What next?" + +It turned out to be a more momentous question than we either of us +imagined it to be at the time; for the decision of it involved the +shape and form of the entire future life of one of us, and still more +important modification of the future life of the other. Dresden was +talked of. Rome was considered. Paris was thought of. Venice was +discussed. No one of them was proposed as a future permanent home. +Finally Florence came on the _tapis_. We had liked it much, and had +formed some much valued friendships there. It was supposed to be +economical as a place to live in, which was one main point. For our +plan was to make for ourselves for two or three years a home and way +of living sufficiently cheap to admit of combining with it large plans +of summer travel. And eventually Florence was fixed on. + +As for my mother, it turned out that she was then selecting her last +and final home--though the end was not, thank God, for many a long +year yet. As for me, the decision arrived at during those walks on +Exeter Northernhay, was more momentous still. For I was choosing the +road that led not only to my home for the next half century nearly, +but to two marriages, both of them so happy in all respects as rarely +to have fallen to the lot of one and the same man! + +How little we either of us, my mother and I, saw into the +future--beyond a few immediate inches before our noses! Truly _prudens +futuri temporis exitum caliginosa nocte premit Deus!_ And when I hear +talk of "conduct making fate," I often think--humbly and gratefully, I +trust; marvelling, certainly,--how far it could have _a priori_ seemed +probable, that the conduct of a man who, without either _oes in +presenti_, or any very visible prospect of _oes in futuro_, turns +aside from all the beaten paths of professional industry should +have led him to a long life of happiness and content, hardly to be +surpassed, and, I should fear, rarely equalled. _Deus nobis haec otia +fecit!--Deus_, by the intromission of one rarely good mother, and two +rarely good, and I may add rarely gifted, wives! + +Not that I would have the reader translate "_otia_" by idleness. I +have written enough to show that my life hitherto had been a full +and active one. And it continued in Italy to be an industrious one. +Translate the word rather into "independence." For I worked at work +that I liked, and did no taskwork. Nevertheless, I would not wish to +be an evil exemplar, _vitiis imitabile_, and I don't recommend you, +dear boys, to do as I did. I have been quite abnormally fortunate. + +Well, we thought that we were casting the die of fate on a very +subordinate matter, while, lo! it was cast for us by the Supernal +Powers after a more far-reaching and over-ruling fashion. + +So on the 2nd of September, 1843, we turned our faces southwards and +left London for Florence. + +We became immediately on arriving in Firenze la gentile (after a +little tour in Savoy, introduced as an interlude after our locomotive +rambling fashion) the guests of Lady Bulwer, who then inhabited in the +Palazzo Passerini an apartment far larger than she needed, till we +could find a lodging for ourselves. + +We had become acquainted with Lady Bulwer in Paris, and a considerable +intimacy arose between her and my mother, whose nature was especially +calculated to sympathise with the good qualities which Lady Bulwer +unquestionably possessed in a high degree. She was brilliant, witty, +generous, kind, joyous, good-natured, and very handsome. But she +was wholly governed by impulse and unreasoning prejudice; though +good-natured, was not always good-humoured; was totally devoid of +prudence or judgment, and absolutely incapable of estimating men +aright. She used to think me, for instance, little short of an +admirable Crichton! + +Of course all the above rehearsed good qualities were, or were +calculated to be, immediately perceived and appreciated, while the +less pleasant specialties which accompanied them were of a kind to +become more perceptible only in close intimacy. And while no intimacy +ever lessened that regard of my mother and myself that had been won by +the first, it was not long before we were both, my mother especially, +vexed by exhibitions of the second. + +As, for instance:--Lady Bulwer had for some days been complaining of +feeling unwell, and was evidently suffering. My mother urged her to +have some medical advice, whereupon she turned on her very angrily, +while the tears started to her beautiful eyes, and said, "How _can_ +you tell me to do any such thing, when you know that I have not a +guinea for the purpose?" (She was frequently wont to complain of her +poverty.) But she had hardly got the words out of her mouth when the +servant entered the room saying that the silversmith was at the door +asking that the account which he laid on the table might be paid. The +account (which Lady Bulwer made no attempt to conceal, for concealment +of anything was not at all in her line) was for a pair of small silver +spurs and an ornamented silver collar which she had ordered a week or +two previously for the _ceremonial knighting of her little dog Taffy_! + +On another occasion a large party of us were to visit the Boboli +Gardens. It was a very hot day, and we had to climb the hill to the +upper part of the gardens, from whence the view over Florence and the +Val d'Arno is a charming one. But the hill, as those who have been at +Florence will not have forgotten, is not only an extremely steep, but +a shadeless one. The broad path runs between two wide margins of +turf, which are enclosed on either side by thick but not very high +shrubberies. The party sorted themselves into couples, and the men +addressed themselves to facilitating as best they might the not +slightly fatiguing work before the ladies. It fell to my lot to give +Lady Bulwer my arm. Before long we were the last and most lagging +couple on the path. It was hard work, but I did my best, and flattered +myself that my companion, despite the radical moisture which she was +copiously losing, was in high good humour, as indeed she seemed to be, +when suddenly, without a word of warning, she dashed from the path, +threw herself prone among the bushes, and burst into an uncontrollable +fit of sobs and weeping. I was horrified with amazement. What had I +done, or what left undone? It was long before I could get a word out +of her. At last she articulated amidst her sobs, "It is TOO hot! It +is cruel to bring one here!" Yes, it was _too_ hot; but that was all. +Fortunately I was not the cruel bringer. I consoled her to the best of +my power, and induced her to wipe her eyes. I dabbled a handkerchief +in a neighbouring fountain for her to wash her streaked face, and +eventually I got her to the top of the hill, where all the others had +long since arrived. + +The incident was entirely characteristic of her. She was furiously +angry with all things in heaven above and on the earth below because +she was at the moment inconvenienced. + +Here is the beginning of a letter from her of a date some months +anterior to the Boboli adventure: + +"Illustrissimo Signor Tommaso" (that was the usual style of her +address to me), "as your book is just out you must feel quite _en +train_ for puffs of any description. Therefore I send you the best I +have seen for a long while, _La Physiologie du Fumeur_. But even if +you don't like it, _don't_ put it in your pipe and smoke it. _Vide_ +Joseph Fume." + +A little subsequently she writes: "Signor Tommaso, the only revenge +I shall take for your lecture" (probably on the matter of some +outrageous extravagance) "is not to call you _illustrissimo_ and not +to send you an illuminated postillion" (a previous letter having been +ornamented with such a decoration at the top of the sheet), "but let +you find your way to Venice in the dark as you can, and then and +there, 'On the Rialto I will rate you,' and, being a man, you know +there is no chance of my _over-rating_ you." + +The following passage from the same letter refers to some negotiations +with which she had entrusted me relative to some illustrations she was +bent on having in a forthcoming book she was about to publish:--"As +for the immortal Cruikshank, tell him that I am sure the mighty genius +which conceived Lord Bateman could not refuse to give any lady +the _werry best_, and if he does I shall pass the rest of my +life registering a similar _wow_ to that of the fair Sophia, and +exclaiming, 'I vish, George Cruikshank, as you vas mine.'" + +The rest of the long, closely-written four-paged letter is an +indiscriminate and bitter, though joking attack, upon the race of +publishers. She calls Mr. Colburn an "embodied shiver," which will +bring a smile to the lips of those--few, I fear--who remember the +little man. + +Here are some extracts from a still longer letter written to my mother +much about the same time: "I hear Lady S---- has committed another +novel, called _The Three Peers_, no doubt _l'un pire que l'autre_!... +I have a great many kind messages to you from that very charming +person Madame Recamier, who fully intends meeting you at Venice with +Chateaubriand in October, for so she told me on Sunday. I met her at +Miss Clarke's some time ago, and as I am a bad _pusher_ I am happy to +say she asked to be introduced to me, and was, thanks to you, my kind +friend! She pressed me to go and see her, which I have done two or +three times, and am going to do again at her amiable request on +Thursday. I think that her fault is that she flatters a little too +much. And flattery to one whose ears have so long been excoriated by +abuse does not sound safe. However, all is right when she speaks of +you. And the point she most eulogised in you is that which I have +heard many a servile coward who could never go and do likewise" [no +indication is to be found either in this letter or elsewhere to +whom she alludes], "select for the same purpose, namely, your +straightforward, unflinching, courageous integrity.... Balzac is +furious at having his new play suppressed by Thiers, in which Arnauld +acted Louis Philippe, wig and all, to the life; but, as I said to M. +Dupin, '_Cest tout naturel que M. Thiers ne permetterait a personne de +jouer Louis Philippe que lui-meme._' ... There is a wonderful pointer +here that has been advertised for sale for twelve hundred francs. A +friend of mine went to see him, and after mounting up to a little +garret about the size of a chessboard, _au vingt-septieme_, he +interrogated the owner as to the dog's education and acquirements, to +which the man replied, '_Pour ca, monsieur, c'est un chien parfait. Je +lui ai tout appris moi-meme dans ma chambre_'[1] After this my friend +did not sing 'Together let us range the fields!' ... Last week I met +Colonel Potter M'Queen, who was warm in his praises of you, and the +great good your _Michael Armstrong_" (the factory story) "had done.... +Last Thursday despatches arrived and Lord Granville had to start for +London at a moment's notice. I was in hopes this beastly ministry +were out! But no such luck! For they are a compound of glue, +sticking-plaister, wax, and vice--the most adhesive of all known +mixtures." + +[Footnote 1: "As for that, sir, the dog is perfect. I have myself +taught him everything _in my own room_!"] + +Before concluding my recollections of Rosina, Lady Lytton Bulwer, +I think it right to say that I consider myself to have perfectly +sufficient grounds for feeling certain that the whispers which were +circulated in a cowardly and malignant fashion against the correctness +of her conduct as a woman were wholly unfounded. Her failings and +tendency to failings lay in a quite different direction. I knew +perfectly well the person whose name was mentioned scandalously in +connection with hers, and knew the whole history of the relationship +that existed between them. The gentleman in question was for years +Lady Bulwer's constant and steadfast friend. It is quite true that he +would fain have been something more, but true also that his friendship +survived the absolute rejection of all warmer sentiments by the object +of it. It was almost a matter of course that such a woman as Lady +Bulwer, living unprotected in the midst of such a society as that of +Florence in those days, should be so slandered. And were it not that +there were very few if any persons at the time, and I think certainly +not one still left, able to speak upon the subject with such +_connaissance de cause_ as I can, I should not have alluded to it. + +She was an admirably charming companion before the footlights of the +world's stage--not so uniformly charming behind its scenes, for +her unreasonableness always and her occasional violence were very +difficult to deal with. But she was, as Dickens's poor Jo says in +_Bleak House_, "werry good to me!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +After some little time and trouble we found an apartment in the +Palazzo Berti, in the ominously named Via dei Malcontenti. It was so +called because it was at one time the road to the Florentine Tyburn. +Our house was the one next to the east end of the church of Santa +Croce. Our rooms looked on to a large garden, and were pleasant +enough. We witnessed from our windows the building of the new steeple +of Santa Croce, which was completed before we left the house. + +It was built in great measure by an Englishman, a Mr. Sloane, a +fervent Catholic, who was at that time one of the best-known figures +in the English colony at Florence. + +He was a large contributor to the recently completed facade of the +Duomo in Florence, and to many other benevolent and pietistic good +works. He had been tutor in the Russian Boutourlin family, and when +acting in that capacity had been taken, by reason of his geological +acquirements, to see some copper mines in the Volterra district, which +the Grand Duke had conceded to a company under whose administration +they were going utterly to the bad. Sloane came, saw, and eventually +conquered. In conjunction with Horace Hall, the then well known and +popular partner in the bank of Signor Emanuele Fenzi (one of whose +sons married an English wife, and is still my very good and forty +years old friend), he obtained a new concession of the mines from +the Grand Duke on very favourable terms, and by the time I made his +acquaintance had become a wealthy man. I fancy the Halls, Horace and +his much esteemed brother Alfred (who survived him many years, and was +the father of a family, one of the most respected and popular of the +English colony during the whole of my Florence life), subsequently +considered themselves to have been shouldered out of the enterprise +by a certain unhandsome treatment on the part of the fortunate tutor. +What may have been the exact history of the matter I do not know. But +I do know that Sloane always remained on very intimate terms with the +Grand Duke, and was a power in the inmost circles of the ecclesiastic +world. + +He used to give great dinners on Friday, the principal object of which +seemed to be to show how magnificent a feast could be given without +infringing by a hair's breadth the rule of the Church. And admirably +he succeeded in showing how entirely the spirit and intention of +the Church in prescribing a fast could be made of none effect by a +skilfully-managed observance of the letter of its law. + +The only opportunity I ever had of conversing with Cardinal Wiseman +was in Casa Sloane. And what I chiefly remember of His Eminence was +his evident annoyance at the ultra-demonstrative zeal of the female +portion of the mixed Catholic and Protestant assembly, who _would_ +kneel and kiss his hand. A schoolmaster meeting boys in society, who, +instantly on his appearance should begin unbuttoning their brace +buttons behind, would hardly appreciate the recognition more +gratefully. + +Within a very few weeks of our establishment in Casa Berti my +mother's home became, as usual, a centre of attraction and pleasant +intercourse, and her weekly Friday receptions were always crowded. If +I were to tell everything of what I remember in connection with those +days, I should produce such a book as _non di, non homines, non +concessere columnae_--a book such as neither publishers, nor readers, +nor the _columns_ of the critical journals would tolerate, and should +fill my pages with names, which, however interesting they may still be +for me, would hardly have any interest for the public, however gentle +or pensive. + +One specialty, and that not a pleasant one, of a life so protracted as +mine has been in the midst of such a society as that of Florence in +those days, is the enormous quantity of the names which turn the +tablets of memory into palimpsests, not twice, but fifty times written +over!--unpleasant, not from the thronging _in_ of the motley company, +but from the inevitable passing _out_ of them from the field of +vision. One's recollections come to resemble those of the spectator of +a phantasmagoric show. Processions of heterogeneous figures, almost +all of them connected in some way or other with more or less pleasant +memories, troop across the magic circle of light, only, alack! to +vanish into uttermost night when they pass beyond its limit. Of course +all this is inevitable from the migratory nature of such a society as +that which was gathered together on the banks of the Arno. + +Some fixtures--comparatively fixtures--of course there were, who gave +to our moving quicksand-like society some degree of cohesion. + +Chief among these was of course the British minister--at the time of +our arrival in Florence, and many years afterwards--Lord Holland. A +happier instance of the right man in the right place could hardly be +met with. At his great _omnium-gatherum_ dinners and receptions--his +hospitality was of the most catholic and generous sort--both he +and Lady Holland (how pretty she then was there is her very clever +portrait by Watts to testify) never failed to win golden opinions from +all sorts and conditions of men and women. And in the smaller circle, +which assembled in their rooms yet more frequently, they showed to +yet greater advantage, for Lord Holland was one of the most amusing +talkers I ever knew. + +Of course many of those who ought to have been grateful for their +admission to the minister's large receptions were discontented at +not being invited to the smaller ones. And it was by some of these +malcontents with more wit than reason, that Lady Holland was accused +of receiving in two very distinct fashions--_en menage_ and _en +menagerie_. The _mot_ was a successful one, and nobody was more amused +by it than the _spirituelle_ lady of whom it was said. It was too +happy a _mot_ not to have been stolen by divers pilferers of such +articles, and adapted to other persons and other occasions. But it was +originally spoken of the time, place, and person here stated to have +been the object of it. + +Generally, in such societies in foreign capitals, a fruitful source of +jealousy and discord is found in the necessary selection of those to +be presented at the court of the reigning sovereign. But this, as +far as I remember, was avoided in those halcyon days by the simple +expedient of presenting all who desired it. And that Lord Holland +_was_ the right man in the right place as regards this matter the +following anecdote will show. + +When Mr. Hamilton became British minister at Florence, it was +announced that his intention was, for the avoiding of all trouble +and jealousy on the subject, to adhere strictly to the proper and +recognised rule. He would present everybody and anybody who had been +presented at home, and nobody who had not been so presented. And he +commenced his administration on these lines, and the Grand Duke's +receptions at the Pitti became notably weeded. But this had not gone, +on for more than two or three weeks before it was whispered in the +minister's ear that the Grand Duke would be pleased if he were less +strict in the matter of his presentations. "Oh!" said Hamilton, +"that's what he wants! _A la bonne heure!_ He shall have them all, +rag, tag, and bobtail." And so we returned to the _Saturnia regna_ of +"the good old times," and the Duke was credibly reported to have said +that he "kept the worst drawing-room in Europe." But, of course, His +Highness was thinking of the pockets of his liege Florentine letters +of apartments and tradesmen, and was anxious only to make his city a +favourite place of resort for the gold-bringing foreigners from that +distant and barbarous western isle. The Pope, you see, had the pull +in the matter of gorgeous Church ceremonies, but he couldn't have the +fertilising barbarians dancing in the Vatican once a week! + +One more anecdote I must find room for, because it is curiously +illustrative in several ways of those _tempi passati, che non tornano +piu_. Florence was full of refugees from the political rigours of the +papal government, who had for some time past found there an unmolested +refuge. But the aspect of the times was becoming more and more +alarming to Austria, and the _Duchini_, as we called the Sovereigns of +Modena and Parma; and pressure was put on the Duke by the pontifical +government insisting on the demand that these refugees should be given +up by Tuscany. Easy-going Tuscany, not yet in anywise alarmed for +herself, fought off the demand for a while, but was at last driven to +notify her intention of acceding to it. It was in these circumstances +that Massino d'Azeglio came to me one morning, in the garden of our +house in the Via del Giglio--the same in which the poet Milton lodged +when he was in Florence--to which we had by that time moved, and told +me that he wanted me to do something for him. Of course I professed +all readiness, and he went on to tell me of the critical and dangerous +position in which the refugees of whom I have spoken were placed, and +said that I must go to Lord Holland and ask him to give them British +passports. He urged that nothing could be easier, that no objection +could possibly be taken to it; that the Tuscan government was by no +means desirous of giving up these men, and would only be too glad to +get out of it; that England both at Malta and in the Ionian Islands +had plenty of Italian subjects--and in short, I undertook the mission, +I confess with very small hopes of success. Lord Holland laughed +aloud when I told my tale, and said he thought it was about the most +audacious request that had ever been made to a British minister. But +he ended by granting it. Doubtless he knew very well the truth of what +d'Azeglio had stated--that the Tuscan government would be much too +well pleased to ask any questions; and the passports were given. + +It was not long after our establishment in the Via dei Malcontenti +that a great disaster came upon Florence and its inhabitants and +guests. Arno was not in the habit of following the evil example of the +Tiber by treating Florence as the latter so frequently did Rome. But +in the winter of the year 1844 a terrible and unprecedented flood +came. The rain fell in such torrents all one night that it was feared +that the Arno, already much swollen, would not be able to carry off +the waters with sufficient rapidity. I went out early in the morning +before breakfast, in company with a younger brother of the Dr. +Nicholson of Penrith whom I have mentioned, who happened to be +visiting us. We climbed to the top of Giotto's tower, and saw at once +the terrible extent and very serious character of the misfortune. +One-third, at least, of Florence, was under water, and the flood was +rapidly rising. Coming down from our lofty observatory, we made our +way to the "Lung' Arno," as the river quays are called. And there the +sight was truly a terrible and a magnificent one. The river, extending +in one turbid, yellow, swirling mass from the walls of the houses on +the quay on one side, to those of the houses opposite, was bringing +down with it fragments of timber, carcases of animals, large +quantities of hay and straw;--and amid the wreck we saw a cradle with +a child in it, safely navigating the tumbling waters! It was drawn +to the window of a house by throwing a line over it, and the infant +navigator was none the worse. + +But very great fears were entertained for the very ancient Ponte +Vecchio, with its load of silversmiths' and jewellers' shops, turning +it from a bridge into a street--the only remaining example in Europe, +I believe, of a fashion of construction once common. The water +continued to rise as we stood watching it. Less than a foot of space +yet remained between the surface of the flood and the keystone of the +highest arch; and it was thought that if the water rose sufficiently +to beat against the solid superstructure of the bridge, it must have +been swept away. But at last came the cry from those who were watching +it close at hand, that for the last five minutes the surface had +been stationary; and in another half hour it was followed by the +announcement that the flood had begun to decrease. Then there was +an immense sensation, of relief; for the Florentines love their old +bridge; and the crowd began to disperse. + +All this time I had had not a mouthful of breakfast, and we betook +ourselves to Doney's _bottega_ to get a cup of coffee before going +home. But when we attempted this we found that it was more easily said +than done. The Via dei Malcontenti as well as the whole of the Piazza +di Santa Croce was some five feet under water! We succeeded, however, +in getting aboard a large boat, which was already engaged in carrying +bread to the people in the most deeply flooded parts of the town. But +all difficulty was not over. Of course the street door of the Palazzo +Berti was shut, and no earthly power could open it. Our apartment was +on the second floor. Our landlord's family occupied the _primo_. Of +course I could get in at their windows and then go up stairs. And we +had a ladder in the boat; but the mounting to the first floor by this +ladder, placed on the little deck of the boat, as she was rocked by +the torrent, was no easy matter, especially for me, who went first. +Eventually, however, Nicholson and I both entered the window, +hospitably opened to receive us, in safety. + +But it was one or two days before the flood subsided sufficiently for +us to be provisioned in any other manner than by the boat; and for +long years afterwards social events were dated in Florence as having +happened "before or after the flood." In those days, and for many days +subsequently to them, Florence did indeed--as I have observed when +speaking of the motives which induced us to settle there--join to its +other attractions that of being an economical place of residence. Our +money consisted of piastres, pauls, and crazie. Eight of the latter +were equal to a paul, ten of which were equivalent to a piastre. +The value of the paul was, as nearly as possible, equal to +fivepence-halfpenny English. The lira--the original representative +of the leading denomination of our own _l.s.d._--no longer existed +in--the flesh I was going to say, but rather in--the metal. And it is +rather curious, that just as the guinea remained, and indeed remains, +a constantly-used term of speech after it has ceased to exist as +current coin, so the scudo remained, in Tuscany, no longer visible or +current, but retained as an integer in accounts of the larger sort. If +you bought or sold house or land, for instance, you talked of scudi. +In more every-day matters piastre or "francesconi" were the integers +used, the latter being only a synonym for the former. And the +proportion in value of the scudo and the piastre was exactly the same +as that of the guinea and the sovereign, the former being worth +ten and a half pauls, and the latter ten. The handsomest and best +preserved coin ordinarily current was the florin, worth two pauls and +a half. Gold we rarely saw, but golden sequins (_zecchini_) were in +existence, and were traditionally used, as it was said, for I have no +experience in the matter, in the payment by the government of prizes +won in the lottery. + +Now, after this statement the reader will be in a position to +appreciate the further information that a flask of excellent Chianti, +of a quality rarely met with nowadays, was ordinarily sold for one +paul. The flask contained (legal measure) seven troy pounds weight of +liquid, or about three bottles. The same sum purchased a good fowl +in the market. The subscription (_abbuonamento_) to the Pergola, the +principal theatre, came to exactly two crazie and a half for each +night of performance. This price admitted you only to the pit, but as +you were perfectly free to enter any box in which there were persons +of your acquaintance, the admission in the case of a bachelor, +permanently or temporarily such, was all that was necessary to him. +And the price of the boxes was small in proportion. + +These boxes were indeed the drawing-rooms in which very much of +the social intercourse of the _beau monde_ was carried on. The +performances were not very frequently changed (two operas frequently +running through an entire season), and people went four or five times +a week to hear, or rather to be present at, the same representation. +And except on first nights or some other such occasion, or during the +singing of the well-known tit-bits of any opera, there was an amount +of chattering in the house which would have made the hair of a +_fanatico per la musica_ stand on end. There was also an exceedingly +comfortable but very parsimoniously-lighted large room, which was +a grand flirting place, where people sat very patiently during the +somewhat long operation of having their names called aloud, as their +carriages arrived, by an official, who knew the names and addresses of +us all. We also knew _his_ mode of adapting the names of foreigners to +his Italian organs. "Hasa" (Florentine for _casa_) "Tro-lo-pe," with +a long-drawn-out accent on the last vowel, was the absolutely fatal +signal for the sudden breaking up of many a pleasant chat. + +Florence was also, in those days, an especially economical place for +those to whom it was pleasant to enjoy during the whole of the gay +season as many balls, concerts, and other entertainments as they could +possibly desire, without the necessity, or indeed the possibility, of +putting themselves to the expense of giving anything in return. There +was a weekly ball at the Pitti Palace, and another at the Casino +dei Nobili, which latter was supported entirely by the Florentine +aristocracy. There were two or three balls at the houses of the +foreign ministers, and generally one or two given by two or three +wealthy Florentine nobles--there were a few, but very few such. + +Perhaps the pleasantest of all these were the balls at the Pitti. They +were so entirely _sans gene_. No court dress was required save on the +first day of the year, when it was _de rigueur_. But absence on that +occasion in no way excluded the absentee from the other balls. Indeed, +save to a new comer, no invitations to foreigners were issued, it +being understood that all who had been there once were welcome ever +after. The Pitti balls were not by any means concluded by, but rather +divided into two, by a very handsome and abundant supper, at which, to +tell tales out of school (but then the offenders have no doubt mostly +gone over to the majority), the guests used to behave abominably. The +English would seize the plates of _bonbons_ and empty the contents +bodily into their coat pockets. The ladies would do the same with +their pocket-handkerchiefs. But the Duke's liege subjects carried on +their depredations on a far bolder scale. I have seen large portions +of fish, sauce and all, packed up in a newspaper, and deposited in a +pocket. I have seen fowls and ham share the same fate, without any +newspaper at all. I have seen jelly carefully wrapped in an Italian +countess's laced _mouchoir_! I think the servants must have had orders +not to allow entire bottles of wine to be carried away, for I never +saw that attempted, and can imagine no other reason why. I remember +that those who affected to be knowing old hands used to recommend +one to specially pay attention to the Grand Ducal Rhine wine, +and remember, too, conceiving a suspicion that certain of these +connoisseurs based their judgment in this matter wholly on their +knowledge that the Duke possessed estates in Bohemia! + +The English were exceedingly numerous in Florence at that time, and +they were reinforced by a continually increasing American contingent, +though our cousins had not yet begun to come in numbers rivalling our +own, as has been the case recently. By the bye, it occurs to me, that +I never saw an American pillaging the supper table; though, I may add, +that American ladies would accept any amount of _bonbons_ from English +blockade runners. + +And the mention of American ladies at the Pitti reminds me of a really +very funny story, which may be told without offence to any one now +living. I have a notion that I have seen this story of mine told +somewhere, with a change of names and circumstances that spoil it, +after the fashion of the people "who steal other folks' stories and +disfigure them, as gipsies do stolen children to escape detection." + +I had one evening at the Pitti, some years however after my first +appearance there, a very pretty and naively charming American lady on +my arm, whom I was endeavouring to amuse by pointing out to her all +the personages whom I thought might interest her, as we walked through +the rooms. Dear old Dymock, the champion, was in Florence that winter, +and was at the Pitti that night.--I dare say that there may be +many now who do not know without being told, that Dymock, the last +champion, as I am almost afraid I must call him--though doubtless +Scrivelsby must still be held by the ancient tenure--was a very small +old man, a clergyman, and not at all the sort of individual to answer +to the popular idea of a champion. He was sitting in a nook all by +himself, and not looking very heroic or very happy as we passed, and +nudging my companion's arm, I whispered, "That is the champion." The +interest I excited was greater than I had calculated on, for the lady +made a dead stop, and facing round to gaze at the old gentleman, said +"Why, you don't tell me so! I should never have thought that that +could be the fellow who licked Heenan! _But he looks a plucky little +chap!_" + +Perhaps the reader may have forgotten, or even never known, that the +championship of the pugilistic world had then recently been won by +Sayers--I think that was the name--in a fight with an antagonist of +the name of Heenan. In fact it was I, and not my fair companion, who +was a muff, for having imagined that a young American woman, nearly +fresh from the other side of the Atlantic, was likely to know or ever +have heard anything about the Champion of England. + +There happened to be several Lincolnshire men that year in Florence, +and there was a dinner at which I, as one of the "web-footed," by +descent if not birth, was present, and I told them the story of my +Pitti catastrophe. The lady's concluding words produced an effect +which may be imagined more easily than described. + +The Grand Duke at these Pitti balls used to show himself, and take +part in them as little as might be. The Grand Duchess used to walk +through the rooms sometimes. The Grand Duchess, a Neapolitan princess, +was not beloved by the Tuscans; and I am disposed to believe that she +did not deserve their affection. But there was at that time another +lady at the Pitti, the Dowager Grand Duchess, the widow of the late +Grand Duke. She had been a Saxon princess, and was very favourably +contrasted with the reigning Duchess in graciousness of manner, +in appearance--for though a considerably older, she was still an +elegant-looking woman--and, according to the popular estimate, in +character. She also would occasionally walk through the rooms; but her +object, and indeed that of the Duke, seemed to be to attract as little +attention as possible. + +Only on the first night of the year, when we were all in _gran gala_, +_i.e._ in court suits or uniform, did any personal communication with +the Grand Duke take place. His manner, when anybody was presented to +him on these or other occasions, was about as bad and imprincely +as can well be conceived. His clothes never fitted him. He used to +support himself on one foot, hanging his head towards that side, +and occasionally changing the posture of both foot and head, always +simultaneously. And he always appeared to be struggling painfully with +the consciousness that he had nothing to say. It was on one of these +occasions that an American new arrival was presented to him by Mr. +Maquay, the banker, who always did that office for Americans, the +United States having then no representative at the Grand Ducal court. +Maquay, thinking to help the Duke, whispered in his ear that the +gentleman was connected by descent with the great Washington, upon +which the Duke, changing his foot, said, "_Ah! le grand Vash_!" His +manner was that of a lethargic and not wide-awake man. When strangers +would sometimes venture some word of compliment on the prosperity +and contentment of the Tuscans, his reply invariably was, "_Sono +tranquilli_"--they are quiet. But in truth much more might have been +said; for assuredly Tuscany was a Land of Goshen in the midst of the +peninsula. There was neither want nor discontent (save among a very +small knot of politicians, who might almost have been counted on the +hand), nor crime. There was at Florence next to no police of any kind, +but the streets were perfectly safe by night or by day. + +There was a story, much about that time, which made some noise in +Europe, and was very disingenuously made use of, as such stories are, +of a certain Florentine and his wife, named Madiai, who had been, it +was asserted, persecuted for reading the Bible. It was not so. They +were "persecuted" for, _i.e._ restrained from, preaching to others +that they ought to read it, which is, though doubtless a bad, yet a +very different thing. + +I believe the Grand Duke (_gran ciuco_--great ass--as his irreverent +Tuscans nicknamed him) was a good and kindly man, and under the +circumstances, and to the extent of his abilities, not a bad ruler. +The phrase, which Giusti applied to him, and which the inimitable +talent of the satirist has made more durable than any other memorial +of the poor _gran ciuco_ is likely to be, "_asciuga tasche e +maremme_"--he dries up pockets and marshes--is as unjust as such +_mots_ of satirists are wont to be. The draining of the great marshes +of the Chiana, between Arezzo and Chiusi, was a well-considered and +most beneficent work on a magnificent scale, which, so far from +"drying pockets," added enormously to the wealth of the country, and +is now adding very appreciably to the prosperity of Italy. Nor was +Giusti's reproach in any way merited by the Grand Ducal government. +The Grand Duke personally was a very wealthy man, as well as, in +respect to his own habits, a most simple liver. The necessary expenses +of the little state were small; and taxation was so light that a +comparison between that of the Saturnian days in question and that +under which the Tuscans of the present day not unreasonably groan, +might afford a text for some very far-reaching speculations. The +Tuscans of the present day may preach any theological doctrines they +please to any who will listen to them, or indeed to those who won't, +but it would be curious to know how many individuals among them +consider that, or any other recently-acquired liberty, well bought at +the price they pay for it. + +The Grand Duke was certainly not a great or a wise man. He was one +of those men of whom their friends habitually say that they are "no +fools," or "not such fools as they look," which generally may +be understood to mean that the individual spoken of cannot with +physiological accuracy be considered a _cretin_. Nevertheless, in his +case the expression was doubtless accurately true. He was not such +a fool as he looked, for his appearance was certainly not that of a +wise, or even an intelligent man. + +One story is told of him, which I have reason to believe perfectly +true, and which is so characteristic of the man, and of the time, that +I must not deprive the reader of it. + +It was the custom that on St. John's Day the Duke should visit and +inspect the small body of troops who were lodged in the Fortezza di +San Giovanni, or Fortezza da Basso, as it was popularly called, in +contradistinction from another fort on the high ground above the +Boboli Gardens. And it was expected that on these occasions the +sovereign should address a few words to his soldiers. So the Duke, +resting his person first on one leg and then on the other, after his +fashion, stood in front of the two or three score of men drawn up +in line before him, and after telling them that obedience to their +officers and attachment to duty were the especial virtues of a +soldier, he continued, "Above all, my men, I desire that you should +remember the duties and observances of our holy religion, and--and--" +(here, having said all he had to say, His Highness was at a loss for +a conclusion to his harangue. But looking down on the ground as he +strove to find a fitting peroration, he observed that the army's shoes +were sadly in want of the blacking brush, so he concluded with more of +animation and significance than he had before evinced) "and keep your +shoes clean!" + +I may find room further on to say a few words of what I remember of +the revolution which dethroned poor _gran ciuco_. But I may as well +conclude here what I have to say of him by relating the manner of his +final exit from the soil of Tuscany, of which the malicious among the +few who knew the circumstances were wont to say--very unjustly--that +nothing in his reign became him like the leaving of it. I saw him pass +out from the Porta San Gallo on his way to Bologna among a crowd of +his late subjects, who all lifted their hats, though not without some +satirical cries of "_Addio, sai" "Buon viaggio_!" But a few, a very +few, friends accompanied his carriage to the papal frontier, an +invisible line on the bleak Apennines, unmarked by any habitation. +There he descended from his carriage to receive their last adieus, and +there was much lowly bowing as they stood on the highway. The Duke, +not unmoved, bowed lowly in return, but unfortunately backing as +he did so, tripped himself up with characteristic awkwardness, and +tumbled backwards on a heap of broken stones prepared for the road, +with his heels in the air, and exhibiting to his unfaithful Tuscans +and ungrateful Duchy, as a last remembrance of him, a full view of a +part of his person rarely put forward on such occasions. + +And so _exeunt_ from the sight of men and from history a Grand Duke +and a Grand Duchy. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +It was not long after the flood in Florence--it seems to me, as I +write, that I might almost leave out the two last words!--that I saw +Dickens for the first time. One morning in Casa Berti my mother was +most agreeably surprised by a card brought in to her with "Mr. and +Mrs. Charles Dickens" on it. We had been among his heartiest admirers +from the early days of _Pickwick_. I don't think we had happened to +see the _Sketches by Boz_. But my uncle Milton used to come to +Hadley full of "the last _Pickwick_," and swearing that each number +out-Pickwicked Pickwick. And it was with the greatest curiosity and +interest that we saw the creator of all this enjoyment enter in the +flesh. + +We were at first disappointed, and disposed to imagine there must be +some mistake! No! _that_ is not the man who wrote _Pickwick_! What we +saw was a dandified, pretty-boy-looking sort of figure, singularly +young looking, I thought, with a slight flavour of the whipper-snapper +genus of humanity. + +Here is Carlyle's description of his appearance at about that period +of his life, quoted from Froude's _History of Carlyle's Life in +London_: + +"He is a fine little fellow--Boz--I think. Clear blue, intelligent +eyes, eyebrows that he arches amazingly, large, protrusive, rather +loose mouth, a face of most extreme mobility, which he shuttles +about--eyebrows, eyes, mouth and all--in a very singular manner when +speaking. Surmount this with a loose coil of common-coloured hair, +and set it on a small compact figure, very small, and dressed _a la_ +D'Orsay rather than well--this is Pickwick. For the rest, a quiet, +shrewd-looking little fellow, who seems to guess pretty well what he +is and what others are." + +One may perhaps venture to suppose that had the second of these +guesses been less accurate, the description might have been a less +kindly one. + +But there are two errors to be noted in this sketch, graphic as it +is. Firstly, Dickens's eyes were not blue, but of a very distinct and +brilliant hazel--the colour traditionally assigned to Shakspeare's +eyes. Secondly, Dickens, although truly of a slight, compact figure, +was _not a very_ small man. I do not think he was below the average +middle height. I speak from my remembrance of him at a later day, +when I had become intimate with him; but curiously enough, I find on +looking back into my memory, that if I had been asked to describe him, +as I first saw him, I too should have said that he was very small. +Carlyle's words refer to Dickens's youth soon after he had published +_Pickwick_; and no doubt at this period he had a look of delicacy, +almost of effeminacy, if one may accept Maclise's well-known portrait +as a truthful record, which might give those who saw him the +impression of his being smaller and more fragile in build than was +the fact. In later life he lost this D'Orsay look completely, and was +bronzed and reddened by wind and weather like a seaman. + +In fact, when I saw him subsequently in London, I think I should have +passed him in the street without recognising him. I never saw a man so +changed. + +Any attempt to draw a complete pen-and-ink portrait of Dickens has +been rendered for evermore superfluous, if it were not presumptuous, +by the masterly and exhaustive life of him by John Forster. But one +may be allowed to record one's own impressions, and any small incident +or anecdote which memory holds, on the grounds set forth by the great +writer himself, who says in the introduction to the _American Notes_ +(first printed in the biography)--"Very many works having just the +same scope and range have been already published. But I think that +these two volumes stand in need of no apology on that account. The +interest of such productions, if they have any, lies in the varying +impressions made by the same novel things on different minds, and not +in new discoveries or extraordinary adventures." + +At Florence Dickens made a pilgrimage to Landor's villa, the owner +being then absent in England, and gathered a leaf of ivy from Fiesole +to carry back to the veteran poet, as narrated by Mr. Forster. Dickens +is as accurate as a topographer in his description of the villa, as +looked down on from Fiesole. How often--ah, _how_ often!--have I +looked down from that same dwarf wall over the matchless view where +Florence shows the wealth of villas that Ariosto declares made it +equivalent to two Romes! + +Dickens was only thirty-three when I first saw him, being just two +years my junior. I have said what he appeared to me then. As I knew +him afterwards, and to the end of his days, he was a strikingly manly +man, not only in appearance but in bearing. The lustrous brilliancy of +his eyes was very striking. And I do not think that I have ever seen +it noticed, that those wonderful eyes which saw so much and so keenly, +were appreciably, though to a very slight degree, near-sighted eyes. +Very few persons, even among those who knew him well, were aware of +this, for Dickens never used a glass. But he continually exercised his +vision by looking at distant objects, and making them out as well as +he could without any artificial assistance. It was an instance of that +force of will in him, which compelled a naturally somewhat delicate +frame to comport itself like that of an athlete. Mr. Forster somewhere +says of him, "Dickens's habits were robust, but his health was not." +This is entirely true as far as my observation extends. + +Of the general charm of his manner I despair of giving any idea to +those who have not seen or known him. This was a charm by no means +dependent on his genius. He might have been the great writer he was +and yet not have warmed the social atmosphere wherever he appeared +with that summer glow which seemed to attend him. His laugh was +brimful of enjoyment. There was a peculiar humorous protest in it when +recounting or hearing anything specially absurd, as who should say +"'Pon my soul this is _too_ ridiculous! This passes all bounds!" and +bursting out afresh as though the sense of the ridiculous overwhelmed +him like a tide, which carried all hearers away with it, and which +I well remember. His enthusiasm was boundless. It entered into +everything he said or did. It belonged doubtless to that amazing +fertility and wealth of ideas and feeling that distinguished his +genius. + +No one having any knowledge of the profession of literature can read +Dickens's private letters and not stand amazed at the unbounded +affluence of imagery, sentiment, humour, and keen observation which +he poured out in them. There was no stint, no reservation for trade +purposes. So with his conversation--every thought, every fancy, every +feeling was expressed with the utmost vivacity and intensity, but a +vivacity and intensity compatible with the most singular delicacy and +nicety of touch when delicacy and nicety of touch were needed. + +What were called the exaggerations of his writing were due, I have no +doubt, to the extraordinary luminosity of his imagination. He saw and +rendered such an individuality as Mr. Pecksniff's or Mrs. Nickleby's +for instance, something after the same fashion as a solar microscope +renders any object observed through it. The world in general beholds +its Pecksniffs and its Mrs. Nicklebys through a different medium. And +at any rate Dickens got at the quintessence of his creatures, and +enables us all, in our various measures, to perceive it too. The proof +of this is that we are constantly not only quoting the sayings and +doings of his immortal characters, but are recognising other sayings +and doings as what _they_ would have said or done. + +But it is impossible for one who knew him as I did to confine what +he remembers of him either to traits of outward appearance or to +appreciations of his genius. I must say a few, a very few words of +what Dickens appeared to me as a man. I think that an epithet, which, +much and senselessly as it has been misapplied and degraded, is yet, +when rightly used, perhaps the grandest that can be applied to a human +being, was especially applicable to him. He was a _hearty_ man, a +large-hearted man that is to say. He was perhaps the largest-hearted +man I ever knew. I think he made a nearer approach to obeying the +divine precept, "Love thy neighbour as thyself," than one man in a +hundred thousand. His benevolence, his active, energising desire for +good to all God's creatures, and restless anxiety to be in some way +active for the achieving of it, were unceasing and busy in his heart +ever and always. + +But he had a sufficient capacity for a virtue, which, I think, seems +to be moribund among us--the virtue of moral indignation. Men and +their actions were not all much of a muchness to him. There was none +of the indifferentism of that pseudo-philosophic moderation, which, +when a scoundrel or a scoundrelly action is on the _tapis_, hints that +there is much to be said on both sides. Dickens hated a mean action or +a mean sentiment as one hates something that is physically loathsome +to the sight and touch. And he could be angry, as those with whom he +had been angry did not very readily forget. + +And there was one other aspect of his moral nature, of which I am +reminded by an observation which Mr. Forster records as having been +made by Mrs. Carlyle. "Light and motion flashed from every part of it +[his face]. It was as if made of steel." The first part of the phrase +is true and graphic enough, but the image offered by the last words +appears to me a singularly infelicitous one. There was nothing of the +hardness or of the (moral) sharpness of steel about the expression of +Dickens's face and features. Kindling mirth and genial fun were +the expressions which those who casually met him in society were +habituated to find there, but those who knew him well knew also well +that a tenderness, gentle and sympathetic as that of a woman, was a +mood that his surely never "steely" face could express exquisitely, +and did express frequently. + +I used to see him very frequently in his latter years. I generally +came to London in the summer, and one of the first things on my list +was a visit to 20, Wellington Street. Then would follow sundry other +visits and meetings--to Tavistock House, to Gadshill, at Verey's in +Regent Street, a place he much patronised, &c., &c. I remember one day +meeting Chauncy Hare Townsend at Tavistock House and thinking him a +very singular and not particularly agreeable man. Edwin Landseer I +remember dined there the same day. But he had been a friend of my +mother's, and was my acquaintance of long long years before. + +Of course we had much and frequent talk about Italy, and I may say +that our ideas and opinions, and especially feelings on that subject, +were always, I think, in unison. Our agreement respecting English +social and political matters was less perfect. But I think that it +would have become more nearly so had his life been prolonged as mine +has been. And the approximation would, if I am not much mistaken, have +been brought about by a movement of mind on his part, which already +I think those who knew him best will agree with me in thinking had +commenced. We differed on many points of politics. But there is one +department of English social life--one with which I am probably more +intimately acquainted than with any other, and which has always been +to me one of much interest--our public school system, respecting which +our agreement was complete. And I cannot refrain from quoting. The +opinion which he expresses is as true as if he had, like me, an eight +years' experience of the system he is speaking of. And the passage, +which I am about to give, is very remarkable as an instance of the +singular acumen, insight, and power of sympathy which enabled him to +form so accurately correct an opinion on a matter of which he might be +supposed to know nothing. + +"In July," says Mr. Forster, writing of the year 1858-9, "he took +earnest part in the opening efforts on behalf of the Royal Dramatic +College, which he supplemented later by a speech for the establishment +of schools for actors' children, in which he took occasion to declare +his belief that there were no institutions in England so socially +liberal as its public schools, and that there was nowhere in the +country so complete an absence of servility to mere rank, position, +and riches. 'A boy there'" (Mr. Forster here quotes Dickens's own +words) "'is always what his abilities and personal qualities make +him. We may differ about the curriculum and other matters, but of the +frank, free, manly, independent spirit preserved in our public schools +I apprehend there can be no kind of question.'" + +I have in my possession a great number of letters from Dickens, some +of which might probably have been published in the valuable collection +of his letters published by his sister-in-law and eldest daughter had +they been get-at-able at the time when they might have been available +for that publication.[1] But I was at Rome, and the letters were +safely stowed away in England in such sort that it would have needed a +journey to London to get at them. + +[Footnote 1: Some of the letters in question--such as I had with +me--were sent to London for that purpose. I do not remember now which +were and which were not. But if it should be the case that any of +those printed here have been printed before, I do not think any reader +will object to having them again brought under his eye.] + +I was for several years a frequent contributor to _Household Words_, +my contributions for the most part consisting of what I considered +tit-bits from the byways of Italian history, which the persevering +plough of my reading turned up from time to time. + +In one case I remember the article was sent "to order," I was dining +with him after I had just had all the remaining hairs on my head made +to stand on end by the perusal of the officially published _Manual for +Confessors_, as approved by superior authority for the dioceses of +Tuscany. I was full of the subject, and made, I fancy, the hairs of +some who sat at table with me stand on end also. Dickens said, with +nailing forefinger levelled at me, "Give us that for _Household +Words_. Give it us just as you have now been telling it to us"--which +I accordingly did. Whether the publication of that article was in +anywise connected with the fact that when I wished to purchase a +second copy of that most extraordinary work I was told that it was out +of print, and not to be had, I do not know. Of course it was kept as +continually in print as the _Latin Grammar_, for the constant use of +the class for whom it was provided, and who most assuredly could not +have found their way safely through the wonderful intricacies of the +Confessional without it. And equally, of course, the publishers of +so largely-circulated a work did not succeed in preventing me from +obtaining a second copy of it. + +Many of the letters addressed to me by Dickens concerned more or less +my contributions to his periodical, and many more are not of a nature +to interest the public even though they came from him. But I may give +a few extracts from three or four of them.[1] + +[Footnote 1: I wish it to be observed that any letters, or parts of +letters, from Dickens here printed are published with the permission +and authorisation of his sister-in-law, Miss Georgina Hogarth.] + +Here is a passage from a letter dated 3rd December, 1861, which my +vanity will not let me suppress. + +"Yes; the Christmas number _was_ intended as a conveyance of all +friendly greetings in season and out of season. As to its lesson, you +need it almost as little as any man I know; for all your study and +seclusion conduce to the general good, and disseminate truths that men +cannot too earnestly take to heart. Yes, a capital story that of 'The +Two Seaborn Babbies,' and wonderfully droll, I think. I may say so +without blushing, for it is not by me. It was done by Wilkie Collins." + +Here is another short note, not a little gratifying to me personally, +but not without interest of a larger kind to the reader:-- + + * * * * * + +"_Tuesday, 15th November, 1859._ + +"MY DEAR TROLLOPE,--I write this hasty word, just as the post leaves, +to ask you this question, which this moment occurs to me. + +"Montalembert, in his suppressed treatise, asks, 'What wrong has Pope +Pius the Ninth done?' Don't you think you can very pointedly answer +that question in these pages? If you cannot, nobody in Europe can. +Very faithfully yours always, + +"CHARLES DICKENS" + + * * * * * + +Some, some few, may remember the interest excited by the treatise to +which the above letter refers. No doubt I could, and doubtless did, +though I forget all about it, answer the question propounded by the +celebrated French writer. But there was little hope of my doing it +as "pointedly" as my correspondent would have done it himself. The +answer, which might well have consisted of a succinct statement of all +the difficulties of the position with which Italy was then struggling, +had to confine itself to the limits of an article in _All The Year +Round_, and needed in truth to be pointed. I have observed that, in +all our many conversations on Italian matters, Dickens's views and +opinions coincided with my own, without, I think, any point of +divergence. Very specially was this the case as regards all that +concerned the Vatican and the doings of the Curia. How well I remember +his arched eyebrows and laughing eyes when I told him of Garibaldi's +proposal that all priests should be summarily executed! I think +it modified his ideas of the possible utility of Garibaldi as a +politician. + +Then comes an invitation to "my Falstaff house at Gadshill." + +Here is a letter of the 17th February, 1866, which I will give _in +extenso_, bribed again by the very flattering words in which the +writer speaks of our friendship:-- + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR TROLLOPE,--I am heartily glad to hear from you. It was such +a disagreeable surprise to find that you had left London" [I had been +called away at an hour's notice] "on the occasion of your last visit +without my having seen you, that I have never since got it out of my +mind. I felt as if it were my fault (though I don't know how that can +have been), and as if I had somehow been traitorous to the earnest and +affectionate regard with which you have inspired me. + +"The lady's verses are accepted by the editorial potentate, and shall +presently appear." [I am ashamed to say that I totally forget who the +lady was.] + +"I am not quite well, and am being touched up (or down) by the +doctors. Whether the irritation of mind I had to endure pending the +discussions of a preposterous clerical body called a Convocation, and +whether the weakened hopefulness of mankind which such a dash of the +middle ages in the colour and pattern of 1866 engenders, may have +anything to do with it, I don't know. + +"What a happy man you must be in having a new house to work at. When +it is quite complete, and the roc's egg hung up, I suppose you will +get rid of it bodily and turn to at another." [_Absit omen!_ At this +very moment, while I transcribe this letter, I _am_ turning to at +another.] + +"_Daily News_ correspondent" [as I then for a short time was], "Novel, +and Hospitality! Enough to do indeed! Perhaps the day _might_ be +advantageously made longer for such work--or say life." [Ah! if the +small matters rehearsed had been all, I could more contentedly have +put up with the allowance of four-and-twenty hours.] "And yet I don't +know. Like enough we should all do less if we had time to do more in. + +"Layard was with us for a couple of days a little while ago, and +brought the last report of you, and of your daughter, who seems to +have made a great impression on him. I wish he had had the keepership +of the National Gallery, for I don't think his Government will hold +together through many weeks. + +"I wonder whether you thought as highly of Gibson's art as the lady +did who wrote the verses. I must say that I did _not_, and that I +thought it of a mechanical sort, with no great amount of imagination +in it. It seemed to me as if he 'didn't find me' in that, as the +servants say, but only provided me with carved marble, and expected me +to furnish myself with as much idea as I could afford. + +"Very faithfully yours, + +"CHARLES DICKENS." + + * * * * * + +I do not remember the verses, though I feel confident that the lady +who sent them through me must have been a very charming person. As to +Gibson, no criticism could be sounder. I had a considerable liking for +Gibson as a man, and admiration for his character, but as regards his +ideal productions I think Dickens hits the right nail on the head. + +In another letter of the same year, 25th July, after a page of remarks +on editorial matters, he writes:-- + + * * * * * + +"If Italy could but achieve some brilliant success in arms! That she +does not, causes, I think, some disappointment here, and makes her +sluggish friends more sluggish, and her open enemies more powerful. I +fear too that the Italian ministry have lost an excellent opportunity +of repairing the national credit in London city, and have borrowed +money in France for the poor consideration of lower interest, which" +_[sic_, but I suspect _which_ must be a slip of the pen for _than_] +"they could have got in England, greatly to the re-establishment of a +reputation for public good faith. As to Louis Napoleon, his position +in the whole matter is to me like his position in Europe at all times, +simply disheartening and astounding. Between Prussia and Austria there +is, in my mind (but for Italy), not a pin to choose. If each could +smash the other I should be, as to those two Powers, perfectly +satisfied. But I feel for Italy almost as if I were an Italian born. +So here you have in brief my confession of faith. + +"Mr. Home" [as he by that time called himself,--when he was staying in +my house his name was Hume], "after trying to come out as an actor, +first at Fechter's (where I had the honour of stopping him short), and +then at the St. James's Theatre under Miss Herbert (where he was +twice announced, and each time very mysteriously disappeared from the +bills), was announced at the little theatre in Dean Street, Soho, as +a 'great attraction for one night only,' to play last Monday. An +appropriately dirty little rag of a bill, fluttering in the window of +an obscure dairy behind the Strand, gave me this intelligence last +Saturday. It is like enough that even that striking business did not +come off, for I believe the public to have found out the scoundrel; in +which lively and sustaining hope this leaves me at present. + +"Ever faithfully yours, + +"CHARLES DICKENS." + + * * * * * + +Here is a letter which, as may be easily imagined, I value much. It +was written on the 2nd of November, 1866, and reached me at Brest. It +was written to congratulate me on my second marriage, and among the +great number which I received on that occasion is one of the most +warm-hearted:-- + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR TROLLOPE,--I should have written immediately to congratulate +you on your then approaching marriage, and to assure you of my most +cordial and affectionate interest in all that nearly concerns you, had +I known how best to address you. + +"No friend that you have can be more truly attached to you than I am. +I congratulate you with all my heart, and believe that your marriage +will stand high upon the list of happy ones. As to your wife's winning +a high reputation out of your house--if you care for that; it is not +much as an addition to the delights of love and peace and a suitable +companion for life--I have not the least doubt of her power to make +herself famous. + +"I little thought what an important master of the ceremonies I was +when I first gave your present wife an introduction to your mother. +Bear me in your mind then as the unconscious instrument of your having +given your best affection to a worthy object, and I shall be the best +paid master of the ceremonies since Nash drove his coach and six +through the streets of Bath. + +"Faithfully yours, + +"CHARLES DICKENS." + + * * * * * + +Among a heap of others I find a note of invitation written on the 9th +of July, 1867, in which he says: "My 'readings' secretary, whom I am +despatching to America at the end of this week, will dine with me at +Verey's in Regent Street at six exact to be wished God-speed. There +will only be besides, Wills, Wilkie Collins, and Mr. Arthur Chappell. +Will you come? No dress. Evening left quite free." + +I went, and the God-speed party was a very pleasant one. But I liked +best to have him, as I frequently had, all to myself. I suppose I +am not, as Johnson said, a "clubbable" man. At all events I highly +appreciate what the Irishman called a tatur-tatur dinner, whether the +gender in the case be masculine or feminine; and I incline to give +my adherence to the philosophy of the axiom that declares "two to +be company, and three none." But then I am very deaf, and that has +doubtless much to do with it. + +On the 10th of September, 1868, Dickens writes:-- + + * * * * * + +"The madness and general political bestiality of the General Elections +will come off in the appropriate Guy Fawkes days. It was proposed to +me, under very flattering circumstances indeed, to come in as the +third member for Birmingham; I replied in what is now my stereotyped +phrase, 'that no consideration on earth would induce me to become +a candidate for the representation of any place in the House of +Commons.' Indeed it is a dismal sight, is that arena altogether. Its +irrationality and dishonesty are quite shocking." [What would he have +said now!] "How disheartening it is, that in affairs spiritual or +temporal mankind will not begin at the beginning, but _will_ begin +with assumptions. Could one believe without actual experience of the +fact, that it would be assumed by hundreds of thousands of pestilent +boobies, pandered to by politicians, that the Established Church in +Ireland has stood between the kingdom and Popery, when as a crying +grievance it has been Popery's trump-card! + +"I have now growled out my growl, and feel better. + +"With kind regards, my dear Trollope, + +"Faithfully yours, + +"CHARLES DICKENS." + + * * * * * + +In the December of that year came another growl, as follows:-- + + * * * * * + +"KENNEDY'S HOTEL, EDINBURGH. + +"MY DEAR TROLLOPE,--I am reading here, and had your letter forwarded +to me this morning. The MS. accompanying it was stopped at _All The +Year Round_ office (in compliance with general instructions referring +to any MS. from you) and was sent straight to the printer. + +"Oh dear no! Nobody supposes for a moment that the English Church +will follow the Irish Establishment. In the whole great universe of +shammery and flummery there is no such idea floating. Everybody knows +that the Church of England as an endowed establishment is doomed, and +would be, even if its hand were not perpetually hacking at its own +throat; but as was observed of an old lady in gloves in one of my +Christmas books, 'Let us be polite or die!' + +"Anthony's ambition" [in becoming a candidate for Beverley] "is +inscrutable to me. Still, it is the ambition of many men; and the +honester the man who entertains it, the better for the rest of us, I +suppose. + +"Ever, my dear Trollope, + +"Most cordially yours, + +"CHARLES DICKENS." + + * * * * * + +Here is another "growl," provoked by a species of charlatan, which +he, to whom all charlatans were odious, especially abominated--the +pietistic charlatan:-- + + * * * * * + +"Oh, we have such a specimen here! a man who discourses +extemporaneously, positively without the power of constructing one +grammatical sentence; but who is (ungrammatically) deep in Heaven's +confidence on the abstrusest points, and discloses some of his private +information with an idiotic complacency insupportable to behold. + +"We are going to have a bad winter in England too probably. What with +Ireland, and what with the last new Government device of getting in +the taxes before they are due, and what with vagrants, and what with +fever, the prospect is gloomy." + +The last letter I ever received from him is dated the 10th of +November, 1869. It is a long letter, but I will give only one passage +from it, which has, alas! a peculiarly sad and touching significance +when read with the remembrance of the catastrophe then hurrying on, +which was to put an end to all projects and purposes. I had been +suggesting a walking excursion across the Alps. He writes:-- + +"Walk across the Alps? Lord bless you, I am 'going' to take up my +alpenstock and cross all the passes. And, I am 'going' to Italy. I am +also 'going' up the Nile to the second cataract; and I am 'going' to +Jerusalem, and to India, and likewise to Australia. My only dimness +of perception in this wise is, that I don't know _when_. If I did but +know when, I should be so wonderfully clear about it all! At present +I can't see even so much as the Simplon in consequence of certain +farewell readings and a certain new book (just begun) interposing +their dwarfish shadow. But whenever (if ever) I change 'going' into +'coming,' I shall come to see you. + +"With kind regards, ever, my dear Trollope, + +"Your affectionate friend, + +"CHARLES DICKENS." + + * * * * * + +And those were the last words I ever had from him! + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +In those days--_temporibus illis_, as the historians of long-forgotten +centuries say--there used to be a very general exodus of the English +colony at Florence to the baths of Lucca during the summer months. +Almost all Italians, who can in anywise afford to do so, leave the +great cities nowadays for the seaside, even as those do who have +preceded them in the path of modern luxurious living. But at the time +of which I am writing the Florentines who did so were few, and almost +confined to that inner circle of the fashionable world which partly +lived with foreigners, and had adopted in many respects their modes +and habits. Those Italians, however, who did leave their Florence +homes in the summer, went almost all of them to Leghorn. The baths of +Lucca were an especially and almost exclusively English resort. + +It was possible to induce the _vetturini_ who supplied carriages and +horses for the purpose, to do the journey to the baths in one day, but +it was a very long day, and it was necessary to get fresh horses +at Lucca. There was no good sleeping-place between Florence and +Lucca--nor indeed is there such now--and the journey from the capital +of Tuscany to that of the little Duchy of Lucca, now done by rail in +less than two hours, was quite enough for a _vetturino's_ pair of +horses. And when Lucca was reached there were still fourteen miles, +nearly all collar work, between that and the baths, so that the plan +more generally preferred was to sleep at Lucca. + +The baths (well known to the ancient Romans, of course, as what warm +springs throughout Europe were not?) consisted of three settlements, +or groups of houses--as they do still, for I revisited the +well-remembered place two or three years ago. There was the "Ponte," a +considerable village gathered round the lower bridge over the Lima, at +which travellers from Florence first arrived. Here were the +assembly rooms, the reading room, the principal baths, _and_ the +gaming-tables--for in those pleasant wicked days the remote little +Lucca baths were little better than Baden subsequently and Monte Carlo +now. Only we never, to the best of my memory, suicided ourselves, +though it might happen occasionally, that some innkeeper lost the +money which ought to have gone to him, because "the bank" had got hold +of it first. + +Then secondly there was the "Villa," about a mile higher up the lovely +little valley of the Lima, so called because the Duke's villa was +situated there. The Villa had more the pretension--a very little +more--of looking something like a little bit of town. At least it had +its one street paved. The ducal villa was among the woods immediately +above it. + +The third little group of buildings and lodging-houses was called the +"Bagni Caldi." The hotter, and, I fancy, the original springs were +there, and it was altogether more retired and countrified, nestling +closely among the chesnut woods. The whole surrounding country indeed +is one great chesnut forest, and the various little villages, most of +them picturesque in the highest degree, which crown the summits of the +surrounding hills, are all of them closely hedged in by the chesnut +woods, which clothe the slopes to the top. These villages burrow in +what they live on like mice in a cheese, for many of the inhabitants +never taste any other than chesnut flour bread from year's end to +year's end. + +The inhabitants of these hills, and indeed those of the duchy +generally, have throughout Italy the reputation of being morally about +the best population in the peninsula. Servants from the Lucchese, and +especially from the district I am here speaking of, were, and are +still, I believe, much prized. Lucca, as many readers will remember, +enjoys among all the descriptive epithets popularly given to the +different cities of Italy, that of _Lucca la industriosa_. + +To us migratory English those singularly picturesque villages which +capped all the hills, and were reached by curiously ancient paved mule +paths zig-sagging up among the chesnut woods, seemed to have been +created solely for artistic and picnic purposes. The Saturnian nature +of the life lived in them may be conceived from the information once +given me by the inhabitants of one of these mountain settlements in +reply to some inquiry about the time of day, that it was always noon +there when the priest was ready for his dinner. + +Such were the summer quarters of the English Florentine colony, +_temporibus illis_. There used to be, I remember, a somewhat amusingly +distinctive character attributed, of course in a general way subject +to exceptions, to the different groups of the English rusticating +world, according to the selection of their quarters in either of the +above three little settlements. The "gay" world preferred the "Ponte," +where the gaming-tables and ballrooms were. The more strictly "proper" +people went to live at the "Villa," where the English Church service +was performed. The invalid portion of the society, or those who wished +quiet, and especially economy, sought the "Bagni Caldi." + +In a general way we all desired economy, and found it. The price at +the many hotels was nine pauls a day for board and lodging, including +Tuscan wine, and was as much a fixed and invariable matter as a penny +for a penny bun. Those who wanted other wine generally brought it with +them, by virtue of a ducal ordinance which specially exempted from +duty all wine brought by English visitors to the Baths. + +I dare say, if I were to pass a summer there now, I should find the +atmosphere damp, or the wine sour, or the bread heavy, or the society +heavier, or indulge in some such unreasonable and unseasonable +grumbles as the near neighbourhood of four-score years is apt to +inspire one with; but I used to find it amazingly pleasant once upon +a time. It is a singular fact, which the remembrance of those days +suggests to me, and which I recommend to the attention of Mr. Galton +and his co-investigators, that the girls were prettier then than they +are in these days, or that there were more of them! The stupid +people, who are always discovering subjective reasons for objective +observations, are as impertinent as stupid! + +The Duke of Lucca used to do his utmost to make the baths attractive +and agreeable. There is no Duke of Lucca now, as all the world knows. +The Congress of Vienna put an end to him by ordaining that, when the +ducal throne of Parma should become vacant, the reigning Duke of Lucca +should succeed to it, while his duchy of Lucca should be united to +Florence. This change took place while I was still a Florentine. +The Duke of Lucca would none of the new dukedom proposed to him. He +abdicated, and his son became Duke of Parma. This son was, in truth, a +great ne'er-do-well, and very shortly got murdered in the streets of +his new capital by an offended husband. + +The change was most unwelcome to Lucca, and especially to the baths, +which had thriven and prospered under the fostering care of the old +Duke. He used to pass every summer there, and give constant very +pleasant, but very little royal, balls at his villa. The Tuscan +satirist Giusti, in the celebrated little poem in which he +characterises the different reigning sovereigns in the peninsula, +calls him the Protestant Don Giovanni, and says that in the roll of +tyrants he is neither fish nor flesh. + +Of the first two epithets I take it he deserved the second more than +the first. His Protestantising tendencies might, I think, have been +more accurately described as non-Catholicising. But people are +very apt to judge in this matter after the fashion of the would-be +dramatist, who, on being assured that he had no genius for tragedy, +concluded that he must therefore have one for comedy. The Duke's +Protestantism, I suspect, limited itself to, and showed itself in, his +dislike and resistance to being bothered by the rulers of neighbouring +states into bothering anybody else about their religious opinions. As +for his place in the "roll of tyrants," he was always accused of (or +praised for) liberalising ideas and tendencies, which would in those +days have very soon put an end to him and his tiny duchy, if he had +attempted to govern it in accordance with them. As matters were, his +"policy," I take it, was pretty well confined to the endeavour to make +his sovereignty as little troublesome to himself or anybody else as +possible. His subjects were _very_ lightly taxed, for his private +property rendered him perfectly independent of them as regarded his +own personal expenditure. + +The "gayer" part of our little world at the baths used, as I have +said, more especially to congregate at the "Ponte," and the more +"proper" portion at the "Villa," for, as I have also said, the English +Church service was performed there, in a hired room, as I remember, +when I first went there. But a church was already in process of being +built, mainly by the exertions of a lady, who assuredly cannot be +forgotten by any one who ever knew the Baths in those days, or for +many years afterwards--Mrs. Stisted. Unlike the rest of the world she +lived neither at the "Ponte," nor at the "Villa," nor at the "Bagni +Caldi," but at "The Cottage," a little habitation on the bank of the +stream about half-way between the "Ponte" and the "Villa." Also unlike +all the rest of the world she lived there permanently, for the place +was her own, or rather the property of her husband, Colonel Stisted. +He was a long, lean, grey, faded, exceedingly mild, and perfectly +gentlemanlike old man; but she was one of the queerest people my +roving life has ever made me acquainted with. + +She was the Queen of the Baths. On one occasion at the ducal villa, +his Highness, who spoke English perfectly, said as she entered the +room, "Here comes the Queen of the Baths!" "He calls me his Queen," +said she, turning to the surrounding circle with a magnificent wave of +the hand and delightedly complacent smile. It was not exactly _that_ +that the Duke had said, but he was immensely amused, as were we all, +for some days afterwards. + +She was a stout old lady, with large rubicund face and big blue eyes, +surrounded by very abundant grey curls. She used to play, or profess +to play, the harp, and adopted, as she explained, a costume for the +purpose. This consisted of a loose, flowing garment, much like a +muslin surplice, which fell back and allowed the arm to be seen when +raised for performance on her favourite instrument. The arm probably +was, or had once been, a handsome one. The large grey head, and +the large blue eyes, and the drooping curls, were also raised +simultaneously, and the player looked singularly like the picture of +King David similarly employed, which I have seen as a frontispiece in +an old-fashioned prayer-book. But the specialty of the performance was +that, as all present always said, no sound whatever was heard to issue +from the instrument! "Attitude is everything," as we have heard in +connection with other matters; but with dear old Mrs. Stisted at her +harp it was absolutely and literally so to the exclusion of all else! + +She and the good old colonel--he _was_ a truly good and benevolent +man, and, indeed, I believe she was a good and charitable woman, +despite her manifold absurdities and eccentricities--used to drive out +in the evening among her subjects--_her_ subjects, for neither I +nor anybody else ever heard him called King of the Baths!--in an +old-fashioned, very shabby and very high-hung phaeton, sometimes with +her niece Charlotte--an excellent creature and universal favourite--by +her side, and the colonel on the seat behind, ready to offer the +hospitality of the place by his side to any mortal so favoured by the +queen as to have received such an invitation. + +The poor dear old colonel used to play the violoncello, and did at +least draw some more or less exquisite sounds from it. But one winter +they paid a visit to Rome, and the old man died there. She wished, in +accordance doubtless with his desire, to bring back his body to be +buried in the place they had inhabited for so many years, and with +which their names were so indissolubly entwined in the memory of all +who knew them--which means all the generations of nomad frequenters of +the Baths for many, many years. The Protestant burial-ground also was +recognised as _quasi_ hers, for it is attached to the church which she +was mainly instrumental in building. The colonel's body therefore was +to be brought back from Rome to be buried at Lucca Baths. + +But such an enterprise was not the simplest or easiest thing in the +world. There were official difficulties in the way, ecclesiastical +difficulties and custom-house difficulties of all sorts. Where there +is a will, however, there is a way. But the way which the determined +will of the Queen of the Baths discovered for itself upon this +occasion was one which would probably have occurred to few people in +the world save herself. She hired a _vetturino_, and told him that he +was to convey a servant of hers to the baths of Lucca, who would be +in charge of goods which would occupy the entire interior of the +carriage. She then obtained, what was often accorded without much +difficulty in those days, from both the Pontifical and the Tuscan +Governments, a _lascia passare_ for the contents of the carriage as +_bona fide roba usata_--"used up, or second-hand goods." And under +this denomination the poor old colonel, packed in the carriage +together with his beloved violoncello, passed the gates of Rome and +the Tuscan frontier, and arrived safely at the place of his latest +destination. The servant who was employed to conduct this singular +operation did not above half like the job entrusted to him, and used +to tell afterwards how he was frightened out of his wits, and the +driver exceedingly astonished, by a sudden _pom-m-m_ from the interior +of the carriage, caused by the breaking, in consequence of some +atmospheric change, of one of the strings of the violoncello. + +Malicious people used to say that the Queen of the Baths was innocent +of all deception as regarded the custom-house officials; for that +if any article was ever honestly described as _roba usata_, the old +colonel might be so designated. + +The queen herself shortly followed (by another conveyance), and was +present at the interment, on which occasion she much impressed the +population by causing a superb crimson chair to be placed at the head +of the grave, in order that she might be present without standing +during the service. The chair was well known, because the queen, both +at the Baths and at Florence, was in the habit of sending it about +to the houses at which she visited, since she preferred doing so to +incurring the risk of the less satisfactory accommodation her friends +might offer her! + +If space and the reader's patience would allow of it, I might gossip +on of many more reminiscences of the baths of Lucca, all pleasant or +laughable. But I must conclude by the story of a tragedy, which I will +tell, because it is, in many respects, curiously characteristic of the +time and place. + +The Duke, who, as I have said, spoke English perfectly well, was +fond of surrounding himself with foreign, and specially English, +dependents. He had at the time of which I am speaking, two English--or +rather, one English and one Irish--chamberlains, and a third, who, +though a German, was, from having married an Englishwoman, and +habitually speaking English, and living with Englishmen, much the +same, at least to the Duke, as an Englishman. The Englishman was a +young man; the German an older man, and the father of a family. And +both were good, upright, and honourable men; both long since gone over +to the majority. + +The Irishman, also a young man, was a bad fellow; but he was an +especial favourite with the Duke, who was strongly attached to him. It +is not necessary to print his name. He has gone to his account. But it +might nevertheless happen that the printing of my story with his name +in these pages might still give pain to somebody. + +There was also that year an extremely handsome and attractive lady, a +widow, at the Baths. I will not give her name either. For though there +was no sort of blame or discredit of any kind attached or attachable +to her from any part of my story, as she is, I believe, still living, +and as the memory of that time cannot but be a painful one to her, it +is as well to suppress it. The lady, as I have said, was handsome and +young, and of course all the young fellows who got a chance flirted +with her--_en tout bien tout honneur_. But the Irish chamberlain +attached himself to her, not with any but perfectly avowable +intentions, but more seriously than the other youngsters, and with an +altogether serious eye to her very comfortable dower. + +Now during that same summer there was at the Baths Mr. Plowden, the +banker from Rome. He was then a young man; he has recently died an +old one in the Eternal City. His name I mention in telling my story +because much blame was cast upon him at the time by people in Rome, in +Florence, and at the Baths, who did not know the facts as entirely and +accurately as I knew them; and I am able here to declare publicly what +I have often declared privately, that he behaved well and blamelessly +in the whole matter. + +And probably, though I have no distinct recollection that it was so, +Plowden may have also been smitten by the lady. Now, whether the +Irishman imagined that the young banker was his most formidable rival, +or whether there may have been some previous cause of ill-will between +the two men, I cannot say, but so it was that the chamberlain sent +a challenge to the banker. The latter declined to accept it on the +ground that he _was_ a banker and not a fighting man, and that his +business position would have been materially injured by his fighting a +duel. The Irishman might have made the most of this triumph, such as +it was. But he was not content with doing so, and lost none of the +opportunities, which the social habits of such a place daily afforded +him, for insulting and outraging his enemy. And he was continually +boasting to his friends that before the end of the season he would +compel him to come out and be shot at. + +And before the end of the season came, his persistent efforts were +crowned with success. Plowden finding his life altogether intolerable +under the harrow of the bully's insolence, at length one day +challenged _him_. Then arose the question of the locality where the +duel was to take place. The laws of the duchy were very strict against +duelling, and the Duke himself was personally strongly opposed to it. +In the case of his own favourite chamberlain, too, his displeasure +was likely to be extreme. But in the neighbourhood of the Baths the +frontier line which divides the Duchy of Modena from that of Lucca is +a very irregular and intricate one. A little below the "Ponte" at the +Baths, the Lima falls into the Serchio, and the upper valley of the +latter river is of a very romantic and beautiful character. Now we +all knew that hereabouts there were portions of Modenese territory +interpenetrating that of the Duchy of Lucca, but none of us knew the +exact line of the boundary. And the favourite chamberlain, with true +Irish impudence, undertook to obtain exact information from the Duke +himself. + +There was a ball that night, at which the whole of the society were +present, and, strange as It may seem, I do not think there was a man +there who did not know that the duel was to be fought on the morrow, +except the Duke himself. Many of the women even knew it perfectly +well. The chamberlain getting the Duke into conversation on the +subject of the frontier, learned from him that a certain highly +romantic gorge, opening out from the valley of the Serchio, and called +Turrite Cava, which he pretended to take an interest in as a place +fitted for a picnic, was within the Modenese frontier. + +All was arranged, therefore, for the meeting with pistols on the +following morning; and the combatants proceeded to the spot fixed on, +some five or six miles, I think, from the Baths. Plowden, who, as a +sedate business man was less intimate with the generality of the young +men at the Baths, was accompanied only by his second; his adversary +was attended by a whole cohort of acquaintances--really far more after +the fashion of a party going to a picnic, or some other party of +pleasure, than in the usual guise of men bent on such an errand. + +Plowden had never fired a pistol in his life, and knew about as much +of the management of one as an archbishop. The other was an old +duellist, and a practised performer with the weapon. All this was +perfectly well known, and the young men around the Irishman were +earnest with him during their drive to the ground not to take his +adversary's life, beseeching him to remember how heavy a load on his +mind would such a deed be during the whole future of his own. Not a +soul of the whole society of the Baths, who by this time knew what +was going on to a man, and almost to a woman (my mother, it may be +observed, had not been at the ball, and knew nothing about it), +doubted that Plowden was going out to be shot as certainly as a +bullock goes into the slaughter house to be killed. + +The Irishman, in reply to all the exhortations of his companions, +jauntily told them not to distress themselves; he had no intention of +killing the fellow, but would content himself with "winging" him. He +would have his right arm off as surely as he now had it on! + +In the midst of all this the men were put up. At the first shot the +Irishman's well-directed bullet whistled close to Plowden's head, but +the random shot of the latter struck his adversary full in the groin! + +He was hastily carried to a little _osteria_, which stood (and still +stands) by the side of the road which runs up the valley of the +Serchio, at no great distance from the mouth of the Turrite Cava +gorge. There was a young medical man among those gathered there, who +shook his head over the victim, but did not, I thought, seem very well +up to dealing with the case. + +One of my mother's earliest and most intimate friends at Florence +was a Lady Sevestre, who was then at the Baths with her husband, Sir +Thomas Sevestre, an old Indian army surgeon. He was a very old man, +and was not much known to the younger society of the place. But it +struck me that _he_ was the man for the occasion. So I rushed off to +the Baths in one of the _bagherini_ (as the little light gigs of the +country are called) which had conveyed the parties to the ground, and +knocked up Sir Thomas. Of course all the story came new to him, and +he was very much inclined to wash his hands of it. But on my +representations that a life was at stake, his old professional habits +prevailed, and he agreed to go back with me to Turrite Cava. + +But no persuasions could induce him to trust himself to a _bagherino_. +And truly it would have shaken the old man well-nigh to pieces. There +was no other carriage to be had in a hurry. And at last he allowed me +to get an arm-chair rigged with a couple of poles for bearers, and +placed himself in it--not before he had taken the precaution of +slinging a bottle of pale ale to either pole of his equipage. He wore +a very wide-brimmed straw hat, a suit of professional black, and +carried a large white sunshade. And thus accoutred, and accompanied +by four stalwart bearers, he started, while I ran by the side of the +chair, as queer-looking a party as can well be imagined. I can see it +all now; and should have been highly amused at the time had I not very +strongly suspected that I was taking him to the bedside of a dying +man. + +And when he reached his patient, a very few minutes sufficed for the +old surgeon to pronounce the case an absolutely hopeless one. After a +few hours of agony, the bully, who had insisted on bringing this fate +on himself, died that same afternoon. + +Then came the question who was to tell the Duke. Who it was that +undertook that disagreeable but necessary task, I forget. But the +Duke came out to the little _osteria_ immediately on hearing of the +catastrophe; also the English clergyman officiating at the Baths came +out. And the scene in that large, nearly bare, upper chamber of the +little inn was a strange one. The clergyman began praying by the dying +man's bedside, while the numerous assemblage in the room all kneeled, +and the Duke kneeled with them, interrupting the prayers with his sobs +after the uncontrolled fashion of the Italians. + +He was very, very angry. But in unblushing defiance of all equity and +reason, his anger turned wholly against Plowden, who, of course, had +placed himself out of the small potentate's reach within a very +few minutes after the catastrophe. But the Duke strove by personal +application to induce the Grand Duke of Tuscany to banish Plowden +from his dominions, which, to the young banker, one branch of whose +business was at Florence and one at Rome, would have been a very +serious matter. But this, poor old _ciuco_, more just and reasonable +in this case than his brother potentate, the Protestant Don Giovanni +of Lucca, refused to do. + +So our pleasant time at the Baths, for that season at least, ended +tragically enough; and whenever I have since visited that singularly +romantic glen of Turrite Cava, its deep rock-sheltered shadows have +been peopled for me by the actors in that day's bloody work. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +It was, to the best of my recollection, much about the same time as +that visit of Charles Dickens which I have chronicled in the last +chapter but one, which turned out to be eventually so fateful a one to +me, as the correspondence there given shows, that my mother received +another visit, which was destined to play an equally influential +part in the directing and fashioning of my life. Equally influential +perhaps I ought not to say, inasmuch as one-and-twenty years (with the +prospect I hope of more) are more important than seventeen. But both +the visits I am speaking of, as having occurred within a few days of +each other, were big with fate, to me, in the same department of human +affairs. + +The visit of Dickens was destined eventually to bring me my second +wife, as the reader has seen. The visit of Mr. and Mrs. Garrow to the +Via dei Malcontenti, much about the same time, brought me my first. + +The Arno and the Tiber both take their rise in the flanks of +Falterona. It was on the banks of the first that my first married +life was passed; on those of the more southern river that the largest +portion of my second wedded happiness was enjoyed. + +Why Mr. and Mrs. Garrow called on my mother I do not remember. +Somebody had given them letters of introduction to us, but I forget +who it was. Mr. Garrow was the son of an Indian officer by a high +caste Brahmin woman, to whom he was married. I believe that unions +between Englishmen and native women are common enough. But a marriage, +such as that of my wife's grandfather I am assured was, is rare, +and rarer still a marriage with a woman of high caste. Her name was +Sultana. I have never heard of any other name. Joseph Garrow, my +father-in-law, was sent to England at an early age, and never again +saw either of his parents, who both died young. His grandfather was an +old Scotch schoolmaster at Hadley, near Barnet, and his great-uncle +was the well known Judge Garrow. My father-in-law carried about with +him very unmistakable evidence of his eastern origin in his yellow +skin, and the tinge of the white of his eyes, which was almost that of +an Indian. He had been educated for the bar, but had never practised, +or attempted to do so, having while still a young man married a wife +with considerable means. He was a decidedly clever man, especially in +an artistic direction, having been a very good musician and performer +on the violin, and a draughtsman and caricaturist of considerable +talent. The lady he married had been a Miss Abrams, but was at the +time he married her the widow of (I believe) a naval officer named +Fisher. She had by her first husband one son and one daughter. There +had been three Misses Abrams, Jewesses by race undoubtedly, but +Christians by baptism, whose parent or parents had come to this +country in the suite of some Hanoverian minister, in what capacity I +never heard. They were all three exceptionally accomplished musicians, +and seem to have been well known in the higher social circles of the +musical world. One of the sisters was the authoress of many once well +known songs, especially of one song called "Crazy Jane," which had a +considerable vogue in its day. I remember hearing old John Cramer +say that my mother-in-law could, while hearing a numerous orchestra, +single out any instrument which had played a false note--and this he +seemed to think a very remarkable and exceptional feat. She was past +fifty when Mr. Garrow married her, but she bore him one daughter, and +when they came to Florence both girls, Theodosia, Garrow's daughter, +and Harriet Fisher, her elder half-sister, were with them, and at +their second morning call both came with them. + +The closest union and affection subsisted between the two girls, and +ever continued till the untimely death of Harriet. But never were two +sisters, or half-sisters, or indeed any two girls at all, more unlike +each other. + +Harriet was neither specially clever nor specially pretty, but she +was, I think, perhaps the most absolutely unselfish human being I ever +knew, and one of the most loving hearts. And her position was one, +that, except in a nature framed of the kindliest clay, and moulded by +the rarest perfection of all the gentlest and self-denying virtues, +must have soured, or at all events crushed and quenched, the +individual placed in such circumstances. She was simply nobody in the +family save the ministering angel in the house to all of them. I +do not mean that any of the vulgar preferences existed which are +sometimes supposed to turn some less favoured member of a household +into a Cinderella. There was not the slightest shadow of anything of +the sort. But no visitors came to the house or sought the acquaintance +of the family for _her_ sake. She had the dear, and, to her, priceless +love of her sister. But no admiration, no pride of father or mother +fell to _her_ share. _Her_ life was not made brilliant by the notice +and friendship of distinguished men. Everything was for the younger +sister. And through long years of this eclipse, and to the last, she +fairly worshipped the sister who eclipsed her. Garrow, to do him +justice, was equally affectionate in his manner to both girls, and +entirely impartial in every respect that concerned the material +well-being of them. But Theodosia was always placed on a pedestal on +which there was no room at all for Harriet. Nor could the closest +intimacy with the family discover any faintest desire on her part to +share the pedestal She was content and entirely happy in enjoying the +reflected brightness of the more gifted sister. + +Nor would perhaps a shrewd judge, whose estimate of men and women had +been formed by observation of average humanity, have thought that the +position which I have described as that of the younger of these two +sisters, was altogether a morally wholesome one for her. But the +shrewd judge would have been wrong. There never was a humbler, as +there never was a more loving soul, than that of the Theodosia Garrow +who became, for my perfect happiness, Theodosia Trollope. And it was +these two qualities of humbleness and lovingness that, acting like +invincible antiseptics on the moral nature, saved her from all +"spoiling,"--from any tendency of any amount of flattery and +admiration to engender selfishness or self-sufficiency. Nothing more +beautiful in the way of family affection could be seen than the tie +which united in the closest bonds of sisterly affection those two so +differently constituted sisters. Very many saw and knew what Theodosia +was as my wife. Very few indeed ever knew what she was in her own home +as a sister. + +When I married Theodosia Garrow she possessed just one thousand pounds +in her own right, and little or no prospect of ever possessing any +more; while I on my side possessed nothing at all, save the prospect +of a strictly bread and cheese competency at the death of my mother, +and "the farm which I carried under my hat," as somebody calls it. The +marriage was not made with the full approbation of my father-in-law; +but entirely in accordance with the wishes of my mother, who simply, +dear soul, saw in it, what she said, that "Theo" was of all the girls +she knew, the one she should best like as a daughter-in-law. And here +again the wise folks of the world (and I among them!) would hardly +have said that the step I then took was calculated, according to all +the recognised chances and probabilities of human affairs, to lead to +a life of contentment and happiness. I suppose it ought not to have +done so! But it did! It would be monstrously inadequate to say that I +never repented it. What should I not have lost had I not done it! + +As usual my cards turned up trumps! but they began to do so in a way +that caused me much, and my wife more, grief at the time. Within two +years after my marriage, poor, dear, good, loving Harriet caught +small-pox and died! She was much more largely endowed than her +half-sister, to whom she bequeathed all she had. + +She had a brother, as I have said above. But he had altogether +alienated himself from his family by becoming a Roman Catholic priest +There was no open quarrel. I met him frequently in after years at +Garrow's table at Torquay, and remember his bitter complaints that he +was tempted by the appearance of things at table which he ought not to +eat. It would have been of no use to give or bequeath money to +him, for it would have gone immediately to Romanist ecclesiastical +purposes. He had nearly stripped himself of his own considerable +means, reserving to himself only the bare competence on which a +Catholic priest might live. He was altogether a very queer fish! +I remember his coming to me once in tearful but very angry mood, +because, as he said, I had guilefully spread snares for his soul! I +had not the smallest comprehension of his meaning till I discovered +that his woe and wrath were occasioned by my having sent him as a +present Berington's _Middle Ages_. I had fancied that his course of +studies and line of thought would have made the book interesting to +him, utterly ignorant or oblivious of the fact that it laboured under +the disqualification of appearing in the _Index_. + +I take it I knew little about the _Index_ in those days. In after +years, when three or four of my own books had been placed in its +columns, I was better informed. I remember a very elegant lady who +having overheard my present wife mention the fact that a recently +published book of mine had been placed in the _Index_, asked her, with +the intention of being extremely polite and complimentary, whether +_her_ (my wife's) books had been put in the _Index_. And when the +latter modestly replied that she had not written anything that could +merit such a distinction, her interlocutor, patting her on the +shoulder with a kindly and patronising air, said "Oh! my dear, I am +_sure_ they will be placed there. They certainly ought to be!" + +Mrs. Garrow, my wife's mother, was not, I think, an amiable woman. She +must have been between seventy and eighty when I first knew her; but +she was still vigorous, and had still a pair of what must once have +been magnificent, and were still brilliant and fierce black eyes. She +was in no wise a clever woman, nor was our dear Harriet a clever girl. +Garrow on the other hand and _his_ daughter were both very markedly +clever, and this produced a closeness of companionship and alliance +between the father and daughter which painfully excited the jealousy +of the wife and mother. But it was totally impossible for her to cabal +with her daughter against the object of her jealousy. Harriet always +seeking to be a peacemaker, was ever, if peace could not be made, +stanchly on Theo's side. I am afraid that Mrs. Garrow did not love her +second daughter at all; and I am inclined to suspect that my marriage +was in some degree facilitated by her desire to get Theo out of the +house. She was a very fierce old lady, and did not, I fear, contribute +to the happiness of any member of her family. + +How well I remember the appearance of Mr. and Mrs. Garrow, and those +two girls in my mother's drawing-room in the Via dei Malcontenti. The +two girls, I remember, were dressed exactly alike and very _dowdily_. +They had just arrived in Florence from Tours, I think, where they +had passed a year, or perhaps two, since quitting "The Braddons" at +Torquay; and everything about them from top to toe was provincial, not +to say shabby. It was a Friday, my mother's reception day, and the +room soon filled with gaily dressed and smart people, with more than +one pretty girl among them. But I had already got into conversation +with Theodosia Garrow, and, to the gross neglect of my duties as +master of the house, and to the scandal of more than one fair lady, so +I remained, till a summons more than twice repeated by her father took +her away. + +It was not that I had fallen in love at first sight, as the phrase is, +by any means. But I at once felt that I had got hold of something of a +quite other calibre of intelligence from anything I had been recently +accustomed to meet with in those around me, and with a moral nature +that was sympathetic to my own. And I found it very delightful. It is +no doubt true that, had her personal appearance been other than +it was, I should not probably have found her conversation equally +delightful. But I am sure that it is equally true that had she been in +face, figure, and person all she was, and at the same time stupid, or +even not sympathetic, I should not have been equally attracted to her. + +She was by no means what would have been recognised by most men as a +beautiful girl. The specialties of her appearance, in the first place, +were in a great measure due to the singular mixture of races from +which she had sprung. One half of her blood was Jewish, one quarter +Scotch, and one quarter pure Brahmin. Her face was a long oval, too +long and too lanky towards the lower part of it for beauty. Her +complexion was somewhat dark, and not good. The mouth was mobile, +expressive, perhaps more habitually framed for pathos and the gentler +feelings, than for laughter. The jaw was narrow, the teeth good and +white, but not very regular. She had a magnificent wealth of very dark +brown hair, not without a gleam here and there of what descriptive +writers, of course, would call gold, but which really was more +accurately copper colour. And this grand and luxuriant wealth of hair +grew from the roots on the head to the extremity of it, at her waist, +when it was let down, in the most beautiful ripples. But the great +feature and glory of the face were the eyes, among the largest I +ever saw, of a deep clear grey, rather deeply set, and changing in +expression with every impression that passed over her mind. The +forehead was wide, and largely developed both in those parts of it +which are deemed to indicate imaginative and idealistic power, and +those that denote strongly marked perceptive and artistic faculties. +The latter perhaps were the more prominently marked. The Indian strain +showed itself in the perfect gracefulness of a very slender and +elastic figure, and in the exquisite elegance and beauty of the +modelling of the extremities. + +That is not the description of a beautiful girl. But it is the fact +that the face and figure very accurately so described were eminently +attractive to me physically, as well as the mind and intelligence, +which informed them, were spiritually. They were much more attractive +to me than those of many a splendidly beautiful girl, the immense +superiority of whose beauty nobody knew better than I. Why should this +have been so? That is one of the mysteries to the solution of which no +moral or physical or psychical research has ever brought us an iota +nearer. + +I am giving here an account of the first impression my future wife +made on me. I had no thought of wooing and winning her, for, as I have +said, I was not in a position to marry. Meanwhile she was becoming +acclimatised to Florentine society. She no longer looked _dowdy_ when +entering a room, but very much the reverse; and the little Florentine +world began to recognise that they had got something very much like +a new Corinne among them. But of course I rarely got a chance of +monopolising her as I had done during that first afternoon. We were +however constantly meeting, and were becoming ever more and more close +friends. When the Garrows left Florence for the summer, I visited them +at Lucerne, and subsequently met them at Venice. It was the year of +the meeting of the Scientific Congress in that city. + +That was a pleasant autumn in Venice! By that time I had become +pretty well over head and ears in love with the girl by whose side +I generally contrived to sit in the gondolas, in the Piazza in the +evening, etcaetera. It was lovely September weather--just the time for +Venice. The summer days were drawing in, but there was the moon, quite +light enough on the lagoons; and we were a great deal happier than the +day was long. + +Those Scientific Congresses, of which that at Venice was the seventh +and the last, played a curious part, which has not been much observed +or noted by historians, in the story of the winning of Italian +independence. I believe that the first congress, at Pisa, I think, was +really got up by men of science, with a view to furthering their own +objects and pursuits. It was followed by others in successive autumns +at Lucca, Milan, Genoa, Naples, Florence, and this seventh and last +at Venice. But Italy was in those days thinking of other matters than +science. The whole air was full of ideas, very discordant all of them, +and vague most of them, of political change. The governments of the +peninsula thought twice, and more than twice, before they would grant +permission for the first of these meetings. Meetings of any kind were +objects of fear and mistrust to the rulers. Those of Tuscany, who were +by comparison liberal, and, as known to be such, were more or +less objects of suspicion to the Austrian, Roman, and Neapolitan +Governments, led the way in giving the permission asked for; and +perhaps thought that an assembly of geologists, entomologists, +astronomers, and mathematicians might act as a safety valve, and +divert men's minds from more dangerous subjects. But the current of +the times was running too strongly to be so diverted, and proved too +much for the authorities and for the real men of science, who were, at +least some of them, anxious to make the congresses really what they +professed to be. + +Gradually these meetings became more and more mere social gatherings +in outward appearance, and revolutionary propagandist assemblies in +reality. As regards the former aspect of them, the different cities +strove to outdo each other in the magnificence and generosity of their +reception of their "scientific" guests. Masses of publications were +prepared, especially topographical and historical accounts of the city +which played Amphytrion for the occasion, and presented gratuitously +to the members of the association. Merely little guide-books, of which +a few hundred copies were needed in the case of the earlier meetings, +they became in the case of the latter ones at Naples, Genoa, Milan, +and Venice, large and magnificently printed tomes, prepared by the +most competent authorities and produced at a very great expense. + +Venice especially outdid all her rivals, and printed an account of the +Queen of the Adriatic, embracing history, topography, science in +all its branches, and artistic story, in four huge and magnificent +volumes, which remains to the present day by far the best +topographical monograph that any city of the peninsula possesses. This +truly splendid work, which brought out in the ordinary way could not +have been sold for less than six or eight guineas, was presented, +together with much other printed matter--an enormous lithographed +panorama of Venice and her lagoons some five feet long in a handsome +roll cover, I remember among them--to every "member" on his enrolment +as such. + +Then there were concerts, and excursions, and great daily dinners +the gayest and most enjoyable imaginable, at which both sexes were +considered to be equally scientific and equally welcome. The dinners +were not absolutely gratuitous, but the tickets for them were issued +at a price very much inferior to the real cost of the entertainment. +And all this it must be understood was done not by any subscription of +members scientific or otherwise, but by the city and its municipality; +the motive for such expenditure being the highly characteristic +Italian one, of rivalling and outdoing in magnificence other +cities and municipalities, or in the historical language of Italy, +"communes." + +Old Rome, with her dependent cities, made no sign during all these +autumns of ever increasing festivity. Pity that they should have come +to an end before she did so; for at the rate at which things were +going, we should all at least have been crowned on the Capitol, if not +made Roman senators, _pour l'amour du Grec_, as the _savant_ says in +the _Precieuses Ridicules_, if we had gone to the Eternal City! + +But the fact was, that the _soi-disant_ 'ologists kicked up their +heels a little too audaciously at Venice under Austria's nose; and the +Government thought it high time to put an end to "science." + +For instance, Prince Canino made his appearance in the uniform of the +Roman National Guard! This was a little too much; and the Prince, all +prince and Buonaparte as he was, was marched off to the frontier. +Canino had every right to be there as a man of science; for his +acquirements in many branches of science were large and real; and +specially as an entomologist he was known to be probably the first +in Italy. But he was the man, who, when selling his principality of +Canino, insisted on the insertion in the legal instrument of a claim +to an additional five pauls (value about two shillings), for the title +of prince which was attached to the possessor of the estates he was +selling. He was an out-and-out avowed Republican, and was the blackest +of black sheep to all the constituted governments of the peninsula. +He looked as little as he felt and thought like a prince. He was a +paunchy, oily-looking black haired man, whose somewhat heavy face +was illumined by a brilliant black eye full of humour and a mouth +expressive of good nature and _bonhomie_. His appearance in the +proscribed uniform might have been considered by Austria, if her +police authorities could have appreciated the fun of the thing, as +wholesomely calculated to throw ridicule on the hated institution. He +was utterly unassuming, and good-natured in his manner, and when seen +in his ordinary black habiliments looked more like a well-to-do Jewish +trader than anything else. + +As for the social aspects of these Scientific Congresses, they were +becoming every year more festive, and, at all events to the ignoramus +outsiders who joined them, more pleasant. My good cousin and old +friend, then Colonel, now General, Sir Charles Trollope, was at Venice +that autumn. I said on meeting him, "Now the first thing is to, make +you a member." "Me! a member of a Scientific Congress!" said he. "God +bless you! I am as ignorant as a babe of all possible 'epteras and +'opteras, and 'statics and 'matics!" "Oh! nonsense! we are all men +of science here! Come along!"--_i.e._, to the ducal palace to be +inscribed. "But what do you mean to tell them I am?" he asked. "Well! +let's see! You must have superintended a course of instruction in the +goose-step in your day?" "Rather so!" said he. "Very well, then. You +are Instructor in Military Exercises in her B.M. Forces! You are all +right! Come along!" And if I had said that he was Trumpeter Major of +the 600th Regiment in the British Army, it would doubtless have been +equally all right. So said, so done! And I see his bewildered look +now, as the four huge volumes, about a load for a porter, to which he +had become entitled, together with medals and documents of many kinds, +were put into his arms. + +Ah! those were pleasant days! And while Italy, under the wing of +science, was plotting her independence, I was busy in forging the +chains of that dependence which was to be a more unmixed source of +happiness to me, than the independence which Italy was compassing has +yet proved to her. + +Those chains, however, as regarded at all events the outward and +visible signs of them, had not got forged yet. I certainly had no +"proposed" to Theodosia. In fact, to the very best of my recollection +I never did "propose" to her--or "pop," as the hideous phrase is--any +decisive question at all. We seem, to my recollection, to have come +gradually, insensibly, and mutually to consider it a matter of course +that what we wanted was to be married, and that the only matter +which needed any words or consideration was the question, how the +difficulties in the way of our wishes were to be overcome. + +In the autumn of 1847 my mother and I went to pass the winter in Rome. +My sister Cecilia's health had been failing; and it began to be feared +that there was reason to suspect the approach of the malady which had +already destroyed my brother Henry and my younger sister Emily. It +was decided therefore that she should pass the winter in Rome. Her +husband's avocations made it impossible for him to accompany her +thither, and my mother therefore took an apartment there to receive +her. It was in a small _palazzo_ in that part of the Via delle Quattro +Fontane, which is now situated between the Via Nazionale and the +Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, to the left of one going towards the +latter. There was no Via Nazionale then, and the buildings which now +make the Via delle Quattro Fontane a continuous line of street existed +only in the case of a few isolated houses and convents. It was a very +comfortable apartment, roomy, sunny, and quiet. The house exists +still, though somewhat modernised in outward appearance, and is, I +think, the second, after one going towards Santa Maria Maggiore has +crossed the new Via Nazionale. + +But the grand question was, whether it could be brought about that +Theodosia Garrow should be permitted to be my mother's guest during +that winter. A hint on the matter was quite sufficient for my dear +mother, although I do not think that she had yet any idea that I +was minded to give her a daughter-in-law. Theodosia's parents had +certainly no faintest idea that anything more than ordinary friendship +existed between me and their daughter, or, if they had had such, +she would certainly have never been allowed to accept my mother's +invitation. As for Theodosia herself and her willingness to come, it +seems to me, as I look back, that nothing was said between us at all, +any more than anything was said about making her my wife. I think it +was all taken for granted, _sans mot dire_, by both of us. But there +was one person who knew all about it; knew what was in both our +hearts, and was eagerly anxious that the desire of them should be +fulfilled. This was the good fairy Harriet Fisher. Without the +strenuous exertion of her influence on her mother and Mr. Garrow, the +object would hardly have been accomplished. Of course the plea put +forward was the great desirability of taking advantage of such an +opportunity of seeing Rome. + +My sister, whose health, alas! profited nothing by that visit to Rome, +and could have been profited by no visit to any place on earth, became +strongly attached to Theodosia; and the affection which grew up +between them was the more to the honour of both of them, in that they +were far as the poles asunder in opinions and habits of thought. My +sister was what in those days was called a "Puseyite." Her opinions +were formed on the highest High Church model, and her Church opinions +made the greatest part, and indeed nearly the whole of her life. +Theodosia had no Church opinions at all, High or Low! All her mind and +interests were, at all events at that time, turned towards poetry +and art. Subsequently she interested herself keenly in political and +social questions, but had hardly at that time begun to do so. But she +made a conquest of my sister. + +Indeed it would have been very difficult for any one to live in +the same house with her without loving her. She was so bright, her +sympathies so ready, her intelligence so large and varied, that day +after day her presence and her conversation were a continual delight; +and she was withal diffident of herself, gentle and unassuming to a +fault. My mother had already learned to love her truly as a daughter, +before there was any apparent probability of her becoming one. + +We did not succeed in bearing down all the opposition that in the name +of ordinary prudence was made to our marriage, till the spring of +forty-eight. We were finally married on the 3rd of April in that +year, in the British Minister's chapel in Florence, in the quiet, +comfortable way in which we used to do such things in those days. + +I told my good friend Mr. Plunkett (he had then become the English +representative at the Court of Tuscany), that I wanted to be married +the next day. "All right!" said he; "will ten o'clock do?" "Could not +be better!" "Very good! Tell Robbins [the then English clergyman] I'll +be sure to be there." So at ten the next morning we looked in at the +Palazzo Ximenes, and in about ten minutes the business was done! + +Of Mr. Robbins, who was as kind and good a little man as could be, I +may note, since I have been led to speak of him, the following rather +singular circumstance. He was, as I have been told, the son of a +Devonshire farmer, and his two sisters were the wives of two of the +principal Florentine nobles, one having married the Marchese Inghirami +and the other the Marchese Bartolomei. What circumstances led to the +accomplishment of a destiny apparently so strange for the family of a +Devonshire farmer, I never heard. The clergyman and his sisters were +all much my seniors. + +After the expeditious ceremony we all--about half a score of us--went +off to breakfast at the house of Mr. Garrow in the Piazza di Santa +Maria Novella, and before noon my wife and I were off on a ramble +among the Tuscan cities. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +My very old friend, Colonel Grant--General Grant many years before +he died--used to say that if he wished without changing his place +himself, to see the greatest possible number of his friends and +acquaintances, he should stand perpetually at the foot of the column +in the Place Vendome. But it seems to me that at least as advantageous +a post of observation for the purpose would be the foot of Giotto's +tower in Florence! Who in these days lives and dies without going to +Florence; and who goes to Florence without going to gaze on the most +perfectly beautiful tower that human hands ever raised? + +Let me tell (quite parenthetically) a really good story of that +matchless building, which yet however will hardly be appreciated at +its full value by those who have never yet seen it. When the Austrian +troops were occupying Florence, one of the white-coated officers had +planted himself in the Piazza in front of the tower, and was gazing at +it earnestly, lost in admiration of its perfect beauty. "_Si svita, +signore_," said a little street urchin, coming up behind him--"It +_unscrews_, sir!" As much as to say, "Wouldn't you like just to take +it off bodily and carry it away?" But, as I said, to apprehend the +aptitude of the _gamin's_ sneer, one must have oneself looked on the +absolute perfection of proportion and harmony of its every part, which +really does suggest the idea that the whole might be lifted bodily in +one piece from its place on the soil Whether the Austrian had the +wit to answer "You are blundering, boy! you are taking me for a +Frenchman," I don't know! + +But I was saying, when the mention of the celebrated tower led me into +telling, before I forgot it, the above story, that Florence was of all +the cities of Europe, that in which one might be likely to see +the greatest number of old, and make the greatest number of new +acquaintances. I lived there for more than thirty years, and the +number of persons, chiefly English, American, and Italian, whom I knew +during that period is astonishing. The number of them was of course +all the greater from the fact that the society, at least so far as +English and Americans were concerned, was to a very great degree a +floating one. They come back to my memory, when I think of those +times, like a long procession of ghosts! Most of them, I suppose, +_are_ ghosts by this time. They pass away out of one's ken, and are +lost! + +Some, thank Heaven, are _not_ lost; and some though lost, will never +pass out of ken! If I were writing only for myself, I should like to +send my memory roving among all that crowd of phantoms, catch them one +after another as they dodge about half eluding one when just on +the point of recovering them, and, fixing them in memory's camera, +photograph them one after another. But I cannot hope that such a +gallery would be as interesting to the reader as it certainly would to +me. And I must content myself with recording my recollections of those +among them in whom the world may be supposed to take an interest. + +Theodosia Garrow, when living with her parents at "The Braddons," at +Torquay, had known Elizabeth Barrett. The latter was very much of an +invalid at the time; so much so, as I think I have gathered from my +wife's talk about those times, as to have prevented her from being a +visitor to "The Braddons." But Theodosia was, I take it, to be very +frequently found by the side of the sofa to which her friend was more +or less confined. I fancy that Mr. Kenyon, who was an old friend +and family connection of Elizabeth Barrett's family, and was also +intimately acquainted with the Garrows and with Theodosia, must have +been the first means of bringing the girls together. There were +assuredly _very_ few young women in England at that day to whom +Theodosia Garrow in social intercourse would have had to look _up_, +as to one on a higher intellectual level than her own. But Elizabeth +Barrett was one of them. I am not talking of _acquirements_. Nor was +my wife thinking of such when she used to speak of the poetess as she +had known her at that time. I am talking, as my wife used to talk, +of pure native intellectual power. And I consider it to have been no +small indication of the capacity of my wife's intelligence, that she +so clearly and appreciatingly recognised and measured the distance +between her friend's intellect and her own. But this appreciation on +the one side was in nowise incompatible with a large and generous +amount of admiration on the other. And many a talk in long subsequent +years left with me the impression of the high estimation which the +gifted poetess had formed of the value of her highly, but not so +exceptionally, gifted admirer. + +Of course this old friendship paved the way for a new one when the +Brownings came to live in Florence. I flatter myself that that would +in any case have found some _raison d'etre_. But the pleasure of the +two girls--girls no more in any sense--in meeting again quickened +the growth of an intimacy which might otherwise have been slower in +ripening. + +To say that amid all that frivolous, gay, giddy, and, it must be +owned, for the most part very unintellectual society (in the pleasures +and pursuits of which, to speak honestly, I took, well pleased, my +full share), my visits to Casa Guidi were valued by me as choice +morsels of my existence, is to say not half enough. I was conscious +even then of coming away from those visits a better man, with higher +views and aims. And pray, reader, understand that any such effect was +not produced by any talk or look or word of the nature of preaching, +or anything approaching to it, but simply by the perception and +appreciation of what Elizabeth Barrett Browning was; of the immaculate +purity of every thought that passed through her pellucid mind, and the +indefeasible nobility of her every idea, sentiment, and opinion. I +hope my reader is not so much the slave of conventional phraseology as +to imagine that I use the word "purity" in the above sentence in its +restricted and one may say technical, sense. I mean the purity of the +upper spiritual atmosphere in which she habitually dwelt; the absolute +disseverance of her moral as well as her intellectual nature from all +those lower thoughts as well as lower passions which smirch the human +soul. In mind and heart she was _white_--stainless. That is what I +mean by purity. + +Her most intimate friend at Florence was a Miss Isabella Blagden, who +lived for many years at Bellosguardo, in a villa commanding a lovely +view over Florence and the valley of the Arno from the southern side, +looking across it therefore to Fiesole and its villa-and-cypress-covered +slopes. Whether the close friendship between Mrs. Browning and Isa +Blagden (we all called her Isa always) was first formed in Florence, or +had its commencement at an earlier date, I do not know. But Isa was also +the intimate and very specially highly-valued friend of my wife and +myself. And this also contributed to our common friendship. Isa was +(yes, as usual, "was," alas, though she was very much my junior) a very +bright, very warm-hearted, very clever little woman, who knew everybody, +and was, I think, more universally beloved than any other individual +among us. A little volume of her poems was published after her untimely +death. They are not such as could take by storm the careless ears of the +world, which knows nothing about her, and must, I suppose, be admitted +to be marked by that mediocrity which neither gods nor men can tolerate. +But it is impossible to read the little volume without perceiving how +choice a spirit the authoress must have been, and understanding how it +came to pass that she was especially honoured by the close and warm +attachment of Mrs. Browning. I have scores of letters signed "Isa," or +rather Sibylline leaves scrawled in the vilest handwriting on all sorts +of abnormal fragments of paper, and despatched in headlong haste, +generally concerning some little projected festivity at Bellosguardo, +and advising me of the expected presence of some stranger whom she +thought I should like to meet. Very many of such of these fragmentary +scribblings, as were written before the Brownings left Florence, contain +some word or reference to her beloved "Ba," for such was the pet name +used between them, with what meaning or origin I know not. + +Dear Isa's death was to me an especially sad one, because I thought, +and think, that she need not have died. She lived alone with a couple +of old servants, and though she was rich in troops of friends, and +there were one or two near her during the day or two of her illness, +they did not seem to have managed matters wisely. Our Isa was +extremely obstinate about calling in medical advice. It could not be +done at a moment's notice, for a message had to be sent and a doctor +to come from Florence. And this was not done till the second day of +her illness. And I had good reason for thinking that, had she been +properly attended to on the first day, her life might have been saved. +She would not let her friends send for the doctor, and the friends +were unable to make her do so. Unhappily, I was absent for a few days +at Siena, and returned to be met by the intelligence that she was +dead. It seemed the more sad in that I knew that if I had been there +I could have made her call a doctor before it was too late. Browning +could also have done so; but it was after the death of Mrs. Browning +and his departure from Florence. + +How great her sorrow was for the death of her friend, Browning knew, +doubtless, but nobody else, I think, in the world save myself. + +I have now before me one of her little scraps of letters, in which she +encloses one from Mrs. Browning which is of the highest interest. The +history and genesis of it is as follows. Shortly after the publication +of the well-known and exquisite little poem on the god Pan in the +_Cornhill Magazine_, my brother Anthony wrote me a letter venturing to +criticise it, in which he says: "The lines are very beautiful, and the +working out of the idea is delicious. But I am inclined to think that +she is illustrating an allegory by a thought, rather than a thought +by an allegory. The idea of the god destroying the reed in making the +instrument has, I imagine, given her occasion to declare that in the +sublimation of the poet the man is lost for the ordinary purposes of +man's life. It has been thus instead of being the reverse; and I can +hardly believe that she herself believes in the doctrine which her +fancy has led her to illustrate. A man that can be a poet is so much +the more a man in becoming such, and is the more fitted for a man's +best work. Nothing is destroyed, and in preparing the instrument for +the touch of the musician the gods do nothing for which they need +weep. The idea however is beautiful, and it is beautifully worked." + +Then follows some verbal criticism which need not be transcribed. +Going on to the seventh stanza he says, "In the third line of it, she +loses her antithesis. She must spoil her man, as well as make a poet +out of him--spoil him as the reed is spoilt. Should we not read the +lines thus:-- + + "'Yet one half beast is the great god Pan + Or he would not have laughed by the river. + Making a poet he mars a man; + The true gods sigh,' &c."? + +In justice to my brother's memory I must say that this was not +written to me with any such presumptuous idea as that of offering his +criticism to the poetess. But I showed the letter to Isa Blagden, and +at her request left it with her. A day or two later, she writes to me: +"Dear friend,--I send you back your criticism and Mrs. B.'s rejoinder. +She _made_ me show it to her, and she wishes you to see her answer." +Miss Blagden's words would seem to imply that she thought the +criticism mine. And if she did, Mrs. Browning was doubtless led to +suppose so too. Yet I think this could hardly have been the case. + +Of course my only object in writing all this here is to give the +reader the great treat of seeing Mrs. Browning's "rejoinder." It is +very highly interesting:-- + + * * * * * + +"DEAREST ISA,--Very gentle my critic is; I am glad I got him out of +you. But tell dear Mr. Trollope he is wrong nevertheless" [here it +certainly seems that she supposed the criticism to be mine]; "and +that my 'thought' was really and decidedly _anterior_ [_sic_] to my +'allegory.' Moreover, it is my thought still. I meant to say that the +poetic organisation implies certain disadvantages; for instance an +exaggerated general susceptibility, ...[1] which may be shut up, +kept out of the way in every-day life, and must be (or the man is +'_marred_' indeed, made a Rousseau or a Byron of), but which is +necessarily, for all that, cultivated in the very cultivation of art +itself. There is an inward reflection and refraction of the heats +of life ...[1] doubling pains and pleasures, doubling therefore the +motives (passions) of life. I have said something of this in A.L. +[_Aurora Leigh_]. Also there is a passion for essential truth (as +apprehended) and a necessity for speaking it out at all risks, +inconvenient to personal peace. Add to this and much else the loss of +the sweet unconscious cool privacy among the 'reeds' ...[1] which I +for one care so much for--the loss of the privilege of being glad or +sorry, ill or well, without a 'notice.' That may have its glory to +certain minds. But most people would be glad to 'stir their tea in +silence' when they are grave, and even to talk nonsense (much too +frivolously) when they are merry, without its running the round of the +newspapers in two worlds perhaps. You know I don't _invent_, Isa. In +fact, I am sorely tempted to send Mr. Trollope a letter I had this +morning, as an illustration of my view, and a reply to his criticism. +Only this letter among many begins with too many fair speeches. Still +it seems written by somebody in earnest and with a liking for me. Its +main object is to complain of the cowardly morality in _Pan_. Then a +stroke on the poems before Congress. The writer has heard that I 'had +been to Paris, was _feted_ by the Emperor, and had had my head turned +by Imperial flatteries,' in consequence of which I had taken to +'praise and flatter the tyrant, and try to help his selfish ambition.' +Well! one should laugh and be wise. But somehow one doesn't laugh. A +letter beginning, 'You are a great teacher of truth,' and ending, 'You +are a dishonest wretch,' makes you cold somehow, and ill disposed +towards the satisfactions of literary distinction. Yes! and be sure, +Isa, that the 'true gods sigh,' and have reason to sigh, for the cost +and pain of it; sigh only ... don't haggle over the cost; don't grudge +a crazia, but.... sigh, sigh ... while they pay honestly. + +"On the other hand, there's much light talking and congratulation, +excellent returns to the pocket from the poem in the _Cornhill_; +pleasant praise from dear Mr. Trollope.... with all drawbacks: a good +opinion from Isa worth its gold--and Pan laughs. + +"But he is a beast up to the waist; yes, Mr. Trollope, a beast. He is +not a true god. + +"And I am neither god nor beast, if you please--only a + +"BA." + + * * * * * + +[Footnote 1: These dots do not indicate any hiatus. They exist in the +MS. as here given.] + +It seems that she certainly imagined me to be the critic; but must +have been subsequently undeceived. I will not venture to say a word on +the question of the marring or making of a man which results from the +creation of a poet; but if my brother had known Mrs. Browning as well +as I knew her, he would not have written that he could "hardly believe +that she herself believes in the doctrine that her fancy has led her +to illustrate." At all events, the divine afflatus had not so marred +the absolutely single-minded truthfulness of the woman in her as +to make it possible that she should, for the sake of illustrating, +however appositely, any fancy however brilliant, put forth a +"doctrine" as believing in it, which she did not believe. It may seem +that this is a foolish making of a mountain out of a molehill; but she +would not have felt it to be so. She had so high a conception of the +poet's office and responsibilities that nothing would have induced her +to play at believing for literary purposes any position, or fancy, or +imagination, which she did not in her heart of hearts accept. + +There was one subject upon which both my wife and I disagreed in +opinion with Mrs. Browning; and it was a subject which sat very near +her heart, and was much occupying all minds at that time--the phases +of Italy's struggle for independence, and especially the part which +the Emperor Napoleon the Third was taking in that struggle, and his +conduct towards Italy. We were all equally "Italianissimi," as the +phrase went then; all equally desirous that Italy should accomplish +the union of her _disjecta membra_, throw off the yoke of the bad +governments which had oppressed her, make herself a nation, and do +well as such. But we differed widely as to the ultimate utility, the +probable results, and, above all, as to the motives of the Emperor's +conduct. Mrs. Browning believed in him and trusted him. We did +neither. Hence the following interesting and curious letter, written +to my wife at Florence by Mrs. Browning, who was passing the summer at +Siena. Mrs. Browning felt very warmly upon this subject--so indeed did +my wife, differing from her _toto coelo_ upon it. But the difference +not only never caused the slightest suspension of cordial feeling +between them, but never caused either of them to doubt for a moment +that the other was with equal sincerity and equal ardour anxious for +the same end. The letter was written, as only the postmark shows, on +September 26th, 1859, and was as follows:-- + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR MRS. TROLLOPE,--I feel doubly ungrateful to you ... for the +music (one of the proofs of your multiform faculty) and for your kind +and welcome letter, which I have delayed to thank you for. My body +lags so behind my soul always, and especially of late, that you must +consider my disadvantages in whatever fault is committed by me trying +to forgive it. + +"Certainly we differ in our estimate of the Italian situation, while +loving and desiring for Italy up to the same height and with the same +heart. + +"For me I persist in looking to _facts_ rather than to words official +or unofficial, and in repeating that, 'whereas we were bound, now we +are free.' + +"'I think, therefore, I am.' _Cogito, ergo sum_, was, you know, an old +formula. Italy thinks (aloud) at Florence and Bologna; therefore she +_is_. And how did that happen? Could it have happened last year, +with the Austrians at Bologna, and ready (at a sign) to precipitate +themselves into Tuscany? Could it have happened previous to the French +intervention? And could it happen _now_ if France used the power she +has in Italy _against_ Italy? Why is it that the _Times_ newspaper, +which declared ... first that the elections were to be prevented +by France, and next that they were to be tampered with ... is not +justified before our eyes? I appeal to your sober judgment ... if +indeed the Emperor Napoleon _desires the restoration of the Dukes!!_ +Is he not all the more admirable for being loyal and holding his hand +off while he has fifty thousand men ready to 'protect' us all and +prevent the exercise of the people's sovereignty? And he a despot (so +called) and accustomed to carry out his desires. Instead of which +Tuscans and Romagnoli, Parma and Modena, have had every opportunity +allowed them to combine, carry their elections, and express their +full minds in assemblies, till the case becomes so complicated and +strengthened that her enemies for the most part despair. + +"The qualities shown by the Italians--the calm, the dignity, the +intelligence, the constancy ... I am as far from not understanding +the weight of these virtues as from not admiring them. But the +_opportunity_ for exercising them comes from the Emperor Napoleon, and +it is good and just for us all to remember this while we admire the +most. + +"So at least I think; and the Italian official bodies have always +admitted it, though individuals seem to me to be too much +influenced by the suspicions and calumnies thrown out by foreign +journals--English, Prussian, Austrian, and others--which traduce the +Emperor's motives in diplomacy, as they traduced them in the war. A +prejudice in the eye is as fatal to sight as mote and beam together. +And there are things abroad _worse_ than any prejudices--yes, worse! + +"It is a fact that the Emperor used his influence with England to +get the Tuscan vote accepted by the English Government. Whatever +wickedness he meant by _that_ the gods know; and English statesmen +suspect ... (or suspected a very short short time ago); but the deed +itself is not wicked, and you and I shall not be severe on it whatever +bad motive may be imputable. + +"So much more I could write ... about Villafranca, but I won't. The +Emperor, great man as he is, could not precisely anticipate the +high qualities given proof of in the late development of Italian +nationality. He made the best terms he could, having had his hand +forced. In consequence of this treaty he has carried out his +engagement to Austria in certain official forms, knowing well that the +free will and choice of the Italians are hindered by none of them; +and knowing besides that every apparent coldness and reserve of his +towards the peninsula removes a jealousy from England, and instigates +her to a more liberal and human bearing than formerly. + +"Forgive me for all these words. I am much better, but still not as +strong as I was before my attack; only getting strength, I hope. + +"Miss Blagden and Miss Field are staying still with us, and are gone +to Siena to-day to see certain pictures (which has helped to expose +you to this attack). We talk of returning to Florence by the first of +October, or soon after, in spite of the revival of fine weather. Mr. +Landor is surprisingly improved by the good air here and the repose of +mind; walks two miles, and writes alcaics and pentameters on most days +... on his domestic circumstances, and ... I am sorry to say ... Louis +Napoleon. But I tell him that I mean him to write an ode on my side of +the question before we have done. + +"I honour you and your husband for the good work you have both done on +behalf of this great cause. But his book[1] we only know yet by the +extracts in the _Athenaeum_, which brings us your excellent articles. +May I not thank you for them? And when does Mr. Trollope come back?" +[from a flying visit to England]. "We hope not to miss him out of +Florence long. + +[Footnote 1: _Tuscany in_ 1849 _and_ 1859.] + +"Peni's love to Bice.[1] He has been very happy here, galloping +through the lanes on a pony the colour of his curls. Then he helps to +work in the vineyards and to keep the sheep, having made close friends +with the _contadini_ to whom he reads and explains Dall' Ongaro's +poems with great applause. By the way, the poet paid us a visit +lately, and we liked him much. + +[Footnote 1: Browning's boy and my girl.] + +"And let me tell _Bice's mother_ another story of Penini. He keeps a +journal, be it whispered; I ventured to peep through the leaves the +other morning, and came to the following notice: 'This is the happiest +day of my _hole (sic)_ life, because dearest Vittorio Emanuele is +really _nostro re!_' + +"There's a true Italian for you! But his weak point is spelling. + +"Believe me, with my husband's regards, + +"Ever truly and affectionately yours, + +"ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING." + + * * * * * + +It may possibly enter into the mind of some one of those who never +enjoyed the privilege of knowing Mrs. Browning the woman, to couple +together the stupidly calumnious insinuations to which she refers in +the first letter I have given, with the admiration she expresses for +the third Napoleon in the second letter. I differed from her wholly in +her estimate of the man, and in her views of his policy with regard to +Italy. And many an argument have I had with her on the subject. And my +opinions respecting it were all the more distasteful to her because +they concerned the character of the man himself as well as his policy +as a ruler. And those talks and arguments have left me probably the +only man alive, save one, who knows with such certainty as I know it, +and can assert as I can, the absolute absurdity and impossibility of +the idea that she, being what she was, could have been bribed by any +amount of Imperial or other flattery, not only to profess opinions +which she did not veritably hold--this touches her moral nature, +perhaps the most pellucidly truthful of any I ever knew--but to hold +opinions which she would not have otherwise held. This touches her +intellectual nature, which was as incapable of being mystified or +modified by any suggestion of vanity, self-love, or gratified pride, +as the most judicial-minded judge who ever sat on the bench. Her +intellectual view on the matter _was_, I thought, mystified and +modified by the intensity of her love for the Italian cause, and of +her hatred for the evils from which she was watching the Italians +struggling to liberate themselves. + +I heard, probably from herself, of whispered calumnies, such as those +she refers to in the first of the two letters given. She despised them +then, as those who loved and valued her did, though the sensitive +womanly gentleness of her nature made it a pain to her that any +fellow-creature, however ignorant and far away from her, should so +think of her. And my disgust at a secret attempt to stab has impelled +me to say what I _know_ on the subject. But I really think that not +only those who knew her as she lived In the flesh, but the tens of +thousands who know her as she lives in her written words, cannot but +feel my vindication superfluous. + +The above long and specially interesting letter is written in very +small characters on ten pages of extremely small duodecimo note-paper, +as is also the other letter by the same writer given above. Mrs. +Browning's handwriting shows ever and anon an odd tendency to form +each letter of a word separately--a circumstance which I mention for +the sake of remarking that old Huntingford, the Bishop of Hereford, in +my young days, between whom and Mrs. Browning there was one thing in +common, namely, a love for and familiarity with Greek studies, used to +write in the same manner. + +The Dall' Ongaro here spoken of was an old friend of ours--of my +wife's, if I remember right--before our marriage. He was a Venetian, +or rather to speak accurately, I believe, a Dalmatian by birth, but +all his culture and sympathies were Venetian. He had in his early +youth been destined for the priesthood, but like many another had been +driven by the feelings and sympathies engendered by Italy's political +struggles to abandon the tonsure for the sake of joining the "patriot" +cause. His muse was of the drawing-room school and calibre. But +he wrote very many charming little poems breathing the warmest +aspirations of the somewhat extreme _gauche_ of that day, especially +some _stornelli_ after the Tuscan fashion, which met with a very wide +and warm acceptance. I remember one extremely happy, the _refrain_ +of which still runs in my head. It is written on the newly-adopted +Italian tricolour flag. After characterising each colour separately in +a couplet, he ends:-- + + "_E il rosso, il bianco, e il verde, + E un terno che si giuoca, e non si perde_." + +The phrase is borrowed from the language of the lottery. "And the +red, and the white, and the green, are a threefold combination" [I +am obliged to be horribly prosaic in order to make the allusion +intelligible to non-Italian ears!] "on which we may play and be sure +not to lose!" + +I am tempted to give here another of Mrs. Browning's letters to my +first wife, partly by the persuasion that any letter of hers must be +a matter of interest to a very large portion of English readers, and +partly for the sake of the generously appreciative criticism of one of +my brother's books, which I also always considered to be one of his +best. I must add that Mrs. Browning's one bit of censure coincides as +perfectly with my own judgment. The letter as usual is dateless, +but must have been written very shortly after the publication of my +brother's novel called _The Three Clerks_. + +"My dear Mrs. Trollope,--I return _The Three Clerks_ with our true +thanks and appreciation. We both quite agree with you in considering +it the best of the three clever novels before the public. My husband, +who can seldom get a novel to hold him, has been held by all three, +and by this the strongest. Also it has qualities which the others gave +no sign of. For instance, I was wrung to tears by the third volume. +What a thoroughly _man's_ book it is! I much admire it, only wishing +away, with a vehemence which proves the veracity of my general +admiration, the contributions to the _Daily Delight_--may I dare to +say it? + +"I do hope you are better. For myself, I have not suffered more than +was absolutely necessary in the late unusual weather. + +"I heard with concern that Mrs. Trollope" [my mother] "has been less +well than usual. But who can wonder, with such cold? + +"Most truly yours, + +"Elizabeth Barrett Browning. + +"_Casa Guidi, Wednesday._" + +Here is also one other little memorial, written not by "Elizabeth +Barrett Browning," but by "Elizabeth Barrett." It is interesting +on more than one account. It bears no date, save "Beacon Terrace +[Torquay], Thursday," But it evidently marks the beginning of +acquaintanceship between the two exceptionally, though not equally +gifted girls--Elizabeth Barrett and Theodosia Garrow. It is written on +a sheet of the very small duodecimo note paper which she was wont to +use many years subsequently, but in far more delicate and elegant +characters than she used, when much pen-work had produced its usual +deteriorating effect on her caligraphy. + + * * * * * + +"I cannot return the _Book of Beauty_" [Lady Blessington's annual] "to +Miss Garrow without thanking her for allowing me to read in it sooner +than I should otherwise have done, those contributions of her own +which help to justify its title, and which are indeed sweet and +touching verses. + +"It is among the vexations brought upon me by my illness, that I still +remain personally unacquainted with Miss Garrow, though seeming to +myself to know her through those who actually do so. And I should +venture to hope that it might be a vexation the first to leave me, if +a visit to an invalid condemned to the _peine forte et dure_ of being +very silent, notwithstanding her womanhood, were a less gloomy thing. +At any rate I am encouraged to thank Miss Fisher and Miss Garrow +for their visits of repeated inquiry, and their other very kind +attentions, by these written words, rather than by a message. For I am +sure that wherever kindness _can_ come thankfulness _may_, and that +whatever intrusion my note can be guilty of, it is excusable by the +fact of my being Miss Garrow's + +"Sincerely obliged, + +"E. BARRETT." + + * * * * * + +Could anything be more charmingly girlish, or more prettily worded! +The diminutive little note seems to have been preserved, an almost +solitary survival of the memorials of the days to which it belongs. +It must doubtless have been followed by sundry others, but was, I +suppose, specially treasured as having been the first step towards a +friendship which was already highly valued. + +Of course, in the recollections of an Englishman living during those +years in Florence, Robert Browning must necessarily stand out in high +relief, and in the foremost line. But very obviously this is neither +the time nor the place, nor is my dose of presumption sufficient for +any attempt at a delineation of the man. To speak of the poet, since +I write for Englishmen, would be very superfluous. It may be readily +imagined that the "tag-rag and bobtail" of the men who mainly +constituted that very pleasant but not very intellectual society, were +not likely to be such as Mr. Browning would readily make intimates +of. And I think I see in memory's magic glass that the men used to be +rather afraid of him. Not that I ever saw him rough or uncourteous +with the most exasperating fool that ever rubbed a man's nervous +system the wrong way; but there was a quiet, lurking smile which, +supported by very few words, used to seem to have the singular +property of making the utterers of platitudes and the mistakers of +_non-sequiturs_ for _sequiturs_, uncomfortably aware of the nature of +their words within a very few minutes after they had uttered them. I +may say, however, that I believe that in any dispute on any sort of +subject between any two men in the place, if it had been proposed to +submit the matter in dispute for adjudication to Mr. Browning, the +proposal would have been jumped at with a greater readiness of +_consensus_ than in the case of any other man there. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +The Italians, I believe, were "thinking" at a considerably earlier +period than that which in the second letter transcribed in the +preceding chapter Mrs. Browning seems to have considered as the +beginning of their "cogitating" existence, and thinking on the +subjects to which she is there adverting. They were "thinking," +perhaps, less in Tuscany than in any other part of the peninsula, for +they were eating more and better there. They were very lightly taxed. +The _mezzeria_ system of agriculture, which, if not absolutely the +same, is extremely similar to that which is known as "conacre," +rendered the lot of the peasant population very far better and more +prosperous than that of the tillers of the earth in any of the other +provinces. And upon the whole the people were contented. The Tuscan +public was certainly not a "pensive public." They ate their bread not +without due condiment of _compagnatico_,[1] or even their chesnuts in +the more remote and primitive mountain districts, drank their sound +Tuscan wine from the generous big-bellied Tuscan flasks holding three +good bottles, and sang their _stornelli_ in cheerfulness of heart, and +had no craving whatsoever for those few special liberties which were +denied them. + +[Footnote 1: Anything to make the bread "go down," as our people +say--a morsel of bacon or sausage, a handful of figs or grapes, or a +bit of cheese.] + +_Epicuri de grege porci!_ No progress! Yes, I know all that, and +am not saying what should have been, but what was. There _was_ no +progress! The _contadini_ on the little farm which I came to possess +before I left Tuscany cultivated it precisely after the fashion of +their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, and strenuously resisted +any suggestion that it could, should, or might be cultivated in any +other way. But my _contadino_ inhabited a large and roomy _casa +colonica_; he and his buxom wife, had six stalwart sons, and was the +richer man in consequence of having them. No, in my early Florentine +days the _cogito, ergo sum_ could not have been predicated of the +Tuscans. + +But the condition of things in the other states of the peninsula, in +Venice and Lombardy under the Austrians, in Naples under the Bourbon +kings, in Romagna under the Pope, and very specially in Modena under +its dukes of the House of Este, was much otherwise. In those regions +the Italians were "thinking" a great deal, and had been thinking for +some time past. And somewhere about 1849, those troublesome members +of the body social who are not contented with eating, drinking, and +singing--cantankerous reading and writing people living in towns, who +wanted most unreasonably to say, as the phrase goes, that "their souls +were their own" (as if such fee-simple rights ever fall to the lot +of any man!)--began in Tuscany to give signs that they also were +"thinking." + +I remember well that Alberi, the highly accomplished and learned +editor of the _Reports of the Venetian Ambassadors_, and of the great +edition of Galileo's works, was the first man who opened my altogether +innocent eyes to the fact, that the revolutionary leaven was working +in Tuscany, and that there were social breakers ahead! This must +have been as early as 1845, or possibly 1844. Alberi himself was a +Throne-and-Altar man, who thought for his part, that the amount of +proprietorship over his own soul which the existing _regime_ allowed +him was enough for his purposes. But, as he confided to me, a very +strong current of opinion was beginning to run the other way in +Florence, in Leghorn, in Lucca, and many smaller cities--not in Siena, +which always was, and is still, a nest of conservative feeling. + +Nevertheless there never was, at least in Florence, the strength and +bitterness of revolutionary feeling that existed almost everywhere +else throughout Italy. I remember a scene which furnished a very +remarkable proof of this, and which was at the same time very +curiously and significantly characteristic of the Florentine +character, at least as it then existed. + +It was during the time of the Austrian occupation of Florence. On the +whole the Austrian troops behaved well; and their doings, and the +spirit in which the job they had in hand was carried out, were +very favourably contrasted with the tyranny, the insults, and the +aggressive arrogance, with which the French army of occupation +afflicted the Romans. The Austrians accordingly were never hated in +Florence with the bitter intensity of hate which the French earned in +the Eternal City. Nevertheless, there were now and then occasions +when the Florentine populace gratified their love of a holiday and +testified to the purity of their Italian patriotism by turning out +into the streets and kicking up a row. + +It was on an occasion of this sort, that the narrow street called Por' +Santa Maria, which runs up from the Ponte Vecchio to the Piazza, was +thickly crowded with people. A young lieutenant had been sent to that +part of the town with a small detachment of cavalry to clear the +streets. Judging from the aspect of the people, as his men, coming +down the Lung' Arno, turned into the narrow street, he did not +half like the job before him. He thought there certainly would be +bloodshed. And just as his men were turning the corner and beginning +to push their horses into the crowd, one of them slipped sideways on +the flagstones, with which, most distressingly to horses not used to +them, the streets of Florence are paved, and came down with his rider +partly under him. + +The officer thought, "Now for trouble! That man will be killed to +a certainty!" The crowd--who were filling the air with shouts of +"_Morte!" "Abbasso l'Austria!" "Morte agli Austriaci_!"[1]--crowded +round the fallen trooper, while the officer tried to push forward +towards the spot. But when he got within earshot, and could see also +what was taking place, he saw the people immediately round the fallen +man busily disengaging him from his horse! "_O poverino! Ti sei fatto +male? Orsu! Non sara niente! Su! A cavallo, eh?_"[2] And having helped +the man to remount, they returned to their amusement of roaring +"_Morte agli Austriaci!_" The young officer perceived that he had a +very different sort of populace to deal with from an angry crowd +on the other side of the Alps, or indeed on the other side of the +Apennines. + +[Footnote 1: "Death! Down with Austria! Death to the Austrians!"] + +[Footnote 2: "Oh! Poor fellow! Have you hurt yourself? Up with you! It +will be nothing! Up again on your horse, eh?"] + +I remember another circumstance which occurred a few years +previously to that just mentioned, and which was in its way equally +characteristic. In one of the principal _cafes_ of Florence, situated +on the Piazza del Duomo--the cathedral yard--a murder was committed. +The deed was done in full daylight, when the _cafe_ was full of +people. Such crimes, and indeed violent crimes of any sort, were +exceedingly rare in Florence. That in question was committed by +stabbing, and the motive of the criminal who had come to Florence for +the express purpose of killing his enemy was vengeance for a great +wrong. Having accomplished his purpose he quietly walked out of the +_cafe_ and went away. I happened to be on the spot shortly afterwards, +and inquired, with some surprise at the escape of the murderer, why he +had not been arrested red-handed. "He had a sword in his hand!" said +the person to whom I had addressed myself, in a tone which implied +that that quite settled the matter--that of course it was absolutely +out of the question to attempt to interfere with a man who had a sword +in his hand! + +It is a very singular thing, and one for which it is difficult to +offer any satisfactory explanation, that the change in Florence in +respect to the prevalence of crime has been of late years very great +indeed I have mentioned more than once, I think, the very remarkable +absence of all crimes of violence which characterised Florence in +the earlier time of my residence there. It was not due to rigorous +repression or vigilance of the police, as may be partly judged by the +above anecdote. There was, in fact, _no_ police that merited the name. +But anything in the nature of burglary was unheard of. The streets +were so absolutely safe that any lady might have traversed them alone +at any hour of the day or night. And I might add to the term "crimes +of violence" the further statement that pocket-picking was equally +unheard of. + +_Now_ there is perhaps more crime of a heinous character in Florence, +in proportion to the population, than in any city in the peninsula. I +think that about the first indication that all that glittered in the +mansuetude of _Firenze la Gentile_ was not gold, showed itself on +the occasion of an attempt to naturalise at Florence the traditional +sportiveness of the Roman Carnival. There and then, as all the world +knows, it has been the immemorial habit for the population, high and +low, to pelt the folks in the carriages during their Corso procession +with _bonbons, bouquets_, and the like. Gradually at Rome this +exquisite fooling has degenerated under the influence of modern +notions, till the _bouquets_ having become cabbage stalks, very +effective as offensive missiles, and the _bonbons_ plaster of Paris +pellets, with an accompanying substitution of a spiteful desire to +inflict injury for the old horse-play, it has become necessary to +limit the duration of the Saturnalia to the briefest span, with the +sure prospect of its being very shortly altogether prohibited. But at +Florence on the first occasion, now several years ago, of an attempt +to imitate the Roman practice, the conduct of the populace was such as +to demand imperatively the immediate suppression of it. The carriages +and the occupants of them were attacked by such volleys of stones and +mud, and the animus of the people was so evidently malevolent and +dangerous, that they were at once driven from the scene, and any +repetition of the practice was forbidden. + +It is so remarkable as to be, at all events, worth noting, that +contemporaneously with this singular deterioration in respect to +crime, another social change has taken place in Florence. _La +Gentile Firenze_ has of late years become very markedly the home of +clericalism of a high and aggressive type. This is an entirely new +feature in the Florentine social world. In the old time clerical views +were sufficiently supported by the Government to give rise to the +famous Madiai incident, which has been before alluded to. But +clericalism in its more aggressive aspects was not in the ascendant +either bureaucratically or socially. The spirit which had informed +the policy and government of the famous Leopoldine laws was still +sufficiently alive in the mental habitudes of both governors and +governed to render Tuscany a rather suspected and disliked region +in the mind of the Vatican and of the secular governments which +sympathised with the Vatican's views and sentiments. The change that +has taken place is therefore a very notable one. I have no such +sufficiently intimate knowledge of the subject as would justify me in +linking together the two changes I have noticed in the connection of +cause and effect. I only note the synchronism. + +On the other hand there are not wanting sociologists who maintain +that the cause of the outburst of lawlessness and crime which has +undeniably characterised Florence of late years is to be sought for +exactly in that old-time, easy-going tolerance in religious matters, +which they say is now producing a tardy but sure crop from seeds +that, however long in disclosing the true nature of the harvest to +be expected from them, ought never to have been expected by wise +legislators to produce any other. + +_Non nostrum est tantas componere lites!_ But Florence is certainly no +longer _Firenze la Gentile_ as she so eminently was in the days when I +knew her so well. + +Whether any of the other cities of Italy have in any degree ceased to +merit the traditional epithets which so many successive generations +assigned to them--how far Genoa is still _la Superba_, Bologna _la +Grassa_, Padua _la Dotta_, Lucca _la Industriosa_--I cannot say. +Venezia is unquestionably still _la Bella_. And as for old Rome, she +vindicates more than ever her title to the epithet _Eterna_, by her +similitude to those nursery toys which, throw them about as you will, +still with infallible certitude come down heads uppermost. + +As for the Florence of my old recollections, there were in the early +days of them many little old-world sights and sounds which are to be +seen and heard no longer, and which differentiated the place from +other social centres. + +I remember a striking incident of this sort which happened to my +mother and myself "in the days before the flood," therefore very +shortly after our arrival there. + +It was the practice in those days to carry the bodies of the dead on +open biers, with uncovered faces, to their burial. It had doubtless +been customary in old times so to carry all the dead; but the custom +was retained at the time of which I am writing only in the case +of distinguished persons, and very generally of the priesthood. I +remember, for instance, a poor little humpbacked Grand Duchess being +so carried through the street magnificently bedecked as if she were +going to a ball, and with painted cheeks. She had been a beneficent +little body, and the people, as far as they knew anything about +her, revered her, and looked on her last presentation to them with +sympathetic feelings. But it was a sorry sight to see the poor little +body, looking much like a bedizened monkey, so paraded. + +Well, my mother and I were, aimlessly but much admiringly, wandering +about the vast spaces of the cathedral when we became aware of a +_funzione_ of some sort--a service as we should say--being conducted +in a far part of the building. There was no great crowd, but a score +or two of spectators, mainly belonging to the _gamin_ category, were +standing around the officiating priests and curiously looking on. We +went towards the spot, and found that the burial service was being +performed over the body of a young priest. The body lay on its back on +the open bier, clad in full canonicals and with the long tasselled cap +of the secular clergy on his head. We stood and gazed with the others, +when suddenly I saw the dead man's head slightly move! A shiver, I +confess, ran through me. A moment's reflection, however, reminded me +of the recognised deceitfulness of the eyes in such matters, and I did +not doubt that I had been mistaken. But the next minute I again saw +the dead priest slightly shake his head, and this time I was sure that +I was not mistaken. I clutched my mother's arm and pointed, and again +saw the awful phenomenon, which sent a cold wave through both of us +from head to foot. But nobody save ourselves seemed to have seen +anything unusual. The service was proceeding in its wonted order. +Doubting whether it might possibly be one of those horrible cases of +suspended animation and mistaken death, I was thinking whether it were +not my duty to call attention to the startling thing we had seen, +and had with outstretched neck and peering eyes advanced a step for +further observation, and with the half-formed purpose of declaring +aloud that the man was not dead, when I spied crouched beneath the +bier a little monkey, some nine or ten years old, who had taken in his +hand the tassel of the cap, which hung down between the wooden bars +which formed the bier, and was amusing himself with slowly swaying it +forwards and backwards, and had thus communicated the motion to the +dead man's head! It was almost impossible to believe that the little +urchin had been able to reach the position he occupied without having +been observed by any of the clerical attendants, of whom several were +present, and still more difficult to suppose that no one of them had +seen what we saw, standing immediately in front of the corpse while +one of them performed the rite of lustration with holy water, the +vessel containing which was held by another. But no one interfered, +and none but those who know the Florentines as well as I know them can +feel how curiously and intensely characteristic of them was the fact +that no one did so. The awful reverence for death which would +have impelled an Englishman of almost any social position to feel +indignation and instantly put a stop to what he would consider a +profanation, was absolutely unknown to all those engaged in that +perfunctory rite. A certain amount of trouble and disturbance would +have been caused by dislodging the culprit, and each man there felt +only this; that it didn't matter a straw, and that there was no reason +for _him_ to take the trouble of noticing it. As far as I could +observe, the amusement the little wretch derived from his performance +was entirely unsocial, and confined to his own breast; for I could not +see that any of the _gamin_ fraternity noticed it, or cared about it, +any more than their seniors. + +I remember another somewhat analogous adventure of mine, equally +illustrative of the Florentine habits of those days. I saw a man +suddenly stagger and fall in the street. It was in the afternoon, and +there were many persons in the street, some of them nearer to the +fallen man than I was, but nobody, attempted to help him. I stepped +forward to do so, and was about to take hold of him and try to raise +him, when one of the by-standers eagerly caught me by the arm, saying, +"He is dying, he is dying!" "Let us try to raise him," said I, still +pressing forward. "You mustn't, you mustn't! It is not permitted," he +added, as he perceived that he was speaking to a foreigner, and then +went on to explain to me that what must be done was to call the +Misericordia, for which purpose one must run and ring a certain bell +attached to the chapel of that brotherhood in the Piazza del Duomo. + +Among the many things that have been written of the Florentine +Misericordia, I do not think that I have met with the statement that +it used to be universally believed in Florence that the law gave the +black brethren the privilege and the monopoly of picking up any dying +or dead person in the streets, and that it was forbidden to any one +else to do so. Whether any such _law_ really existed I much doubt, but +the custom of acting in accordance with it, and the belief that such +practice was imperative, undoubtedly did. And I have no doubt that +many a life has been sacrificed to it. The half hour or twenty minutes +which necessarily elapsed before the Misericordia could be called and +answer the call, must often have been supremely important, and in many +cases ought to have been employed in the judicious use of the lancet. + +The sight of the black robed and black cowled brethren, as they went +about the streets on their errands of mercy, was common enough in +Florence. But the holiday visitor had very little opportunity of +hearing anything of the internal management and rules of that peculiar +mediaeval society or of the nature of the work it did. + +The Florentine Misericordia was founded in the days when pestilence +was ravaging the city so fiercely that the dead lay uncared for in the +streets, because there was no man sufficiently courageous to bury or +to touch them. The members of the association, which was formed +for the performance of this charitable and arduous duty, chose for +themselves a costume, the object of which was the absolute concealment +of the individual performing it. A loose black linen gown drapes the +figure from the neck to the heels, and a black cowl, with two holes +cut for the eyes, covers and effectually conceals the head and face. +For more than five hundred years, up to the present day, the dress +remains the same, and no human being, either of those to whom their +services are rendered, or of the thousands who see them going about +in the performance of their self-imposed duty, can know whether the +mysterious weird-looking figure he sees be prince or peasant. He knows +that he may be either, for the members of the brotherhood are drawn +from all classes of society. + +It used to be whispered, and I have good reasons for believing the +whisper to have been true, that the late Grand Duke was a member, and +took his turn of duty with his brethren. Some indiscreet personal +attendant blabbed the secret, for assuredly the Duke himself was never +untrue to the oath which binds the members to secrecy. + +The whole society is divided into a number of companies, one of which +is by turns on duty. There is a large, most melancholy and ominously +sounding bell in the chapel of the brotherhood (not that already +mentioned by which anybody can call the attention of the brother in +permanent attendance, but a much larger one), which is heard all over +the city. This summons the immediate attendance of every member of the +company on duty, and the mysterious black figures may any day be seen +hurrying to the rendezvous. There they learn the nature of the call, +and the place at which their presence is required. + +I remember the case of an English girl who was fearfully burned at +a villa at some little distance from the city. The injuries were so +severe that, while it was extremely desirable that she should be +removed to a hospital, there was much doubt as to the possibility of +moving her. In this difficulty the Misericordia were summoned. They +came, five or six of them, bringing with them their too well-known +black covered litter, and transported the patient to the hospital, +lifting her from her bed and placing her in the litter with an +exquisitely delicate and skilled gentleness of handling which spared +her suffering to the utmost, and excited the surprise and admiration +of the English medical man who witnessed the operation. Every part of +the work, every movement, was executed in absolute silence and with +combined obedience to signalled orders from the leader of the company. + +Another case which was brought under my notice was that of a woman +suffering from dropsy, which made the necessary removal of her a very +arduous and difficult operation. It would probably have been deemed +impossible save by the assistance of the Misericordia, who managed so +featly and deftly that those who saw it marvelled at the skill and +accurately co-operating force, which nothing but long practice could +have made possible. + +It is a law of the brotherhood, never broken, that they are to accept +nothing, not so much as a glass of water, in any house to which +they are called. The Florentines well know how much they owe as a +community, and how much each man may some day come to owe personally +to the Misericordia; and when the doleful clang of their well-known +bell is heard booming over the city, women may be seen to cross +themselves with a muttered prayer, while men, ashamed of their +religiosity, but moved by feeling as well as habit, will furtively do +the same. + +There is an association at Rome copied from that at Florence, and +vowed to the performance of very similar duties. I once had an +opportunity of seeing the registers of this Roman Misericordia, and +was much impressed by the frequently recurring entry of excursions +into the Campagna to bring in the corpses of men murdered and left +there! + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +Among the other things that contributed to make those Florence +days very pleasant ones, we did a good deal in the way of private +theatricals. Our _impresario_ at least in the earlier part of the +time, was Arthur Vansittart. He engaged the Cocomero Theatre for our +performances, and to the best of my remembrance defrayed the whole of +the expense out of his own pocket. Vansittart was an exceptionally +tall man, a thread-paper of a man, and a very bad actor. He was +exceedingly noisy, and pushed vivacity to its extreme limits. I +remember well his appearance in some play--I fancy it was in _The Road +to Ruin_, in which I represented some character, I entirely forget +what--where he comes on with a four-in-hand whip in his hand; and I +remember, too, that for the other performers in that piece, their +appearance on the stage was a service of danger, from which the +occupants of the stage boxes were not entirely free. But he was +inexhaustibly good-natured and good-humoured, and gave us excellent +suppers after the performance. + +Then there was Edward Hobhouse, with--more or less with--his +exceedingly pretty and clever wife, and her sister, the not at all +pretty but still more clever and very witty Miss Graves. Hobhouse was +a man abounding in talent of all sorts, extremely witty, brim full +of humour, a thorough good fellow and very popular. He and his wife, +though very good friends did not entirely pull together; and it used +to be told of him, that replying to a man, who asked him "How's your +wife?" he answered with much humorous semblance of indignation, "Well! +if you come to that, how's yours?" Hobhouse was far and away the +cleverest and best educated man of the little set (these dramatic +reminiscences refer to the early years of my Florence life), and in +truth was somewhat regrettably wasted in the midst of such a frivolous +and idle community. But I take it that he was much of an invalid. + +Of course we got up _The Rivals_. I was at first Bob Acres, with an +Irishman of the name of Torrens for my Sir Lucius, which he acted, +when we could succeed in keeping him sober, to the life. My Bob Acres +was not much of a success. And I subsequently took Sir Anthony, which +remained my stock part for years, and which I was considered to do +well. + +Sir Francis Vincent, a resident in Florence for many years, with whom +I was for several of them very intimate, played the ungrateful part +of Falkland. He was a heavy actor with fairly good elocution and +delivery, and not unfitted for a part which it might have been +difficult to fill without him. He was to a great degree a reading man, +and had a considerable knowledge of the byeways of Florentine history. + +My mother "brought the house down" nightly as Mrs. Malaprop; and +a very exceptionally beautiful Madame de Parcieu (an Englishwoman +married to a Frenchman) was in appearance, _maniere d'etre_, and +deportment the veritable _beau ideal_ of Lydia Languish, and might +have made _a furore_ on any stage, if it had been possible to induce +her to raise her voice sufficiently. She was most good-naturedly +amenable. But when she was thus driven against her nature and habits +to speak out, all the excellence of her acting was gone. The meaning +of the words was taken out of them. + +Sir Anthony Absolute became, as I said, my stock part. And the phrase +is justified by my having acted it many years afterwards in a totally +different company--I the only remaining brick of the old edifice--and +to audiences not one of whom could have witnessed the performances of +those earlier days. Mrs. Richie, an American lady--who had, I think, +been known on a London stage under the name of "Mowatt"--was in those +latter days, now so far away in the dim past, our manageress. Mrs. +Proby, the wife, now I am sorry to say the widow, of the British +Consul, was on that occasion our Mrs. Malaprop, and was an excellent +representative of that popular lady, though she will, I am sure, +forgive me for saying not so perfect a one as my mother. + +Quite indescribably strange is the effect on my mind of looking back +at my three Thespian avatars--Falstaff at Cincinnati, Acres and Sir +Anthony in Grand Ducal Florence, and Sir Anthony again in a liberated +Tuscany! I seem to myself like some old mail-coach guard, who goes +through the whole long journey, while successive coachmen "Leave you +here, sir!" But then in my case the passengers are all changed too; +and I arrive at the end of the journey without one "inside" or +"outside" of those who started with me! I can still blow my horn +cheerily, however, and chat with the passengers, who joined the coach +when my journey was half done, as if they were quite old fellow +travellers! + +It must not be imagined, however, that that pleasant life at Florence +was all cakes and ale. + +I was upon the whole a hard worker. I wrote a series of volumes on +various portions of Italian, and especially Florentine, history, +beginning with _The Girlhood of Catherine de Medici_. They were all +fairly well received, the _Life of Filippo Strozzi_ perhaps the most +so. But the volume on the story of the great quarrel between the +Papacy and Venice, entitled _Paul the Pope and Paul the Friar_, was, I +think, the best. The volumes entitled _A Decade of Italian Women_, +and dealing with ten typical historic female figures, has attained, +I believe, to some share of public favour. I see it not unfrequently +quoted by writers on Italian subjects. Then I made a more ambitious +attempt, and produced a _History of the Commonwealth of Florence_, in +four volumes. + +Such a work appeals, of course, to a comparatively limited audience. +But that it was recognised to have some value among certain +Anglo-Saxons whose favourable judgment in the matter was worth having, +may be gathered from the fact that it has been a text-book in our own +and in transatlantic universities; while a verdict perhaps still +more flattering (though I will not say more gratifying) was given by +Professor Pasquale Villari (now senator of the kingdom of Italy), who, +in a letter in my possession, pronounces my history of Florence to be +in his opinion the best work on the subject extant. + +Professor Villari is not only an accomplished scholar of a wide +range of culture, but his praise of any work on Italian--and perhaps +especially on Tuscan--history comes from no "prentice han'." His +masterly _Life of Macchiavelli_ is as well known in our country as +in his own, through the translation of it into English by his gifted +wife, Linda Villari, whilom Linda White, and my very valued friend. +All these historical books were written _con amore_. The study of +bygone Florentines had an interest for me which was quickened by the +daily and hourly study of living Florentines. It was curious to mark +in them resemblances of character, temperament, idiosyncrasy, defects, +and merits, to those of their forefathers who move and breathe before +us in the pages of such old chroniclers as Villani, Segni, Varchi, and +the rest, and in sundry fire-graven strophes and lines of their mighty +poet. Dante's own local and limited characteristics, as distinguished +from the universality of his poetic genius, have always seemed to me +quintessentially Tuscan. + +Of course it is among the lower orders that such traits are chiefly +found, and among the lower orders in the country more than those +in the towns. But there is, or was, for I speak of years ago, a +considerable conservative pride in their own inherited customs and +traditions common to all classes. + +Especially this is perceived in the speech of the genuine Florentine. +Quaint proverbs, not always of scrupulous refinement, old-world +phrases, local allusions, are stuffed into the conversation of your +real citizen or citizeness of _Firenze la Gentile_ as thickly as the +beads in the _vezzo di corallo_ on the neck of a _contadina_. And +above all, the accent--the soft (not to say slobbering) _c_ and +_g_, and the guttural aspirate which turns _casa_ into _hasa_ and +_capitale_ into _hapitale_, and so forth--this is cherished with +peculiar fondness. I have heard a young, elegant, and accomplished +woman discourse in very choice Italian with the accent of a +market-woman, and on being remonstrated with for the use of some +very pungent proverbial illustration in her talk, she replied with +conviction, "That is the right way to speak Tuscan. I have nothing to +do with what Italians from other provinces may prefer. But pure, racy +Tuscan--the Tuscan tongue that we have inherited--is spoken as I speak +it--or ought to be!" + +I had gathered together, partly for my own pleasure, and partly in the +course of historical researches, a valuable collection of works on +_Storia Patria_, which were sold by me when I gave up my house there. +The reading of Italian, even very crabbed and ancient Italian which +might have puzzled more than one "elegant scholar," became quite easy +and familiar to me, but I have never attained a colloquial mastery +over the language. I can talk, to be sure, with the most incorrect +fluency, and I can make myself understood--at all events by Italians, +whose quick, sympathetic apprehension of one's meaning, and courteous +readiness to assist a foreigner in any linguistic straits, are +deserving of grateful recognition from all of us who, however +involuntarily, maltreat their beautiful language. + +But the colloquial use of a language must be acquired when the organs +are young and lissom. I began too late. And besides, I have laboured +under the great disadvantage that my deafness prevents me from sharing +in the hourly lessons which those who hear all that is going on around +them profit by. + +Besides the above-mentioned historical works, I wrote well nigh a +score, I think, of novels, which also had no great, but a fair, share +of success. The majority of them are on Italian subjects; and these, +if I may be allowed to say so, are good. The pictures they give of +Italian men and women and things and habits are true, vivid, and +accurate. Those which I wrote on English subjects are unquestionably +bad. I had been living the best part of a life-time out of England; I +knew but little comparatively of English life, and I had no business +to meddle with such subjects. But besides all this, I was always +writing in periodical publications of all sorts, English and American, +to such an extent that I should think the bulk of it, if brought +together, would exceed that of all the many volumes I am answerable +for. No! my life in that Castle of Indolence--Italy--was not a +_far-niente_ one! + +We were great at picnics in those Florence days. Perhaps the most +favourite place of all for such parties was Pratolino, a park +belonging to the Grand Duke, about seven miles from Florence, on the +Bologna road. These seven miles wave almost all more or less up hill, +and when the high ground on which the park is situated has been +reached, there is a magnificent view over the Val d'Arno, its thousand +villas, and Florence, with its circle of surrounding hills. + +There was once a grand ducal residence there, which was famous in +the later Medicean days for the multiplicity and ingenuity of its +water-works. All kinds of surprises, picturesque and grotesque +effects, and practical jokes, had been prepared by the ingenious, but +somewhat childish skill of the architect. Turning the handle of a +door would produce a shower-bath, sofas would become suddenly boats +surrounded by water, and such like more or less disagreeable surprises +to visitors, who were new to the specialties of the place. But all +this practical joking was at length fatal to the scene of it. The +pipes and conduits got out of order, and eventually so ruined the +edifice that it had to be taken down, and has never been replaced. + +But the principal object of attraction--besides the view, the charming +green turf for dining on, the facility for getting hot water, plates, +glasses, &c., from a gardeners house, and a large hall in the same, +good for dancing--was the singular colossal figure, representing "The +Apennine," said to have been designed by Michael Angelo. One used +to clamber up inside this figure, which sits in a half crouching +attitude, and reach on the top of the head a platform, on which four +or five persons could stand and admire the matchless view. + +About three miles further, still always ascending the slope of the +Apennine, is a Servite monastery which is the cradle and mother +establishment of the order. Sometimes we used to extend our rambles +thither. The brethren had the reputation, I remember, of possessing a +large and valuable collection of prints. They were not very willing +to exhibit it; but I did once succeed in examining it, and, as I +remember, found that it contained nothing much worth looking at. + +A much more favourite amusement of mine was a picnic arranged to last +for two or three days, and intended to embrace objects further afield. +Vallombrosa was a favourite and admirably well selected locality +for this purpose. And many a day and moonlight night never to be +forgotten, have I spent there. Sometimes we pushed our expeditions to +the more distant convents--or "Sanctuaries" as they were called--of +Camaldoli and Lavernia. And of one very memorable excursion to these +two places I shall have to speak in a subsequent chapter. + +Meantime those dull mutterings as of distant thunder, which Signor +Alberi had, as mentioned at a former page, first signalised to me, +were gradually growing into a roar which was attracting the attention +and lively interest of all Europe. + +Of the steady increase in the volume of this roar, and of the results +in which it eventuated, I need say little here, for I have already +said enough in a volume entitled _Tuscany in 1849 and in 1859_. But +I may jot down a few recollections of the culminating day of the +Florentine revolution. + +I had been out from an early hour of that morning, and had assisted at +sundry street discussions of the question, What would the troops do? +Such troops as were in Florence were mainly lodged in the forts, the +Fortezza da Basso, which I have had occasion to mention in a former +chapter, and the other situated on the high ground beyond the Boboli +Gardens, and therefore immediately above the Pitti Palace. My house at +the corner of the large square, now the Piazza dell Indipendenza, was +almost immediately under the walls and the guns of the Fortezza da +Basso; but I felt sure that the troops would simply do nothing; might +very possibly fraternise with the people; but would in no case burn a +cartridge for the purpose of keeping the Grand Duke on his throne. + +A short wide street runs in a straight line from the middle of one +side of the Piazza to the fort; and a considerable crowd of people, +at about ten o'clock, I think, began to advance slowly up this street +towards the _fortezza_, and I went with them. High above our heads +on the turf-covered top of the lofty wall, there were a good number, +perhaps thirty or forty soldiers, not drawn up in line, but apparently +merely lounging and enjoying the air and sunshine. They had, I think +all of them, their muskets in their hands, but held them idly and with +apparently no thought whatever of using them. I felt confirmed in my +opinion that they had no intention of doing so. + +Arrived at the foot of the fortress wall, the foremost of the people +began calling out to the soldiers, "_Abbasso l'Austria! Siete per +Italia o per l'Austria?_" I did not--and it is significant--hear any +cries of "_Abbasso il Gran Duca!_" The soldiers, as far as I could see +at that distance, appeared to be lazily laughing at the people. +One man called out "_Ecco un bel muro per fracassare il capo +contro!_"--"That is an excellent wall to break your heads against!" +It was very plain that they had no intention of making any hostile +demonstration against the crowd. At the same time there was no sort +of manifestation of any inclination to fraternise with the +revolutionists. They were simply waiting to see how matters would go; +and under the circumstances they can hardly be severely blamed for +doing so. But there can be no doubt that, whichever way things might +go, their view of the matter would be strongly influenced by the very +decided opinion that that course would be best which should not imply +the necessity for _doing_ anything. I think that the feeling generally +in "the army," if such it could be called, was on the whole kindly +to the Grand Duke, but not to the extent of being willing to fight +anybody, least of all the Florentines, in his defence! + +How matters _did_ go it is not necessary to tell here. If ever there +was a revolution "made with rose-water," it was the revolution which +deposed the poor _gran ciuco_. I don't think it cost any human being +in all Florence a scratch or a bloody nose. It cost an enormous amount +of talking and screaming, but nothing else. At the same time it is +fair to remember that the popular leaders could not be sure that +matters might not have taken another turn, and that it _might_ have +gone hard with some of them. In any case, however, it would not have +gone _very_ hard with any of them. Probably exile would have been the +worst fate meted out to them. It is true that exile from Tuscany just +then would have been attended by a similar difficulty to that which +caused the old Scotch lady, when urged to run during an earthquake, to +reply, "Ay! but whar wull I run to?" + +I do not think there was any bitter, or much even unkind, feeling +on the part of the citizens towards the sovereign against whom they +rebelled. If any fact or circumstance could be found which was +calculated to hold him up to ridicule, it was eagerly laid hold of, +but there was no fiercer feeling. + +A report was spread during the days that immediately followed the +Duke's departure that orders had been given to the officers in the +upper fortress to turn their cannon on the city at the first sign of +rising. Such reports were very acceptable to those who for political +purposes would fain have seen somewhat of stronger feeling against the +Duke. I have good reason to believe that such orders _had_ been given. +But I have still stronger reasons for doubting that they were ever +given by the Grand Duke. And I am surest of all, that let them have +been given by whom they may, there was not the smallest chance of +their being obeyed. As for the Duke himself, I am very sure that he +would have given or even done much to prevent any such catastrophe. + +But perhaps the most remarkable and most singular scene of all that +rose-water revolution was the Duke's departure from his capital and +his duchy. Other sovereigns in similar plight have hidden themselves, +travestied themselves, had hairbreadth escapes, or have not escaped at +all. In Tuscany the fallen ruler went forth in his own carriage with +one other following it, both rather heavily laden with luggage. The +San Gallo gate is that by which the hearse that conveys the day's dead +to the cemetery on the slope of the Apennine leaves the city every +night. And the Duke passed amid the large crowd assembled at the gate +to see him go, as peaceably as the vehicle conveying those whose days +in Florence, like his, were at an end, went out a few hours later by +the same road. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +Among the very great number of men and women whom I have known during +my life in Italy--some merely acquaintances, and many whom I knew +to be, and a few, alas! a very few, whom I still know to be trusty +friends--there were many of whom the world has heard, and some perhaps +of whom it would not unwillingly hear something more. But time and +space are limited, and I must select as best I may. + +I have a very pleasant recollection of "Garibaldi's Englishman," +Colonel Peard. Peard had many more qualities and capabilities than +such as are essential to a soldier of fortune. The phrase, however, is +perhaps not exactly that which should be used to characterise him. He +had qualities which the true soldier of fortune should not possess. +His partisanship was with him in the highest degree a matter of +conviction and conscientious opinion, and _nothing_ would have tempted +him to change his colours or draw his sword on the other side. I am +not sure either, whether a larger amount of native brain power, and +(in a much greater degree) a higher quality of culture, than that of +the general under whom it may be his fortune to serve, is a good part +of the equipment of a soldier of fortune. And Peard's relation to +Garibaldi very notably exemplified this. + +He was a native of Devonshire, as was my first wife; we saw a good +deal of him in Florence, and I have before me a letter written to her +by him from Naples on the 28th of January, 1861, which is interesting +in more respects than one. Peard was a man who _would_ have all that +depended on him ship-shape. And this fact, taken in conjunction with +the surroundings amid which he had to do his work, is abundantly +sufficient to justify the growl he indulges in. + + * * * * * +"My dear Mrs. Trollope," he writes, "I am ashamed to think either of +you or of other friends at Florence; it is such an age since I have +written to any of you. But I have been daily, from morning to night, +hard at work for weeks. The _honour_ of having a command is all very +well, but the trouble and worry are unspeakable. Besides, I had such +a set under me that it was enough to rile the sweetest tempered man. +Volunteers may be very well in their way. I doubt not their efficiency +in repelling an attack in their own country. But defend me from ever +again commanding a brigade of English volunteers in a foreign country. +As to the officers, many were most mutinous, and some something worse. +Thank goodness the brigade is at an end. All I now wait for is the +settlement of the accounts. If I can get away by the second week in +February, I at present think of taking a run as far as Cairo, then +crossing to Jerusalem, and back by Jaffa, Beyrout, Smyrna, and Athens +to Italy, when I shall hope once more to see you and yours. + +"Politics do not look well in Southern Italy, I fear. The Mazzinists +have been most active, and have got up a rather strong feeling against +Cavour and what they think the peace party. Now Italy must have a +little rest for organisation, civil as well as military. They do not +give the Government time to do or even propose good measures for +the improvement of the country. No sooner are one set of ministers +installed than intrigues are on foot to upset them. I firmly believe +that the only hope for Southern Italy and Sicily is in a strong +military Government. These districts must be treated as _conquered +provinces_, and the people educated and taught habits of industry, +whether they like it or not. The country is at present in a state +of barbarism, and must be saved from that. All that those who are +_supposed to be educated_ seem to think about is how they can get a +few dollars out of Government." [I fear the honest Englishman would +find that those supposed to be educated in those provinces are as much +in a state of barbarism in the matters that offended him as ever.] "I +never saw such a set of harpies in my life. One had the assurance to +come to me a few days since, asking if I could not take him on the +strength of the brigade, so as to enable him to get six months pay out +of the Government. As to peculation, read _Gil Blas_, and that will +give you a faint sketch of the customs and habits of all _impiegati_ +[civil servants] in this part of Italy. I do not believe that the +Southern Italians, taken as a body, know what honesty is." [All that +he says is true to the present day. But the distinction which he makes +between the Southern Italians and those of the other provinces is most +just, and must be remembered.] "But that is the fault of the horrid +system of tyranny under which they have so long lived. I do not say +that the old system must be reformed, it must be totally changed. +Solomon might make laws, but so corrupt are all the _impiegati_, that +I doubt if he could get them carried out. Poor Garibaldi is made a +tool of by a set of designing intriguers, who will sacrifice him +at any moment. He is too honest to see or believe of dishonesty in +others. He has no judgment of character. He has been surrounded by +a set of blacklegs and swindlers, many among them, I regret to say, +English. How I look forward to seeing you all again! Till we meet, +believe me + +"Most truly yours, + +"GIO. [_sic_] PEARD." + +The last portion of this letter is highly interesting and historically +well worth preserving. It is entirely and accurately true. And there +was no man in existence more fitted by native integrity and hatred of +dishonesty on the one hand, and close intimacy with the subject of +his remarks on the other, to speak authoritatively on the matter than +"Garibaldi's Englishman." + +The following letter, written, as will be seen, on the eve of +his departure for the celebrated expedition to Sicily, is also +interesting. It is dated Genoa. + + * * * * * + +"DEAR MRS. TROLLOPE,--I have been thinking over your observations +about _terno_. I don't give up my translation; but would it not be +literal enough to translate it, 'the bravest three colours'? + +[This refers to the rendering of the lottery phrase _terno_ in a +translation by my wife of the _stornello_ of Dall' Ongaro previously +mentioned. In the Italian lottery, ninety numbers, 1-90, are always +put into the wheel. Five only of these are drawn out. The player +bets that a number named by him shall be one of these (_semplice +estratto_); or that it shall be the first drawn (_estratto +determinato_); or that two numbers named by him shall be two of the +five drawn (_ambo_); or that three so named shall be drawn (_terno_). +It will be seen, therefore, that the winner of an _estratto +determinato_, ought, if the play were quite even, to receive ninety +times his stake. But, in fact, such a player would receive only +seventy-five times his stake, the profit of the Government consisting +of this pull of fifteen per ninety against the player. Of course, what +he ought to receive in any of the other cases is easily (not by me, +but by experts) calculable. It will be admitted that the difficulty +of translating the phrase in Dall' Ongaro's little poem, so as to be +intelligible to English readers, was considerable. The letter then +proceeds]: + +"I did not start, you will see, direct from Livorno [Leghorn], for +Medici wrote me to join him here. Moreover, the steamer by which I +expected to have gone, did not make the trip, but was sent back to +this city. I will worry you with a letter when anything stirring +occurs. We sail to-night. Part went off last evening--1,500. We go in +three steamers, and shall overtake the others. + +"With kind regards to all friends, believe me, + +"Yours very faithfully, + +"JOHN PEARD." + + * * * * * + +The remarks contained in the former of the two letters here +transcribed seem to make this a proper place for recording "what I +remember" of Garibaldi. + +My first acquaintance with him was through my very old, and very +highly valued, loved, and esteemed friend, Jessie White Mario. The +Garibaldi _culte_ has been with her truly and literally the object +(apart from her devoted love for her husband, an equally ardent +worshipper at the same shrine) for which she has lived, and for which +she has again and again affronted death. For she accompanied him in +all his Italian campaigns as a hospital nurse, and on many occasions +rendered her inestimable services in that capacity under fire. If +Peard has been called "Garibaldi's Englishman," truly Jessie White +Mario deserves yet more emphatically the title of "Garibaldi's +Englishwoman." She has published a large life of Garibaldi, which is +far and away the best and most trustworthy account of the man and +his wonderful works. She is not blind to the spots on the sun of her +adoration, nor does she seek to conceal the fact that there were such +spots, but she is a true and loyal worshipper all the same. + +Her husband was--alas! that I should write so; for no Indian wife's +life was ever more ended by her suttee than Jessie Mario's life has +practically been ended by her husband's untimely death!--Alberto Mario +was among the, I fear, few exceptions to Peard's remarks on the men +who were around Garibaldi. He was not only a man of large literary +culture, a brave soldier, an acute politician, a formidable political +adversary, and a man of perfect and incorruptible integrity, but he +would have been considered in any country and in any society in Europe +a very perfect gentleman. He was in political opinion a consistent and +fearlessly outspoken Republican. He and I therefore differed _toto +coelo_. But our differences never diminished our, I trust, mutual +esteem, nor our friendly intercourse. But he was a born _frondeur_. He +edited during his latter years a newspaper at Rome, which was a thorn +in the side of the authorities. I remember his being prosecuted and +condemned for persistently speaking of the Pope in his paper as +"Signor Pecci." He was sentenced to imprisonment. But all the +Government wanted was his condemnation; and he was never incarcerated. +But he used to go daily to the prison and demand the execution of +his sentence. The gaoler used to shut the door in his face, and he +narrated the result of his visit in the next day's paper! + +It was as Jessie Mario's friend then, that I first knew Garibaldi. + +One morning at the villa I then possessed, at Ricorboli, close to +Florence, a maid-servant came flying into the room, where I was +still in bed at six o'clock in the morning, crying out in the utmost +excitement, "_C'e il Generale! c'e il Generale; e chiede di lei, +signore!_"--"Here's the General! here's the General! And he is asking +for you, sir!" She spoke as if there was but one general in all the +world. But there was hardly any room in Florence at that time where +her words would not have been understood as well as I understood them. + +I jumped out of bed, got into a dressing-gown, and ran out to where +the "General" was on the lawn before the door, just as I was, and +hardly more than half awake. There he was, all alone. But if there had +been a dozen other men around him, I should have had no difficulty in +recognising him. There was the figure as well known to every Italian +from Turin to Syracuse as that of his own father--the light grey +trousers, the little foraging cap, the red shirt, the bandana +handkerchief loosely thrown over his shoulders and round his neck. + +Prints, photographs, portraits of all kinds, have made the English +public scarcely less familiar than the Italian, with the physiognomy +of Giuseppe Garibaldi. But no photograph, of course, and no painting +which I have ever seen, gives certain peculiarities of that striking +head and face, as I first saw it, somewhere about twenty years ago. + +The pose of the head, and the general arrangement and colour of the +tawny hair (at that time but slightly grizzled) justified the epithet +"leonine" so often applied to him. His beard and moustache were of the +same hue, and his skin was probably fair by nature, but it had been +tanned by wind and weather. The clear blue eyes were surrounded by a +network of fine lines. This had no trace or suggestion of _cunning_, +as is often the case with wrinkles round the setting of the eyes, but +was obviously the result of habitual contraction of the muscles in +gazing at very distant objects. In short, Garibaldi's eyes, both in +this respect and in respect of a certain, steadfast, far-away look in +them, were the eyes of a sailor. Seamanship, as is generally known, +was his first profession. Another physical peculiarity of his which +I do not remember to have seen noticed in print was a remarkably +beautiful voice. It was fine in quality and of great range; sweet, yet +manly, and with a suggestion of stored-up power which harmonised with +the man. It seemed to belong, too, to the benevolence, which was the +habitual expression of his face when in repose. + +"Jessie [pronounced Jessee] told me I should find you up; but you are +not so early as I am!" was his salutation. I said he had _dans le +temps_ been beforehand with others as well as with me! At which he +laughed, not, I thought, ill-pleased. And then we talked--about Italy +of course. One subject of his talk I specially remember, because it +gave rise to a little discussion, and in a great degree gave me the +measure of the man. + +"As for the priests," said he, "they ought all to be put to death, +without exception and without delay!" + +"Rather a strong measure!" I ventured to say. + +"Not a bit too strong! not a bit!" he rejoined warmly. "Do we not put +assassins to death? And is not the man who murders your soul worse +than the man who only kills your body?" + +I attempted to say that the difference of the two cases lay in the +fact, that as to the killing of the body there was no doubt about the +matter, whereas mankind differed very widely as to the killing of the +soul; and that as long as it remained a moot point whether priests did +so or not, it would hardly be practicable or even politic to adopt the +measure he suggested. + +But he would not listen to me--only repeated with increasing +excitement that no good could come to humanity till all priests were +destroyed. + +Then we talked about the Marries, of both of whom he spoke with the +greatest affection; and of the prospects of "going to Rome," which of +course he considered the simplest and easiest thing possible. + +I saw Garibaldi on many subsequent occasions, but never again +_tete-a-tete_, or _a Quattro Oct_, as the Italians more significantly +phrase it. The last time I ever saw him was under melancholy +circumstances enough, though the occasion professed to be one of +rejoicing. It was at the great gathering at Palermo for celebrating +the anniversary of the Sicilian Vespers. Of course such a celebration +would have brought Garibaldi to partake in it, wherever he might have +been, short of in his grave. And truly he was then very near that. It +was a melancholy business. He was brought from the steamer to his bed +in the hotel on a litter through the streets lined by the thousands +who had gathered to see him, but who had been warned that his +condition was such, that the excitement occasioned by any shouting +would be perilous to him. Amid dead silence his litter passed through +the crowds who were longing to welcome him to the scene of his old +triumphs! Truly it was more like a funeral procession than one of +rejoicing. + +It was very shortly before his death, which many people thought had +been accelerated by that last effort to make his boundless popularity +available for the propagation of Radicalism. + +Peard's words reveal with exactitude the deficiency which lay at the +root of all the blunders, follies, and imprudence which rendered his +career less largely beneficent for Italy than it might have been. +"He had no judgment of character," and was too honest to believe in +knavery. It must be added that he was too little intelligent to detect +it, or to estimate the consequences of it. Of any large views of +social life, or of the means by which, and the objects for which, men +should be governed, he was as innocent as a baby. In a word, he was +not an intellectual man. All the high qualities which placed him on +the pinnacle he occupied were qualities of the heart and not of the +head. They availed with admirable success to fit him for exercising a +supreme influence over men, especially young men, in the field, and +for all the duties of a guerilla leader. They would not have sufficed +to make him a great commander of armies; and did still less fit him +for becoming a political leader. + +Whom next shall I present to the reader from the portrait gallery of +my reminiscences? + +Come forward, Franz Pulszky, most genial, most large-hearted of +philosophers and friends!--I can't say "guides," for though he was +both the first, he was not the last, differing widely as we did +upon--perhaps not most, but at all events--many large subjects. + +I had known the lady whom Pulszky married in Vienna many years +previously, and long before he knew her. She was the daughter of that +highly cultivated Jewish family of whom I have spoken before. When I +first knew her she was as pretty and charming a young girl as could be +imagined. She was possessed then of all the accomplishments that can +adorn a girl at that period of life. Later on she showed that she +was gifted with sense, knowledge, energy, firmness, courage and +_caractere_ in a degree very uncommon. Since leaving Vienna I had +neither seen nor heard more of her, till she came to live with +her husband and family of children in Florence. But our old +acquaintanceship was readily and naturally renewed, and his villa near +the city became one of the houses I best loved to frequent. She had at +that time, and even well-nigh I take it in those old days at Vienna, +abandoned all seeming of conformity to the practices of the faith she +was born in. + +I used to say of Pulszky that he was like a barrel full to the bung +with generous liquor, which flowed in a full stream, stick the spigot +in where you would. He was--is, I am happy to say is the proper tense +In his case--a most many-sided man. His talk on artistic subjects, +mainly historical and biographical, was abundant and most amusing. +His antiquarian knowledge was large. His ethnographical learning, +theories, and speculations were always interesting and often most +suggestive. Years had, I think, put some water in the wine of his +political ideas, but not enough to prevent differences between us on +such subjects. He was withal--there again I mean "is," for I am sure +that years and the air of his beloved Pesth cannot have put any water +in _that_ generous and genial wine--a fellow of infinite jest, and +full of humour; in a word, one of the fullest and most delightful +companions I have ever known. He talked English with no further accent +than served to add a raciness to the flavour of his conversation; +and every morning of one fixed day in the week he used to come to +Ricorboli for what he called a tobacco parliament. + +I used frequently to spend the evening at his villa, where one met a +somewhat extraordinary cosmopolitan gathering. Generally we had some +good music; for Madame Pulszky was--unhappily in her case the past +tense is needed--a very perfect musician. Among other people more +or less off the world's beaten track, I used to meet there a very +extraordinary Russian, who had accomplished the rare feat of escaping +from Siberia. He was a Nihilist of the most uncompromising type; a +huge, shaggy man, with an unkempt head and chest like those of a bear; +and by his side--more or less--there was a pretty, _petite_, dainty +little young wife--beauty and the beast, if ever that storied couple +were seen in the flesh! + +Many years afterwards when I and my wife saw Pulszky at Pesth, and +were talking of old times, he reminded me of this person; and on +my doubting that any man in his senses could believe in the +practicability of the extreme Nihilist theories, he instanced our old +acquaintance, saying, "Yes, there is a man, who in his very inmost +conscience believes that no good of any sort can be achieved for +humanity till the sponge shall have been passed over _all_ that +men have instituted and done, and a perfect _tabula rasa_ has been +substituted for it!" + +I have many letters from Pulszky, written most of them after his +return to Pesth, and for the most part too much occupied with the +persons and politics of that recent day to be fit for publication. + +Here is one, written before he left Florence, which may be given: + + * * * * * + +"VILLA PETROVICH. + +"MY DEAR TROLLOPE,--I am just returned from a long excursion with +Boxall to Arezzo, Cortona, Borgo San Sepolcro, Citta di Castello, +Perugia, and Assisi. We were there for a week, and enjoyed it +amazingly. I am sorry to say that I am not now able to join your party +to Camaldoli, since I must see Garibaldi, and do not know as yet +what I shall do when the war begins, which might happen during your +excursion. I hope you will drink a glass of water to my remembrance at +La Vernia from the miraculous well, called from the rocks by my patron +saint, St. Francis of Assisi. I shall come to you on Sunday, and will +tell you more about him. I studied him at Assisi. + +"Yours sincerely, + +"FR. PULSZKY." + + * * * * * + +The following passages may be given from a long letter, written from +Pesth on the 27th of March, 1869. It is for the most part filled with +remarks on the party politics of the hour, and persons, many of them +still on the scene:-- + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR MRS. AND MR. TROLLOPE,--You don't believe how glad I was to +get a token of remembrance from you. It seems to me quite an age since +I left Florence, and your letter was like a voice from a past period. +I live here as a stranger; you would not recognise me. I talk nothing +but politics and business. There is not a man with whom I could speak +in the way that we did on Sundays at your villa. I am of course much +with old Deak. I often dine with him. I know all his anecdotes and +jokes by heart. He likes it, if I visit him; but our conversation +remains within the narrow limits of party politics and the topics of +the day. Sometimes I spend an evening with Baron Eotvoes, the Minister +of Public Instruction, my old friend; and there only we get both +warm in remembering the days of our youth, and building _chateaux +en Espagne_ for the future of the country. Eotvoes has appointed me +Director of the National Museum, which contains a library of 180,000 +volumes, mostly Hungarian; a very indifferent picture gallery, with +a few good pictures and plenty of rubbish; a poor collection of +antiquities; splendid mediaeval goldsmith work; arms, coins, and some +miserable statues; a good collection of stuffed birds; an excellent +one of butterflies; a celebrated one of beetles, and good specimens +for geology and mineralogy. But all this collection is badly, if at +all, catalogued; badly arranged; and until now we have in a great +palace an appropriation of only 1,200_l._ a year. I shall have much to +do there--as much as any minister in his office, if politics leave me +the necessary time for it. + +[Then follows a quantity of details about the party politics of the +day. And then he continues:--] + +"Such a contested election with us costs about 2,000_l._ to 3,000_l._ +I must say I never spent money with more regret than this; but I had +to maintain the party interest and my family influence in my electoral +district. I have there a fine old castle and a splendid park, but I +rarely go to the country, since I have jumped, as you know, once more +into the whirlpool of politics, and can't get out again. An agrarian +communistic agitation has been initiated, I do not know whether with +or without the sanction of S----, but certainly it has spread rapidly +over a great portion of the country, and I doubt whether Government +has the energy for putting that agitation down. It is a very serious +question, especially as it finds us engaged in many other questions of +the highest interest. + +[Then he gives an outline of the position of Hungary in relation to +other States, and then he continues:--] + +"We remain still in opposition with the Wallachians, or, as they now +like to call themselves, Rumanes, and we try to maintain the peace +with Prussia. And now when we should concentrate all our forces to +meet the changes which threaten us, a stupid and wicked Opposition +divides the nation into two hostile camps [how very singular and +unexampled!]. We fight one another to the great pleasure of Russia +and Prussia, who enjoy our fratricidal feuds as the Romans in the +amphitheatre enjoyed the fights of the barbarians in the arena. + +"I must beg your pardon, dear Mrs. Trollope, that I grow so pathetic! +You know it is not my custom when I am with ladies. But you must know +likewise that I live now outside of female society. I do not exactly +know whether it is my fault or that of the ladies of Pesth; so much is +certain that only at Vienna, where I go from time to time, I call upon +ladies. As to my children, Augustus, whom you scarcely know, is a +volunteer in the army according to our law of universal conscription. +Charles you may have seen at Florence. I sent him thither to visit his +grandmother." [Madame Walter, the mother of Madame Pulszky; the lady +who had received us with such pleasant hospitality at Vienna, and who +had come to reside at Florence, where she lived to a great age much +liked and respected.] "Polixena gets handsome and clever; little +Garibaldi is to go to school in September next. I grow old, +discontented, insupportable;" [we found him at Pesth many years +afterwards no one of the three!]; "a journey to Greece and Italy would +certainly do me immense good; but I fear I must give up that plan for +the present year, since after a contested election it is a serious +thing to spend money for amusement. In June I shall leave my present +lodging and go to the Museum, which stands in a handsome square +opposite to the House of Parliament. Excuse me for my long, long talk; +and do not forget your faithful friend, _in partibus infidelium_, + +"FR. PULSZKY." + + * * * * * + +On the 26th of March, 1870, he writes a letter which was brought to +us by his son, the Augustus mentioned in the letter I have just +transcribed. + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR MRS. AND MR. TROLLOPE,--Detained by Parliamentary duties and +the management of my own affairs, I am still unable to make a trip +to Italy to visit my friends, who made the time of my exile more +agreeable to me than my own country. But I send in my stead a second +edition of the old Pulszky, revised and corrected _ad usum Delphini_, +though I do not doubt that you prefer the old book, to which you were +accustomed. My son Augustus has now finished his studies, and is +D.E.L.--in a few days Lieutenant in the reserve, and Secretary at +the Ministry of Finance. Few young men begin their career in a more +promising way. As to myself, Augustus will tell you more than I could +write. I have remained too long in foreign countries to feel entirely +at home at Pesth, where people know how to make use of everybody. I am +M.P., belong to the Finance Committee, am Chairman of the Committee of +Foreign Affairs in the Delegation, Director of the Museum, Chairman of +the Philological Section in the Academy of Sciences, Chairman of the +Society of Fine Arts, Vice-President of three Insurance Offices, +and Member of the Council of two railroads. This long list proves +sufficiently that my time is taken up from early morning to night. But +my health is good, despite of the continuous wear and tear. + +"During the summer vacations I wish to go to England. For ten years +I have not been there; and I long to see again a highly civilised +people; else I become myself a barbarian. Still I am proud of my +Hungarians, who really struggle hard, and not without success, to be +more than they are now--the first of the barbarians. + +"I have for a long time not heard of you. Of course, in our +correspondence your letter was the last, not mine. It is my own fault. +But you must excuse me still for one year. Then I hope I can put +myself in a more comfortable position. For the present I am unable +even to read anything but Hungarian papers, bills, reports, and +business letters. I envy you in your elegant villa, where you enjoy +life! I hope you are both well, and do not forget your old friend, + +"FR. PULSZKY. + +"P.S.--Augustus will give you a good photograph of me." + + * * * * * + +Here is one other letter of the 13th June, 1872:-- + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR TROLLOPE,--What a pity that my time does not allow me to +visit Italy at any other season than just in summer. We are in the +midst of our canvass for the general elections. My son Augustus is to +be returned for my old place Szecseny without opposition on the 21st. +On the following day we go to the poll at Gyoengyoes, a borough which is +to send me to Parliament. It is a contested election, therefore rather +troublesome and expensive, though not too expensive. Parliament meets +with us on the first of September. Thus my holidays are in July and +August. Shall we never have the pleasure to see you and Mrs. Trollope, +to whom I beg you to give my best regards, here at Pesth? Next year +is the great exhibition at Vienna. Might it not induce you to visit +Vienna, whence by an afternoon trip you come to Pesth, where I know +you would amuse yourselves to your hearts' content. + +"My children are quite well. Charles is at the University at Vienna. +He despises politics, and wants to become Professor at the University +of Pesth in ten or twelve years. + +"As to me I am well, very busy; much attacked by the Opposition since +I am a dreaded party man. Besides I have to re-organise the National +Museum, from the library, which has no catalogue, to the great +collections of mineralogy and plants. We bought the splendid picture +gallery of Prince Esterhazy. This too is under my direction, with a +most important collection of prints and drawings. You see, therefore, +that my time is fully occupied. + +"Yours always, + +"FR. PULSZKY." + + * * * * * + +My wife and I did subsequently visit our old friend at Pesth, and much +enjoyed our brief stay there and our chat of old times. But the work +of re-organising the Museum was not yet completed. I do sincerely hope +that the task has been brought to an end by this time, and that I may +either in England or at Pesth once again see Franz Pulszky in the +flesh! + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +According to the pathetic, and on the face of it accurately truthful, +account of the close of his life in Mr. Forster's admirable and +most graphic life of him, I never knew Landor. For the more than +octogenarian old man whom I knew at Florence was clearly not the +Landor whom England had known and admired for so many and such +honoured years. Of all the painful story of the regrettable +circumstances which caused him to seek his last home in Florence it +would be mere impertinence in me to speak, after the lucid, and at the +same time delicately-touched, account of them which his biographer has +given. + +I may say, however, that even after the many years of his absence from +Florence there still lingered a traditional remembrance of him--a sort +of Landor legend--which made all us Anglo-Florentines of those days +very sure, that however blamable his conduct (with reference to the +very partially understood story of the circumstances that caused +him to leave England) may have been in the eyes of lawyers or of +moralists, the motives and feelings that had actuated him must have +been generous and chivalrous. Had we been told that, finding a brick +wall in a place where he thought no wall should be, he had forthwith +proceeded to batter it down with his head, though it was not his wall +but another's, we should have recognised in the report the Landor of +the myths that remained among us concerning him. But that while in any +degree _compos mentis_ he had under whatever provocation acted in a +base, or cowardly, or mean, or underhand manner, was, we considered, +wholly impossible. + +There were various legendary stories current in Florence in those +days of his doings in the olden time. Once--so said the tradition--he +knocked a man down in the street, was brought before the _delegato_, +as the police magistrate was called, and promptly fined one piastre, +value about four and sixpence; whereupon he threw a sequin (two +piastres) down upon the table and said that it was unnecessary to give +him any change, inasmuch as he purposed knocking the man down again as +soon as he left the court. We, _poteri_, as regarded the date of the +story, were all convinced that the true verdict in the matter was that +of the old Cornish jury, "Sarved un right." + +Landor, as I remember him, was a handsome-looking old man, very much +more so, I think, than he could have been as a young man, to judge +by the portrait prefixed to Mr. Forster's volumes. He was a man +of somewhat leonine aspect as regards the general appearance and +expression of the head and face, which accorded well with the large +and massive build of the figure, and to which a superbly curling white +beard added not only picturesqueness, but a certain nobility. + +Landor had been acquainted with the Garrows, and with my first wife +at Torquay; and the acquaintance was quickly renewed during his last +years at Florence. He would frequently come to our house in the Piazza +dell' Independenza, and chat for a while, generally after he had sat +silent for some little time; for he used to appear fatigued by his +walk. Later, when his walks and his visits had come to an end, I used +often to visit him in "the little house under the wall of the +city, directly back of the Carmine, in a bye-street called the Via +Nunziatina, not far from that in which the Casa Guidi stands," which +Mr. Forster thus describes. I continued these visits, always short, +till very near the close; for whether merely from the perfect courtesy +which was a part of his nature, or whether because such interruptions +of the long morning hours were really welcome to him, he never allowed +me to leave him without bidding me come again. + +I remember him asking me after my mother at one of the latest of these +visits. I told him that she was fairly well, was not suffering, but +that she was becoming very deaf. "Dead, is she?" he cried, for he had +heard me imperfectly, "I wish I was! I can't sleep," he added, "but I +very soon shall, soundly too, and all the twenty-four hours round." +I used often to find him reading one of the novels of his old friend +G.P.R. James, and he hardly ever failed to remark that he was a +"woonderful" writer; for so he pronounced the word, which was rather a +favourite one with him. + +It was a singular thing that Landor always dropped his aspirates. He +was, I think, the only man in his position in life whom I ever heard +do so. That a man who was not only by birth a gentleman, but was by +genius and culture--and such culture!--very much more, should do +this, seemed to me an incomprehensible thing. I do not think he ever +introduced the aspirate where it was not needed, but he habitually +spoke of 'and, 'ead, and 'ouse. + +Even very near the close, when he seemed past caring for anything, the +old volcanic fire still lived beneath its ashes, and any word which +touched even gently any of his favourite and habitual modes of thought +was sure to bring forth a reply uttered with a vivacity of manner +quite startling from a man who the moment before had seemed scarcely +alive to what you were saying to him. To what extent this old volcanic +fire still burned may be estimated from a story which was then current +in Florence. The circumstances were related to me in a manner that +seemed to me to render it impossible to doubt the truth of them. But +I did not _see_ the incident in question, and therefore cannot assert +that it took place. The attendance provided for him by the kindly care +of Mr. Browning, as narrated by Mr. Forster, was most assiduous and +exact, as I had many opportunities of observing. But one day when he +had finished his dinner, thinking that the servant did not come to +remove the things so promptly as she ought to have done, he took +the four corners of the table-cloth (so goes the story), and thus +enveloping everything that was on the table, threw the whole out of +the window. + +I received many notes from Landor, for the most part on trifling +occasions, and possessing little interest. They were interesting, +however, to the race of autograph collectors, and they have all been +coaxed out of me at different times, save one. I have, however, in my +possession several letters from him to my father-in-law, Mr. Garrow, +many passages in which are so characteristic that I am sure my readers +will thank me for giving them, as I am about to do. The one letter +of his that remains to me is, as the reader will see, not altogether +without value as a trait of character. The young lady spoken of in +it is the same from whose papers in the _Atlantic Monthly_, entitled +"Last Days of Walter Savage Landor," Mr. Forster has gleaned, as he +says, one or two additional glimpses of him in his last Florence home. +The letter is without date, and runs as follows:-- + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR SIR,--Let me confess to you that I am not very willing that +it should be believed desirous" [he evidently meant to write either +'that I should be believed desirous,' or 'that it should be believed +that I am desirous'] "of scattering my image indiscriminately over the +land. On this sentiment I forbade Mr. Forster to prefix an engraving +of me over my collected works. If Miss Field wishes _one_ more +photograph, Mr. Alinari may send it to her, and I enclose the money to +pay for it. With every good wish for your glory and prosperity, + +"I remain, my dear sir, + +"Very truly yours, + +"W.S. LANDOR." + + * * * * * + +The writing is that of a sadly shaking hand. The lady's request would +unquestionably have been more sure of a favourable response had she +preferred it in person, instead of doing so through me. But I suspect +from the phrase "one more," and the underlining of the word one, that +she had already received from him more than one photograph, and was +ashamed to make yet another application. But she had led, or allowed, +me to imagine that she was then asking for the first time. The care to +send the money for the price of the photograph was a characteristic +touch. Miss Field was, I well remember, a great favourite with Landor. +I remember her telling me that he wished to give her a very large sort +of scrap book, in which, among a quantity of things of no value, there +were, as I knew, some really valuable drawings; and asking me whether +she should accept it, her own feeling leaning to the opinion that she +ought not to do so, in which view I strongly concurred. If I remember +right the book had been sent to her residence, and had to be sent back +again, not without danger of seriously angering him. + +Here are the letters I have spoken of, written by Landor to Mr. +Garrow. They are all undated save by the day of the month, but the +post-marks show them to have been all written in 1836-8. The first +is a very long letter, almost the whole of which is about a quarrel +between husband and wife, both friends of the writer, which it would +serve no good purpose to publish. The following passage from it, +however, must not be lost:-- + + + * * * * * + +"What egregious blockheads must those animals have been who discover a +resemblance to my style in Latin or other quotations. I have no need +of crutches. I can walk forward without anybody's arm; and if I wanted +one, I should not take an old one in preference. Not only do I think +that quotations are deformities and impediments, but I am apt to +believe that my own opinion, at least in those matters of which I +venture to treat, is quite as good as any other man's, living or dead. +If their style is better than my own, it would be bad policy to insert +it; if worse, I should be like a tailor who would recommend his +abilities by engrafting an old sleeve on a new coat.... Southey +tells me that he has known his lady more than twenty years, that the +disproportion of their ages is rational, and that having only one +daughter left, his necessary absences would be irksome to her. +Whatever he does, is done wisely and virtuously. As for Rogers, +almost an octogenarian, be it on his own head! A dry nettle tied to +a rose-bud, just enough life in it to sting, and that's all Lady +Blessington would be delighted at any fresh contribution from Miss +Garrow. Let it be sent to her at Gore House. I go there to-morrow for +ten days, then into Warwickshire, then to Southampton. But I have not +given up all hope of another jaunt to Torquay. Best compliments to the +ladies. + +"Yours ever, + +"W.S.L." + + * * * * * + + +The following is dated the 15th of November, 1837--just half a century +ago! + + * * * * * + +"35, ST. JAMES'S SQUARE, BATH. + +"I should be very ungrateful if I did not often think of you. But +among my negligences, I must regret that I did not carry away with me +the address of our friend Bezzi." [A Piedmontese refugee who was a +very intimate friend of Garrow's. I knew him in long subsequent years, +when political changes had made it possible for him to return to +Italy. He was a very clever and singularly brilliant man, whose name, +I think, became known to the English public in connection with the +discovery of the celebrated portrait of Dante on a long whitewashed +wall of the Bargello, in Florence. There was some little jealousy +about the discovery between him and Kirkup. The truth was that +Kirkup's large and curious antiquarian knowledge led him to feel sure +that the picture must be there, under the whitewash; while Bezzi's +influence with the authorities succeeded in getting the wall cleared +of its covering.] "I am anxious to hear how he endures his absence +from Torquay, and I will write to him the moment I hear of him. Tell +Miss Garrow that the muses like the rustle of dry leaves almost as +well as the whispers of green ones. If she doubts it, entreat her +on my part to ask the question of them. Nothing in Bath is vastly +interesting to me now. Two or three persons have come up and spoken to +me whom I have not seen for a quarter of a century. Of these faces I +recollect but one, and it was the ugliest! By the same token--but here +the figure of aposiopesis is advantageous to me--old Madam Burridge, +of my lodgings, has sent me three large forks and one small, which I +left behind. She forgot to send another of each. What is worse, I left +behind me a three-faced seal, which I think I once showed you. It was +enclosed in a black rough case. This being of the time of Henry the +Eighth, and containing the arms of my family connections, I value far +above a few forks, or a few dozens. It cannot be worth sixpence to +whoever has it. One of the engravings was a greyhound with an arrow +through him, a crest of my grandmother's, whose maiden name was Noble. +If you pass by, pray ask about it--not that I am ever disappointed at +the worst result of an inquiry. I am afraid the ladies of your house +will think me imprudent; and what must be their opinion, if you let it +transpire that I have furthermore invested a part of my scrip in the +beaver trade. Offer my best regards to them all, and believe me, + +"My dear sir, + +"Yours very sincerely, + +"W.S.L." + + * * * * * + +The following is dated only January 2nd, but the post-mark shows it to +have been written from Bath on that day, 1838. + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR SIR,--Yesterday there were lying across my fender three +or four sheets of paper, quite in readiness to dry themselves, and +receive my commands. One of these, I do assure you, was destined for +Torquay, but the interruption of visitors would allow me time only to +cover half a one with my scrawl. Early last week I wrote a long letter +to Bezzi, but wanted the courage to send it. I wish him to remain in +England as much almost as you yourself can do. But if after promising +his lady" [it is noteworthy that such a master of English as Landor, +should use, now for the second time in these letters, this ugly +phrase] "to let her try the air of Italy, he should withdraw, she +might render his life less comfortable by reproaches not altogether +unmerited. When she gets there she will miss her friends; she will +hear nothing but a language which is unknown to her, and will find +that no change of climate can remove her ailments. I offered my house +to Bezzi some time ago, with its two gardens and a hundred acres of +land, all for a hundred a year. But I am confident my son will never +remain in England, and after the expiration of the year will return +to Tuscany. Bezzi cannot find another house, even without garden, for +that money. James paid for a worse twelve louis a month, although he +took it for eight months. So the houses in Tuscany are very far from +inviting to an economist, although vastly less expensive than at +Torquay, the rival of Naples in this respect as in beauty.... I have +found my seal in a waistcoat pocket. I do not think the old woman +stole the forks, but she knew they were stolen.... Kenyon has +something of Falstaff about him, both in the physical and the moral. +But he is a friendly man, of rare judgment in literary works, and of +talents that only fall a little short of genius. + +"God preserve you from your Belial Bishop!" [Philpotts]. "What an +incumbent! I would not see the rascal once a month to be as great a +man as Mr. Shedden, or as sublime a genius as Mr. Wise," [word under +the seal] "would drown me in bile or poison me with blue pills. A +society has been formed here, of which the members have come to the +resolution of making inquiries at every house about the religion of +the inmates, what places of worship they attend, &c., &c. Is not +it hard upon a man, who has changed a couple of sovereigns into +half-crowns for Christmas boxes, to be forced to spend ten shillings +for a horsewhip, when he no longer has a horse? Our weather here is +quite as mild and beautiful as it can possibly be at Torquay. Miss +Garrow, I trust, has listened to the challenges of the birds, and sung +a new song. As Bezzi is secretary and librarian, I must apply to him +for it, unless she will condescend to trust me with a copy. I will now +give you a specimen of my iron seal, brass setting and pewter mending. + +"Yours ever, + +"W.S.L." + + * * * * * + +The mention of Bishop Philpotts (though not by name) in the foregoing +letter, reminds me of a story which used to be told of him, and which +is too good to be lost, even though thus parenthetically told. When at +Torquay he used to frequent a small church, in which the service was +at that time performed by a very young curate of the extra gentle +butter-won't-melt-in-his-mouth kind, who had much objection to +the phrase in the Communion service, "eateth and drinketh his +own damnation," and ventured somewhat tremblingly to substitute +"condemnation" for the word which offended him. Whereupon the orthodox +Bishop reared his head, as he knelt with the rest of the congregation +and roared aloud "_Damnation!_" Whether the curate had to be carried +out fainting, I don't remember. + +The next letter of Landor's that I have is dated 13th April, St. +James's Square, Bath. The postmark shows that it was written in 1838. + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR SIR,--I have had Kenyon here these last four days. He tells +me that he saw Bezzi in London, and that we may entertain some hopes +that he will be induced to remain in England. All he wants is some +employment; and surely his powerful friends among the Whigs could +easily procure him it. But the Whigs of all scoundrelly factions, are, +and have ever been, the most scoundrelly, the most ungenerous, the +most ungrateful. What have they done for Fonblanque, who could have +kicked them overboard on his toe-nail? Their abilities put together +are less than a millionth of his; and his have been constantly and +most zealously exerted in their favour. My first conversation with +Kenyon was about the publication of his poems, which are just come +out. They are in part extremely clever; particularly one on happiness +and another on the shrine of the Virgin. He was obliged to print them +at his own expense; and his cousin, Miss Barrett, who also has written +a few poems of no small merit, could not find a publisher. These, +however, bear no proportion to Miss Garrow's.[1] Yet I doubt whether +publishers and the folks they consult would find out that. + +[Footnote 1: To those who never knew Landor, and the habitual +limitless exaggeration of his manner of speaking, it may be necessary +to observe that he did not really hold any opinion so monstrous as +might be supposed from the passage in the text. And a letter given +by Mr. Forster expresses earnestly and vigorously enough his high +admiration for Miss Barrett's poetry. It must be remembered also, that +at the time this was written, Mr. Landor could only have seen some of +the earliest of Miss Barrett's writings.] + +"Southey was about to write to me when his brothers death, by which +six children come under his care, interrupted him. I wish I possessed +one or two of Miss Garrow's beautiful poems, that I might ask his +opinion and advice about them. His opinion I know would be the same as +mine; but his advice is what I want. Surely it cannot be requisite and +advantageous to withhold them from the world so long as you imagine. +In one single year both enough of materials and of variety for a +volume might be collected and prepared. Would Miss Garrow let me offer +one to the _Book of Beauty_? I shall be with Lady Blessington the +last day of the present month. One of the best poems of our days" [on +death], "appeared in the last _Book of Beauty_. But in general its +poetry is very indifferent. With best regards to the ladies, + +"I am ever, my dear sir, + +"Yours most sincerely, + +"W.S.L." + + * * * * * + +The following, dated merely "Gore House, Sunday morning," was written, +or at least posted, on the 14th May, 1838. + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR SIR,--It is impossible you should not often have thought me +negligent and ungrateful. Over and over again have I redd [_sic_], +the incomparably fine poetry you sent me; and intended that Lady +Blessington should partake in the high enjoyment it afforded me. I had +promised her to be at Gore House toward the end of April, but I had +not the courage to face all my friends. However, here I came on Friday +evening; and before I went to bed I redd to her ladyship what I +promised her. She was enchanted. I then requested her to toss aside +some stuff of mine, and to make way for it in the next _Book of +Beauty_. The gods, as Homer says, granted half my prayer, and it +happened to be (what was not always the case formerly) the better +half. She will insert both. It is only by some such means as that that +the best poetry in our days comes with mincing step into popularity. +Mine being booted and spurred, both ladies and gentlemen get out of +the way of it, and look down at it with a touch of horror. + +"Now for news, and about your neighbours. Captain Ackland is going to +marry a niece of Massy Dawson. Mischievous things are said about poor +Lady M----, all false, you may be sure. Admiral Aylmer after all his +services under Nelson, &c., &c., is unable to procure a commission in +the marines for his nephew, Frederick Paynter. Lord A. will not ask. I +am a suitor to all the old women I know, and shall fail too, for it is +not the thing they want me to ask of them. + +"I see two new Deputy Lord-Lieutenants have been appointed for +the County of Monmouth. My estate there is larger than the Lord +Lieutenant's; yet even this mark of respect has not been paid me. It +might be, safely. I shall consider myself sold to the devil, and for +more than my value, when I accept any distinction, or anything else +from any man living. The Whigs are growing unpopular, I hear. I hope +never to meet any of them. Last night, however, I talked a little with +Grantley Berkeley, and told him a bit of my mind. You see, I have not +much more room in my paper, else I should be obliged to tell you that +the bells are ringing, and that I have only just time to put on my +gloves for church. + +"Adieu, and believe me with kindly regards to the ladies, + +"Yours, + +"W.S.L." + + * * * * * + +The last in this series of letters which has reached my hands is +altogether undated, but appears by the post-mark to have been written +from Bath, 19th July, 1838. + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR SIR,--There is one sentence in your letter which shocked +me not a little. You say 'The Whigs have not offered you a Deputy +Lieutenantcy; so cheap a distinction could not have hurt them. But +then you are too proud to ask,' &c. Do you really suppose that I would +have accepted it even if it had been offered? No, by God! I would not +accept any distinction even if it were offered by honest men. I will +have nothing but what I can take. It is, however, both an injustice +and an affront to confer this dignity on low people, who do not +possess a fourth of my property, and whose family is as ignoble as +Lord Melbourne's own, and not to have offered the same to me. In the +eleventh page of the _Letters_ I published after the quelling of +Bonaparte are these words: 'I was the first to abjure the party of +the Whigs, and shall be the last to abjure the principles. When the +leaders had broken all their promises to the nation, had shown their +utter incapacity to manage its affairs, and their inclination to +crouch before the enemy, I permitted my heart after some struggles to +subside and repose in the cool of this reflection--Let them escape. +It is only the French nation that ever dragged such feebleness to the +scaffold,' Again, page 35--'Honest men, I confess, have generally in +the present times an aversion to the Whig faction, not because it +is suitable either to honesty or understanding to prefer the narrow +principles of the opposite party, but because in every country lax +morals wish to be and are identified with public feeling, and because +in our own a few of the very best have been found in an association +with the very worst.' Whenever the Tories have deviated from their +tenets, they have enlarged their views and exceeded their promises. +The Whigs have always taken an inverse course. Whenever they have come +into power, they have previously been obliged to slight those matters, +and to temporise with those duties, which they had not the courage +either to follow or to renounce. + +"And now, my dear sir, to pleasanter matters. I have nothing in the +press, and never shall have. I gave Forster all my works, written or +to be written. Neither I nor my family shall have anything to do with +booksellers. They say a new edition of my _Imaginary Conversations_ is +called for. I have sent Forster a dozen or two of fresh ones, but I +hope he will not hazard them before my death, and will get a hundred +pounds or near it for the whole. + +"If ever I attended a public dinner, I should like to have been +present at that which the people gave to you. Never let them be quiet +until the Church has gone to the devil, its lawful owner, and till +something a little like Christianity takes its place. If parsons are +to be Lords, it is but right and reasonable that the Queen should be +Pope. Indeed, I have no objection to this, but I have to the other. +What a singularity it is that those who profess a belief in Christ do +not obey Him, while those who profess it in Mahomet or Moses or Boodh +are obedient to their precepts, if not in certain points of morality, +in all things else. Carlyle is a vigorous thinker, but a vile writer, +worse than Bulwer. I breakfasted in company with him at Milman's. +Macaulay was there, a clever clown, and Moore too, whom I had not seen +till then. Between those two Scotchmen he appeared like a glow-worm +between two thistles. There were several other folks, literary and +half literary, Lord Northampton, &c., &c. I forgot Rogers. Milman has +written the two best volumes of poetry we have seen lately; but when +Miss Garrow publishes hers I am certain there will be a total eclipse +of them. My friend Hare's brother, who married a sister of the +impudent coxcomb, Edward Stanley, has bought a house at Torquay, and +Hare tells me that unless he goes to Sicily be shall be there in +winter. If so, we may meet; but Bath is my dear delight in all +seasons. I have been sitting for my picture, and have given it to Mrs. +Paynter. It is admirably executed by Fisher. + +"Yours ever, + +"W.S.L." + + * * * * * + +These letters are all written upon the old-fashioned square sheet of +letter paper, some gilt-edged, entirely written over, even to the +turned-down ends, and heavily sealed. + +Mr. Forster says no word about the Deputy-Lieutenantcy, and Landor's +anger and disgust in connection with it. He must necessarily have +known all about it, but probably in the exuberance of his material did +not think it worth mentioning. But it evidently left almost as painful +an impression on Landor's mind as the famous refusal of the Duke of +Beaufort to appoint him a justice of the peace. + +During the later portion of my life at Florence, and subsequently at +Rome, Mr. G.P. Marsh and his very charming wife were among our +most valued friends for many years. Marsh was an exception to the +prevailing American rule, which for the most part changes their +diplomatists with the change of President. He had been United States +minister at Constantinople and at Turin before he came to Florence +with the Italian monarchy. At Rome he was "the Dean" of the diplomatic +body, and on many occasions various representative duties fell upon +him as such which were especially unwelcome to him. The determination +of the Great Powers to send ambassadors to the Court of the Quirinal +instead of ministers plenipotentiary, as previously, came as a great +boon to Mr. Marsh. For as the United States send no ambassadors, his +position as longest in office of all the diplomatic body no longer +placed him at the head of it. + +Mr. Marsh was a man of very large and varied culture. A thorough +classical scholar and excellent modern linguist, philology was perhaps +his most favourite pursuit. He wrote various books, his best I think a +very large octavo volume, entitled not very happily _Man in Nature_. +The subject of it is the modifications and alterations which this +planet has undergone at the hands of man. His subject leads him to +consider much at large the denudation of mountains, which has caused +and is causing such calamitous mischief in Italy and the south +of France. He shows very convincingly and interestingly that the +destruction of forests causes not only floods in winter and spring, +but drought in summer and autumn. And the efforts which have recently +been made in Italy to take some steps towards the reclothing of the +mountain sides, have in great measure been due to his work, which has +been largely circulated in an Italian translation. + +The following letter which I select from many received from him, is +not without interest. It is dated 30th November, 1867. + + * * * * * + +"DEAR SIR,--I return you Layard's article, which displays his usual +marked ability, and has given me much pleasure as well as instruction. +I should much like to know what are his grounds for believing that +'a satisfactory settlement of this Roman question would have been +speedily brought about with the concurrence of the Italian Government +and the Liberal party in Rome, and with the tacit consent of the +Emperor of the French, had it not been for the untoward enterprise +of Garibaldi,' p. 283. I certainly have not the slightest ground for +believing any such thing; nor do I understand _to whom_ the settlement +referred to would have been 'satisfactory.' Does Mr. Layard suppose +that any conceivable arrangement would be satisfactory both to the +Papacy and to Italian Liberals out of Rome? The _Government_ of Italy, +which changes as often as the moon, might have accepted something +which would have satisfied Louis Napoleon, Antonelli, and the three +hundred _nobili_ of Rome, who waited at dinner, napkin on arm, on the +Antiboini, to whom they gave an entertainment,--but the people? + +"I send you one of Ferretti's pamphlets, which please keep. And I +enclose in the package two of Tuckerman's books. If you could turn +over the leaves of these and say to me in a note that they impress you +favourably, and that you are not displeased with his magazine article, +I will make him a happy man by sending him the note. + +"Very truly yours, + +"GEO.P. MARSH." + + * * * * * + +I did more than "turn over the leaves" of the book sent, and did very +truly say that they had interested me much. It is rather suggestive to +reflect how utterly unintelligible to the present generation must +be the term "Antiboini" in the above letter, without a word of +explanation. The highly unpopular and objectionable "Papal Legion" had +been in great part recruited from Antibes, and were hence nicknamed +"Antiboini," and not, as readers of the present day might fairly +imagine, from having been the opponents of any "boini." + +The personal qualities of Mr. Marsh had obtained for him a great, and +I may indeed say, exceptional degree of consideration and regard from +his colleagues of the diplomatic body, and from the Italian ministers +and political world generally. And I remember one notable instance of +the manifestation of this, which I cannot refrain from citing. Mr. +Marsh had written home to his Government some rather trenchantly +unfavourable remarks on some portion of the then recent measures of +the Italian Ministry. And by some awkward accident or mistake these +had found their way into the columns of an American newspaper. +The circumstances might have given rise to very disagreeable and +mischievous complications and results. But the matter was suffered to +pass without any official observation solely from the high personal +consideration in which Mr. Marsh was held, not only at the Consulta +(the Roman Foreign Office), but at the Quirinal, and in many a Roman +salon. + +Mr. Marsh died full of years and honours at a ripe old age. But the +closing scene of his life was remarkable from the locality of it. He +had gone to pass the hot season at Vallombrosa, where a comfortable +hotel replaces the old _forestieria_ of the monastery, while a School +of Forestry has been established by the Government within its walls. +Amid those secular shades the old diplomatist and scholar breathed his +last, and could not have done so in a more peaceful spot. But the very +inaccessible nature of the place made it a question of some difficulty +how the body should be transported in properly decorous fashion to the +railway station in the valley below--a difficulty which was solved by +the young scholars of the School of Forestry, who turned out in a body +to have the honour of bearing on their shoulders the remains of the +man whose writings had done so much to awaken the Government to the +necessity of establishing the institution to which they belonged. + +Mrs. Marsh, for so many years the brightest ornament of the +Italo-American society, and equally admired and welcomed by the +English colony, first at Florence and then at Rome, still lives for +the equal delight of her friends on the other side of the Atlantic. I +may not, therefore, venture to say more of "what I remember" of her, +than that it abundantly accounts for the feeling of an unfilled void, +which her absence occasioned and occasions in both the American and +English world on the banks of the Tiber. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +It was in the spring of the year 1860 that I first became acquainted +with "George Eliot" and G H. Lewes in Florence. But it was during +their second visit to Italy in 1861 that I saw a good deal more of +them. It was in that year, towards the end of May, that I succeeded +in persuading them to accompany me in a visit to the two celebrated +Tuscan monasteries of Camaldoli and La Vernia. I had visited both on +more than one occasion previously--once with a large and very merry +party of both sexes, of whom Colley Grattan was one--but the excursion +made in company with G.H. Lewes and George Eliot was another-guess +sort of treat, and the days devoted to it stand out in high relief in +my memory as some of the most memorable in my life. + +They were anxious to be moving northwards from Florence, and I had +some difficulty in persuading them to undertake the expedition. A +certain weight of responsibility, therefore, lay on me--that folks +whose days were so sure of being turned to good profit, should not by +my fault be led to waste any of them. But I had already seen enough of +both of them to feel sure that the specialties of the very exceptional +little experience I proposed to them would be appreciated and +acceptable. Neither he nor she were fitted by their habits, or indeed +by the conditions of their health, to encounter much "roughing," and +a certain amount of that was assuredly inevitable--a good deal more +five-and-twenty years ago than would be the case now. But if the flesh +was weak, truly the spirit was willing! I have heard grumbling and +discontent from the young of either sex in the heyday of health and +strength in going over the same ground. But for my companions on the +present occasion, let the difficulties and discomforts be what they +might, the continually varied and continually suggestive interest they +found in everything around them, overrode and overbore all material +considerations. + +Never, I think, have I met with so impressionable and so delicately +sensitive a mind as that of George Eliot! I use "sensitive" in the +sense in which a photographer uses the word in speaking of his plates. +Everything that passed within the ken of that wonderful organism, +whether a thing or combination of things seen, or an incident, or a +trait revealing or suggesting character, was instantly reproduced, +fixed, registered by it, the operating light being the wonderful +native force of her intellect. And the photographs so produced were by +no means evanescent. If ever the admirably epigrammatic phrase, "wax +to receive and marble to retain," was applicable to any human mind, +it was so to that of George Eliot. And not only were the enormous +accumulations of stored-up impressions safe beyond reach of oblivion +or confusion, but they were all and always miraculously ready for +co-ordination with those newly coming in at each passing moment! Think +of the delight of passing, in companionship with such a mind, through +scenes and circumstances entirely new to it! + +Lewes, too, was a most delightful companion, the cheeriest of +philosophers! The old saying of "_Comes jucundus in via pro vehiculo +est_," was especially applicable to him. Though very exhaustible in +bodily force, he was inexhaustible in cheerfulness, and above all in +unwearied, incessant, and minute care for "Polly." In truth, if any +man could ever be said to have lived in another person, Lewes in those +days, and to the end of his life, lived in and for George Eliot. The +talk of worshipping the ground she trod on, and the like, are pretty +lovers phrases, sometimes signifying much, and sometimes very little. +But it is true accurately and literally of Lewes. That care for her, +at once comprehensive and minute, unsleeping watchfulness, lest she +should dash her foot against a stone, was _never_ absent from his +mind. She had become his real self, his genuine _ego_ to all intents +and purposes. And his talk and thoughts were egoistic accordingly. Of +his own person, his ailments, his works, his ideas, his impressions, +you might hear not a word from him in the intercourse of many days. +But there was in his inmost heart a _naif_ and never-doubting faith +that talk on all these subjects as regarded _her_ must be profoundly +interesting to those he talked with. To me, at all events, it was so. +Perhaps had it been otherwise, there would have been less of it. + +We were to reach Camaldoli the first night, and had therefore to +leave Florence very early in the morning. At Pelago, a little +_paese_--village we should call it--on the Arno some fourteen or +fifteen miles above Florence, we were to find saddle-horses, the +journey we were about to make being in those days practicable in no +other way, unless on foot. There was at that time a certain Antonio da +Pelago, whose calling it was to act as guide, and to furnish horses. +I had known him for many years, as did all those whose ramblings took +them into those hills. He was in many respects what people call +"a character," and seemed to fancy himself to have in some degree +proprietary rights over the three celebrated Tuscan monasteries, +Vallombrosa, Camaldoli, and La Vernia. He was well known to the +friars at each of these establishments, and indeed to all the sparse +population of that country-side. He was a very good and competent +guide and courier, possessed with a very amusingly exaggerated notion +of his own importance, and rather bad to turn aside from his own +preconceived and predetermined methods of doing everything that had to +be done. George Eliot at once made a study of him. + +I am reminded, too, as I write, of the great amusement with which my +old and highly-valued friend of many years, Alfred Austin, who long +subsequently was making the same excursion with me and both our wives, +listened to an oration of the indispensable Antonio. One of his +baggage horses had strayed and become temporarily lost among the +hills. He was exceedingly wroth, and poured forth his vexation in +a torrent of very unparliamentary language. "_Corpo di Guida!_" +he exclaimed, among a curious assortment of heterogeneous +adjurations--"Body of Judas!" stooping to the ground as he spoke, and +striking the back of his hand against it, with an action that very +graphically represented a singular survival of the classical _testor +inferos!_ Then suddenly changing his mood, he apostrophised the +missing beast with the almost tearful reproach, "There! there now! +Thou hast made me throw away all my devotions! All! And Easter only +just gone!" That is to say, your fault has betrayed me into violence +and bad language, which has begun a new record of offences just after +I had made all clear by my Easter devotions. + +The first stage of our rough ride was to the little hill town of +Prato Vecchio on the infant Arno, and close under the lofty peaks of +Falterona, in the flanks of which both the Arno and the Tiber rise. +The path, as it descends to the town, winds round the ruins of an +ancient castle, beneath the walls of which is still existent that +Fontebranda fountain, which Adam the forger in the _Inferno_ longed +for a drop of, and which almost all Dantescan scholars and critics +mistake for a larger and nowadays better known fountain of the same +name at Siena. On pointing it out to George Eliot, I found, of course, +that the name and the whole of Adam the forger's history was familiar +to her; but she had little expected to find his local habitation among +these wild hills; and she was unaware of the current mistake between +the Siena Fontebranda, and the little rippling streamlet before us. + +The little _osteria_, at which we were to get some breakfast, was a +somewhat lurid dwelling in an uninviting back lane. But the ready and +smiling good-humour with which the hostess prepared her coffee and +bread, and eggs and bacon, availed much to make up for deficiencies, +especially for guests far more interested in observing every minute +specialty of the place, the persons, and the things, than they were +extreme to mark what was amiss. I remember George Eliot was especially +struck by the absence of either milk or butter, and by the fact that +the inhabitants of these hills, and indeed the Tuscans of the remoter +parts of the country generally, never use them at all--or did not in +those days. + +But it was beyond Prato Vecchio that the most characteristic part of +our ride began. The hills, into the folds and gullies of which we +plunged almost immediately after leaving the walls of the little town, +are of the most arid, and it is hardly too much to say, repulsive +description. It is impossible to imagine soil more evidently to the +least experienced eye hopeless for any purpose useful to man, than +these rolling and deeply water-scored hills. Nor has the region any +of the characters of the picturesque. The soil is very friable, +consisting of an easily disintegrated slaty limestone, of a pale +whitey-brown in prevailing colour, varied here and there by stretches +of similar material greenish in tint. For the most part the hill-sides +are incapable of nourishing even a blade of grass; and they are +evidently in the process of rapid removal into the Mediterranean, for +the further extension of the plain that has been formed between Pisa +and the shore since the time, only a few hundred years ago, when Pisa +was a first-class naval power. All this, with the varied historical +corollaries and speculations which it suggested, was highly +interesting to my fellow-travellers. + +But the ride, nowhere dangerous, though demanding some strong faith in +the sure-footedness of Antonio's steeds, is not an easy one. The +sun was beating with unmitigated glare on those utterly shadeless +hill-sides. It was out of the question to attempt anything beyond +a walk. The sides of the gullies, which had to be ascended and +descended, though never reaching to the picturesque proportions +of precipices, were yet sufficiently steep and rough to make very +fatiguing riding for a lady unaccustomed to such exercise. And George +Eliot was in no very robust condition of health at the time. And +despite his well dissembled anxiety I could see that Lewes was not +easy respecting her capability of resisting the heat, the fatigue, and +the unwonted exercise. But her cheerfulness and activity of interest +never failed her for an instant. Her mind "made increment of +everything." Nor even while I led her horse down some of the +worst descents did the exigencies of the path avail to interrupt +conversation, full of thought and far-reaching suggestiveness, as her +talk ever was. + +At last we reached the spot where the territory of the monastery +commences; and it is one that impresses itself on the imagination and +the memory in a measure not likely to be forgotten. The change is like +a pantomime transformation scene! The traveller passes without the +slightest intermediate gradation from the dreary scene which has been +described, into the shade and the beauty of a region of magnificent +and well-managed forest! The bodily delight of passing from the severe +glare of the sun into this coolness, welcome alike to the skin and to +the eye, was very great. And to both my companions, but especially to +George Eliot, the great beauty of the scene we entered on gave the +keenest pleasure. + +Assuredly Saint Romuald in selecting a site for his Camaldolese did +not derogate from the apparently instinctive wisdom which seems to +have inspired the founders of monasteries of every order and in every +country of Europe. Invariably the positions of the religious houses +were admirably well chosen; and that of Camaldoli is no exception to +the rule. The convent is not visible from the spot where the visitor +enters the forest boundary which marks the limit of the monastic +domain. Nearly an hour's ride through scenery increasing in beauty +with each step, where richly green lawns well stocked with cattle +are contrasted wonderfully with the arid desolation so recently left +behind, has still to be done ere the convent's hospitable door is +reached. + +The convent door, however, in our case was not reached, for the +building used for the reception of visitors, and called the +_forestieria_, occupies its humble position by the road side a hundred +yards or so before the entrance to the monastery is reached. There +Antonio halted his cavalcade, and while showing us our quarters with +all the air of a master, sent one of his attendant lads to summon +the _padre forestieraio_--the monk deputed by the society to receive +strangers. + +Had our party consisted of men only, we should have been received in +the convent, where there was a very handsome suite of rooms reserved +for the purpose. But females could not enter the precincts of the +cloister. The father in question very shortly made his appearance, a +magnificent figure, whose long black beard flowing over his perfectly +clean white robe made as picturesque a presentment of a friar as could +be desired. He was extremely courteous, and seemed to desire nothing +better than to talk _ad libitum_. But for my fellow travellers, rest +after their broiling ride was the thing most urgently needed. + +And this requirement brought us to the consideration of our +accommodation for the night. The humble little _forestieria_ at +Camaldoli was not built for any such purpose. It never, of course, +entered into the heads of the builders that need could ever arise +for receiving any save male guests. And for such, as I have said, a +handsome suite of large rooms, both sitting-rooms and bedrooms, +with huge fireplaces for the burning of colossal logs, is provided. +Ordinary brethren of the order would not be lodged there. The +magnificence is reserved for a Cardinal (Gregory XVI. who had been +a Camaldolese frequently came here), or a travelling Bishop and his +suite, or a heretic English or American milord! But not for any +daughter of Eve! And the makeshift room over a carpenter's shop, which +is called the _forestieria_, has been devoted to the purpose only in +consequence of the incomprehensible mania of female English heretics +for visiting the disciples of St. Romuald. And there the food supplied +from the convent can be brought to them. But for the night? I had +warned my friends that they would have to occupy different quarters; +and it now became necessary to introduce George Eliot to the place she +was to pass the night in. + +At the distance of about twenty minutes' walk above the convent, +across a lovely but very steep extent of beautifully green turf, +encircled by the surrounding forest, there is a cow-house, with an +annexed lodging for the cowherd and his wife. And over the cow stable +is--or was, for the monks have been driven away and all is altered +now!--a bedchamber with three or four beds in it, which the +toleration of the community has provided for the accommodation of the +unaccountable female islanders. I have assisted in conveying parties +of ladies up that steep grassy slope by the light of a full moon, +when all the beds had to be somewhat more than fully occupied. But +fortunately George Eliot had the whole chamber to herself--perhaps, +however, not quite fortunately, for it was a very novel and not +altogether reassuring experience for her to be left absolutely alone +for the night, to the protection of an almost entirely unintelligible +cowherd and his wife! But there was no help for it! G.H. Lewes did not +seem to be quite easy about it; but George Eliot did not appear to be +troubled by the slightest alarm or misgiving. She seemed, indeed, to +enjoy all the novelty and strangeness of the situation; and when she +bade us good-night from the one little window of her chamber over the +cows, as we turned to walk down the slope to our grand bedrooms at the +convent, she said she should be sure to be ready when we came for her +in the morning, as the cows would call her, if the cowherds failed to +do so. + +The following morning we were to ride up the mountain to the Sagro +Eremo. Convent hours are early, and soon after the dawn we +had convoyed our female companion down the hill to the little +_forestieria_ for breakfast, where the _padre forestieraio_ gave us +the best coffee we had had for many a day. George Eliot declared that +she had had an exceptionally good night, and was delighted with the +talk of the magnificently black-bearded father, who superintended our +meal, while a lay brother waited on us. + +The former was to start in a day or two on his triennial holiday, and +he was much excited at the prospect of it. His _naif_ talk and quite +childlike questions and speculations as to times and distances, and +what could be done in a day, and the like, amused George Eliot much. +In reckoning up his available hours he deducted so much in each day +for the due performance of his canonical duties. I remarked to him +that he could read the prescribed service in the diligence, as I had +often seen priests doing. "Secular priests no doubt!" he said, "but +that would not suit one of _us!_" + +Our ride up to the Sagro Eremo was a thing to be remembered! I had +seen and done it all before; but I had not seen or done it in company +with George Eliot. It was like doing it with a new pair of eyes, and +freshly inspired mind! The way is long and steep, through magnificent +forests, with every here and there a lovely enclosed lawn, and +fugitive peeps over the distant country. On our way up we met a +singular procession coming down. + +It consisted of a low large cart drawn by two oxen, and attended by +several lay brothers and peasants, in the centre of which was seated +an enormously fat brother of the order, whose white-robed bust with +immense flowing white beard, emerging from a quantity of red wraps +and coverings, that concealed the lower part of his person, made an +extraordinary appearance. He was being brought down from the Sagro +Eremo to the superior comfort of the convent, because he was unwell. + +At the Sagro Eremo--the sacred hermitage--is seen the operation of the +Camaldolese rule in its original strictness and perfection. At the +convent itself it is, or has become, much relaxed in many respects. +The Camaldolese, like other Carthusians, are properly _hermits_, that +is to say, their life is not conventual, but eremitical. Each brother +at the Sagro Eremo inhabits his own separately built cell, +consisting of sleeping chamber, study, wood-room, and garden, all of +microscopical dimensions. His food, exclusively vegetable, is +passed in to him by a little turntable made in the wall. There is a +refectory, in which the members of the community eat in common on two +or three festivals in the course of the year. On these occasions only +is any speech or oral communication between the members permitted. +There is a library tolerably well furnished with historical as well as +theological works. But it is evidently never used. Nor is there any +sign that the little gardens are in any degree cultivated by the +occupants of them. I remarked to George Eliot on the strangeness of +this abstinence from both the two permitted occupations, which might +seem to afford some alleviation of the awful solitude and monotony of +the eremitical life. But she remarked that the facts as we saw them +were just such as she should have expected to find! + +The Sagro Eremo is inhabited by three classes of inmates; firstly, by +novices, who are not permitted to come down to the comparative luxury +and comfort and milder climate of the convent till they have passed +three or four years at the Sagro Eremo. Secondly, by those who have +been sent thither from the convent below as punishment for some +misdoing. Thirdly, by those who remain there of their own free will, +in the hope of meriting a higher and more distinguished reward for +their austerities in a future life. One such was pointed out to us, +who had never left the Eremo for more than fifty years, a tall, +very gaunt, very meagre old man with white hair, hollow cheeks, and +parchment skin, a nose like an eagle's beak, and deep-set burning +eyes--as typical a figure, in its way, as the rosy mountain of a man +whom we met travelling down in his ox cart. + +Lewes was always anxious lest George Eliot should over-tire herself. +But she was insatiably interested both in the place and the denizens +of it. + +Then before supper at the _forestieria_ was ready, our friend the +father _forestieraio_ insisted on showing us the growing crop of +haricot beans, so celebrated for their excellence that some of them +were annually sent to Pope Gregory the Sixteenth as long as he lived. + +Then followed another night in the cow-house for George Eliot and for +us in the convent, and the next morning we started with Antonio and +his horses for La Vernia. + +The ride thither from Camaldoli, though less difficult, is also less +peculiar than that from Prato Vecchio to the latter monastery, at +least, until La Vernia is nearly reached. The _penna_ (Cornish, Pen; +Cumbrian, Penrith; Spanish, Pena) on which the monastery is built is +one of the numerous isolated rocky points which have given their names +to the Pennine Alps and Apennines. The Penna de la Vernia rises very +steeply from the rolling ground below, and towers above the traveller +with its pyramidal point in very suggestive fashion. The well-wooded +sides of the conical hill are diversified by emergent rocks, and the +plume of trees on the summit seems to suggest a Latin rather than a +Celtic significance for the "Penna." + +It is a long and tedious climb to the convent, but the picturesque +beauty of the spot, the charm of the distant outlook, and above all +the historical interest of the site, rewards the visitor's toil +abundantly. There is a _forestieria_ here also, within the precincts +of the convent, but not within the technical "cloister." It is simply +a room in which visitors of either sex may partake of such food as the +poor Franciscans can furnish them, which is by no means such as the +more well-to-do Carthusians of Camaldoli supply to their guests. Nor +have the quarters set apart for the sleeping accommodation of male +visitors within the cloister anything of the spacious old-world +grandeur of the strangers' suite of rooms at the latter monastery. The +difficulty also of arranging for the night's lodging of a female is +much greater at La Vernia. There is indeed a very fairly comfortable +house, kept under the management of two sisters of the order of Saint +Francis, expressly for the purpose of lodging lady pilgrims to the +shrine. For in former days--scarcely now, I think--the wives of the +Florentine aristocracy used to undertake a pilgrimage to La Vernia +as a work of devotion. But this house is at the bottom of the long +ascent--nearly an hour's severe climb from the convent--an arrangement +which necessarily involves much additional fatigue to a lady visitor. + +George Eliot writes to Miss Sara Hennell on the 19th of June, a letter +inserted by Mr. Cross in his admirable biography of his wife--"I +wish you could have shared the pleasures of our last expedition from +Florence to the monasteries of Camaldoli and La Vernia. I think it +was just the sort of thing you would have entered into with thorough +zest." And she goes on to speak of La Vernia in a manner which seems +to show that it was the latter establishment which most keenly +interested and impressed her. She was in fact under the spell of the +great and still potent personality of Saint Francis, which informs +with his memory every detail of the buildings and rocks around you. +Each legend was full of interest for her. The alembic of her mind +seemed to have the secret of distilling from traditions, which in +their grossness the ordinary visitor turns from with a smile of +contempt, the spiritual value they once possessed for ages of faith, +or at least the poetry with which the simple belief of those ages has +invested them. Nobody could be more alive to every aspect of natural +beauty than she showed herself during the whole of this memorable +excursion. But at La Vernia the human interest over-rode the simply +aesthetic one. + +Her day was a most fatiguing one. And when Lewes and I wearily climbed +the hill on foot, after escorting her to her sleeping quarters, he was +not a little anxious lest on the morrow she should find herself unable +for the ride which was to take us to the spot where a carriage was +available for our return to Florence. + +But it was not so. She slept well under the care of the Franciscan +nuns, who managed to get her a cup of milkless coffee in the morning, +and so save her from the necessity of again climbing the hill. A +charming drive through the Casentino, or valley of the Upper Arno, +showing us the aspect of a Tuscan valley very different from that +of the Lower Arno, brought to an end an expedition which has always +remained in my memory as one of the most delightful of my life. + +I had much talk with George Eliot during the time--very short at +Florence--when she was maturing her Italian novel, _Romola_. Of +course, I knew that she was digesting the acquisitions of each day +with a view to writing; but I had not the slightest idea of the period +to which her inquiries were specially directed, or of the nature of +the work intended. But when I read _Romola_, I was struck by the +wonderful power of absorption manifested in every page of it. The +rapidity with which she squeezed out the essence and significance of a +most complex period of history, and assimilated the net results of its +many-sided phases, was truly marvellous. + +Nevertheless, in drawing the girl Romola, her subjectivity has +overpowered her objectivity. Romola is not--could never have been--the +product of the period and of the civilisation from which she is +described as having issued. There is far too much of George Eliot in +her. It was a period, it is true, in which female culture trod upon +the heels of the male culture of the time perhaps more closely than it +has ever done since. But let Vittoria Colonna be accepted, as probably +she may be, as a fair exponent of the highest point to which that +culture had reached, and an examination of the sonnets into which +she has put her highest thoughts and aspirations together with a +comparison of those with the mental calibre of Romola will, I think, +support the view I have taken. + +Tito, on the other hand, gives us with truly wonderful accuracy and +vigour "the very form and pressure of the time." The pages which +describe him read like a quintessential distillation of the Florentine +story of the time and of the human results which it had availed to +produce. The character of Savonarola, of course, remains, and must +remain, a problem, despite all that has been done for the elucidation +of it since _Romola_ was written. But her reading of it is most +characteristically that which her own idiosyncrasy--so akin to it +in its humanitarian aspects, so superior to it in its methods of +considering man and his relations to the unseen--would lead one to +expect. + +In 1869-70, George Eliot and Mr. Lewes visited Italy for the fourth +time. I had since the date of their former visit quitted my house in +Florence, and established myself in a villa and small _podere_ at +Ricorboli, a commune outside the Florentine Porta San Niccolo. And +there I had the great pleasure of receiving them under my roof, +assisted in doing so by my present wife. Their visit was all too short +a one--less than a week, I think. + +But one knows a person with whom one has passed even that short time +under the same roof far better than can ever be the result of a very +much longer acquaintanceship during which one meets only in the +ordinary intercourse of society. And the really intimate knowledge of +her which I was thus enabled to obtain has left with me the abiding +conviction that she was intellectually by far the most extraordinarily +gifted person it has ever been my good fortune to meet. I do not +insist much on the uniform and constant tender consideration for +others, which was her habitual frame of mind, for I have known others +of whom the same might have been said. It is true that it is easy for +those in the enjoyment of that vigorous health, which renders mere +living a pleasure, to be kindly; and that George Eliot was never +betrayed by suffering, however protracted and severe, into the +smallest manifestation of impatience or unkindly feeling. But neither +is this trained excellence of charity matchless among women. What +was truly, in my experience, matchless, was simply the power of her +intelligence; the precision, the promptitude, the rapidity (though +her manner was by no means rapid), the largeness of the field of +knowledge, the compressed outcome of which she was at any moment ready +to bring to bear on the topic in hand; the sureness and lucidity +of her induction; the clearness of vision, to which muddle was as +impossible and abhorrent as a vacuum is supposed to be to nature; and +all this lighted up and gilded by an infinite sense of, and capacity +for, humour,--this was what rendered her to me a marvel, and an object +of inexhaustible study and admiration. + +To me, though I never passed half an hour in conversation with her +without a renewed perception of the vastness of the distance which +separated her intelligence from mine, she was a companion each minute +of intercourse with whom was a delight. But I can easily understand +that, despite her perfect readiness to place herself for the nonce on +the intellectual level of those with whom she chanced to be brought in +contact, her society may not have been agreeable to all. I remember a +young lady--by no means a stupid or unintelligent one--telling me that +being with George Eliot always gave her a pain in "her mental neck," +just as an hour passed in a picture gallery did to her physical neck. +She was fatigued by the constant attitude of looking up. But had she +not been an intelligent girl, she need not have constantly looked up. +It would be a great mistake to suppose that George Eliot's mental +habits exacted such an attitude from those she conversed with. + +Another very prominent and notable characteristic of that most +remarkable idiosyncrasy was the large and almost universal tolerance +with which George Eliot regarded her fellow creatures. Often and +often has her tone of mind reminded me of the French saying, "_Tout +connaitre ce serait tout pardonner!_" I think that of all the human +beings I have ever known or met George Eliot would have made the most +admirable, the most perfect father confessor. I can conceive nothing +more healing, more salutary to a stricken and darkened soul, than +unrestricted confession to such a mind and such an intelligence as +hers. Surely a Church with a whole priesthood of such confessors would +produce a model world. + +And with all this I am well persuaded that her mind was at that time +in a condition of growth. Her outlook on the world could not have +been said at that time to have been a happy one. And my subsequent +acquaintance with her in after years led me to feel sure that this had +become much modified. She once said to me at Florence that she wished +she never had been born! I was deeply pained and shocked; but I am +convinced that the utterance was the result, not of irritation and +impatience caused by pain, but of the influence exercised on the tone +of thought and power of thinking by bodily malady. I feel sure that +she would not have given expression to such a sentiment when I and my +wife were subsequently staying with her and Lewes at their lovely +home in Surrey. She had by that time, I cannot but think, reached a +brighter outlook and happier frame of mind. + +We had as neighbours at Ricorboli, although on the opposite bank of +the Arno, our old and very highly-valued friends, Mr. G.P. Marsh, the +United States Minister, and his charming wife, to whom for the sake of +both parties we were desirous of introducing our distinguished guests. +We thought it right to explain to Mrs. Marsh fully all that was not +strictly normal in the relationship of George Eliot and G.H. Lewes +before bringing them together, and were assured both by her and by her +husband that they saw nothing in the circumstances which need deprive +them of the pleasure of making the acquaintance of persons whom it +would be so agreeable to them to know. The Marsh's were at that time +giving rather large weekly receptions in the fine rooms of their +villa, and our friends accompanied us to one of these. It was very +easy to see that both ladies appreciated each other. There was a +large gathering, mostly of Americans, and Lewes exerted himself to be +agreeable and amusing--which he always was, when he wished to be, to a +degree rarely surpassed. + +He and I used to walk about the country together when "Polly" was +indisposed for walking; and I found him an incomparable companion, +whether a gay or a grave mood were uppermost. He was the best +_raconteur_ I ever knew, full of anecdote, and with a delicious +perception of humour. She also, as I have said--very needlessly +to those who have read her books--had an exquisite feeling and +appreciation of the humorous, abundantly sufficient if unsupported by +other examples, to put Thackeray's dicta on the subject of woman's +capacity for humour out of court. But George Eliot's sense of humour +was different in quality rather than in degree from that which Lewes +so abundantly possessed. And it was a curious and interesting study to +observe the manifestation of the quality in both of them. It was not +that the humour, which he felt and expressed, was less delicate +in quality or less informed by deep human insight and the true +_nihil-humanum-a-me-alienum-puto_ spirit than hers, but it was less +wide and far-reaching in its purview of human feelings and passions +and interests; more often individual in its applicability, and less +drawn from the depths of human nature as exhibited by types +and classes. And often they would cap each other with a mutual +relationship similar to that between a rule of syntax and its example, +sometimes the one coming first and sometimes the other. + +I remember that during the happy days of this visit I was writing a +novel, afterwards published under the title of _A Siren_, and Lewes +asked me to show him the manuscript, then nearly completed. Of course +I was only too glad to have the advantage of his criticism. He was +much struck by the story, but urged me to invert the order in which +it was told. The main incident of the plot is a murder caused by +jealousy, and I had begun by narrating the circumstances which led up +to it in their natural sequence. He advised me to begin by bringing +before the reader the murdered body of the victim, and then unfold the +causes which had led to the crime. And I followed his advice. + +The murder is represented as having been committed on a sleeping +person by piercing the heart with a needle, and then artistically +covering the almost imperceptible orifice of the wound with wax, in +such sort as to render the discovery of the wound and the cause of +death almost impossible even by professional eyes. And I may mention +that the facts were related to me by a distinguished man of science at +Florence, as having really occurred. + +Perhaps, since I have been led to speak of this story of mine, I may +be excused for recording an incident connected with it, which occurred +some years subsequently at Rome, in the drawing-room of Mrs. Marsh. +The scene of the story is Ravenna. And Mrs. Marsh specially introduced +me to a very charming young couple, the Count and Countess Pasolini +of Ravenna, as the author of _A Siren_. They said they had been most +anxious to know who could have written that book! They thought that no +Englishman could have been resident at Ravenna without their having +known him, or at least known _of_ him. And yet it was evident that a +writer, who could photograph the life and society of Ravenna as it had +been photographed in the book in question must have resided there and +lived in the midst of it for some time. But I never was in Ravenna for +a longer time than a week in my life. + +It was many years after the visit of George Eliot and Mr. Lewes to my +house at Ricorboli that I and my wife visited them at The Heights, +Witley, in Surrey. I found that George Eliot had grown! She was +evidently happier. There was the same specially quiet and one may say +harmonious gentleness about her manner and her thought and her ways. +But her outlook on life seemed to be a brighter, a larger, and as I +cannot doubt, a healthier one. She would no longer, I am well assured, +have talked of regretting that she had been born! It would be to give +an erroneous impression if I were to say that she seemed to be more in +charity with all men, for assuredly I never knew her otherwise. But, +if the words may be used, as I think they may be understood, without +irreverence, or any meaning that would be akin to blasphemy, she +seemed to me to be more in charity with her Creator. The ways of God +to man had become more justified to her; and her outlook as to the +futurity of the world was a more hopeful one. Of course optimism had +with her to be long-sighted! But she seemed to have become reconciled +to the certainty that he who stands on a lofty eminence must needs see +long stretches of dusty road across the plains beneath him. + +Nothing could be more enjoyable than the evenings passed by the +_partie carree_ consisting of herself and Lewes, and my wife and +myself. I am afflicted by hardness of hearing, which shuts me out from +many of the pleasures of society. And George Eliot had that excellency +in woman, a low voice. Yet, partly no doubt by dint of an exertion +which her kindness prompted, but in great measure from the perfection +of her dainty articulation, I was able to hear her more perfectly than +I generally hear anybody. One evening Mr. and Mrs. Du Maurier joined +us. The Lewes's had a great regard for Mr. Du Maurier, and spoke to us +in a most feeling way of the danger which had then recently threatened +the eyesight of that admirable artist. We had music; and Mr. Du +Maurier sang a drinking song, accompanying himself on the piano. +George Eliot had specially asked for this song, saying, I remember, "A +good drinking song is the only form of intemperance I admire!" + +I think also that Lewes seemed in higher spirits than when I had +been with him at Florence. But this was no more than an additional +testimony to the fact that _she_ was happier. + +She also was, I take it, in better health, for we had some most +delightful walks over the exceptionally beautiful country in the +neighbourhood of their house, to a greater extent than she would, I +think, have been capable of at Florence. + +One day we made a most memorable excursion to visit Tennyson at Black +Down. It was the first time I had ever seen him. He walked with us +round his garden, and to a point finely overlooking the country below, +charmingly varied by cultivated land, meadow and woodland. It was +a magnificent day; but as I looked over the landscape I thought I +understood why the woods, which one looks down on from a similar +Italian height, are called _macchie_--stains, whereas our ordinarily +more picturesque language knows no such term and no such image. In +looking over a wide-spread Italian landscape one is struck by the +accuracy and picturesque truth of the image; but it needs the sun and +the light and the atmosphere of Italy to produce the contrast of light +and shade which justifies the phrase. + +Our friends were evidently _personae gratae_ at the court of the +Laureate; and after our walk he gave us the exquisite treat of reading +to us the just completed manuscript of _Rizpah_. And how he read it! +Everybody thinks that he has been impressed by that wonderful poem to +the full extent of the effect that it is capable of producing. They +would be astonished at the increase of weird terror which thrills the +hearer of the poet's own recital of it. + +He was very good-natured about it. It was explained to him by George +Eliot that I should not be able to enjoy the reading unless I were +close to him, so he placed me by his side. He detected me availing +myself of that position to use my good eyes as well as my bad ears, +and protested; but on my appeal _ad misrecordiam_, and assurance that +I should so enjoy the promised treat to infinitely greater effect, he +allowed me to look over his shoulder as he read. After _Rizpah_ he +read the _Northern Cobbler_ to us, also with wonderful effect. The +difference between reading the printed lines and hearing them so read +is truly that between looking on a black and white engraving and the +coloured picture from which it has been taken. Another thing also +struck me. The provincial dialect, which, when its peculiarities are +indicated by letters, looks so uncouth as to be sometimes almost +puzzling, seemed to produce no difficulty at all as he read it, though +he in nowise mitigated it in the least. It seemed the absolutely +natural and necessary presentation of the thoughts and emotions to be +rendered. It was, in fact, a dramatic rendering of them of the highest +order. + +I remember with equal vividness hearing Lowell read some of his +_Biglow Papers_ in the drawing-room of my valued friend Arthur Dexter, +of Boston, when there were no others present save him and his mother +and my wife and myself. And that also was a great treat; that also was +the addition of colour to the black and white of the printed page. But +the difference between reading and hearing was not so great as in the +case of the Laureate. + +When, full of the delight that had been afforded us, we were taking +our leave of him, our host laid on us his strict injunctions to say +no word to any one of what we had heard, adding with a smile that was +half _naif_, half funning, and wholly comic, "The newspaper fellows, +you know, would get hold of the story, and they would not do it as +well!" + +And then our visit to the Lewes's in their lovely home drew to an end, +and we said our farewells, little thinking as we four stood in that +porch, that we should never in this world look on their faces more. + +The history of George Eliot's intellect is to a great extent legible +in her books. But there are thousands of her readers in both +hemispheres who would like to possess a more concrete image of her +in their minds--an image which should give back the personal +peculiarities of face, voice, and manner, that made up her outward +form and semblance. I cannot pretend to the power of creating such an +image; but I may record a few traits which will be set down at all +events as truthfully as I can give them. + +She was not, as the world in general is aware, a handsome, or even a +personable woman. Her face was long; the eyes not large nor beautiful +in colour--they were, I think, of a greyish blue--the hair, which she +wore in old-fashioned braids coming low down on either side of her +face, of a rather light brown. It was streaked with grey when last I +saw her. Her figure was of middle height, large-boned and powerful. +Lewes often said that she inherited from her peasant ancestors a frame +and constitution originally very robust. Her head was finely formed, +with a noble and well-balanced arch from brow to crown. The lips and +mouth possessed a power of infinitely varied expression. George Lewes +once said to me when I made some observation to the effect that she +had a sweet face (I meant that the face expressed great sweetness), +"You might say what a sweet hundred faces! I look at her sometimes in +amazement. Her countenance is constantly changing." The said lips and +mouth were distinctly sensuous in form and fulness. + +She has been compared to the portraits of Savonarola (who was +frightful) and of Dante (who though stern and bitter-looking, was +handsome). _Something_ there was of both faces in George Eliot's +physiognomy. Lewes told us in her presence, of the exclamation uttered +suddenly by some one to whom she was pointed out at a place of public +entertainment--I believe it was at a Monday Popular Concert in St. +James's Hall. "That," said a bystander, "is George Eliot." The +gentleman to whom she was thus indicated gave one swift, searching +look and exclaimed _sotto voce_, "Dante's aunt!" Lewes thought this +happy, and he recognised the kind of likeness that was meant to the +great singer of the _Divine Comedy_. She herself playfully disclaimed +any resemblance to Savonarola. But, although such resemblance was very +distant--Savonarola's peculiarly unbalanced countenance being a strong +caricature of hers--some likeness there was. + +Her speaking voice was, I think, one of the most beautiful I ever +heard, and she used it _conscientiously_, if I may say so. I mean that +she availed herself of its modulations to give thrilling emphasis to +what was profound in her utterances, and sweetness to what was gentle +or playful. She bestowed great care too on her enunciation, disliking +the slipshod mode of pronouncing which is so common. I have several +times heard her declare with enthusiasm that ours is a beautiful +language, a noble language even to the ear, when properly spoken; and +imitate with disgust the short, _snappy_, inarticulate way in which +many people utter it. There was no touch of pedantry or affectation in +her own measured, careful speech, although I can well imagine that she +might have been accused of both by those persons--unfortunately more +numerous than could be desired--who seem to take it for granted that +_all_ difference from one's neighbour, and especially a difference in +the direction of superiority, must be affected. + +It has been thought by some persons that the influence of George Henry +Lewes on her literary work was not a fortunate one, that he fostered +too much the scientific bent of her mind to the detriment of its +artistic richness. I do not myself hold this opinion. I am even +inclined to think that but for his companionship and encouragement she +might possibly never have written fiction at all. It is, I believe, +impossible to over-estimate the degree to which the sunshine of +his complete and understanding sympathy and his adoring affection +developed her literary powers. She has written something to this +effect--perhaps more than once; I have not her biography at hand at +this moment for reference--in a letter to Miss Sara Hennell. And no +one who saw them together in anything like intimate intercourse could +doubt that it was true. As I have said before, Lewes worshipped +her, and it is considered a somewhat unwholesome experience to be +worshipped. Fortunately the process is not so common as to constitute +one of the dangers of life for the average human being! But in George +Eliot's case I really believe the process was not deleterious. Her +nature was at once stimulated and steadied by Lewes's boundless faith +in her powers, and boundless admiration for their manifestation. Nor +was it a case of sitting like an idol to be praised and incensed. Her +own mental attitude towards Lewes was one of warm admiration. She +thought most highly of his scientific attainments, whether well +foundedly or mistakenly I cannot pretend to gauge with accuracy. But +she also admired and enjoyed the sparkling brightness of his talk, +and the dramatic vivacity with which he entered into conversation and +discussion, grave or gay. And on these points I may venture to record +my opinion that she was quite right. I always used to think that the +touch of Bohemianism about Lewes had a special charm for her. It must +have offered so piquant a contrast with the middle-class surroundings +of her early life. I observed that she listened with great complacency +to his talk of theatrical things and people. Lewes was fond of +talking about acting and actors, and in telling stories of +celebrated theatrical personages, would imitate--half involuntarily +perhaps--their voice and manner. I remember especially his doing this +with reference to Macready. + +Both of them loved music extremely. It was a curious, and, to me, +rather pathetic study to watch Lewes--a man naturally self-sufficient +(I do not use the word in any odious sense), of a combative turn of +intellect, and with scarcely any diffidence in his nature--so humbly +admitting, and even insisting upon, "Polly's" superiority to himself +in every department. Once when he was walking with my wife in the +garden of their house in Surrey, she turned the conversation which had +been touching other topics to speak of George Eliot. "Oh," said Lewes, +stopping short and looking at her with those bright eyes of his, +"_Your blood be on your own head_! I didn't begin it; but if you wish +to speak of her, _I_ am always ready." It was this complete candour, +and the genuineness of his admiring love for her, which made its +manifestations delightful, and freed them from offence. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +I have a great many letters from G.H. Lewes, and from George Eliot. +Many of the latter are addressed to my wife. And many, especially of +those from Lewes, relating as they do mainly to matters of literary +business, though always containing characteristic touches, are not of +sufficient general interest to make it worth while to transcribe them +for publication. In no case is there any word in any of them that +would make it expedient to withhold them on any other ground. I might +perhaps have introduced them into my narrative as nearly as possible +at the times to which chronologically they refer. But it has seemed to +me so probable that there may be many readers who may be glad of an +opportunity of seeing these letters without feeling disposed to give +their time to the rest of these volumes, that I have thought it best +to throw them together in this place. + +I will begin with one written from Blandford Square, by George Eliot +to me, which is of great interest. It bears no date whatever, save +that of place; but the subject of it dates it with considerable +accuracy. + + * * * * * + +"DEAR MR. TROLLOPE,--I am very grateful to you for your notes. +Concerning _netto di specchio_, I have found a passage in Varchi which +decides the point according to _your_ impression." [Passages equally +decisive might be found _passim_ in the old Florentine historians. +And I ought to have referred her to them. But as she had altogether +mistaken the meaning of the phrase, I had insinuated my correction as +little presumptuously as I could.] + +"My inference had been gathered from the vague use of the term to +express disqualification [_i.e._ NON _netto di specchio_ expressed +disqualification]. But I find from Varchi, b. viii. that the +_specchio_ in question was a public book, in which the names of all +debtors to the _Commune_ were entered. Thus your doubt [no doubt at +all!] has been a very useful caveat to me. + +"Concerning the Bardi, my authority for making them originally +_popolani_ is G. Villani. He says, c. xxxix., '_e gia cominciavano +a venire possenti i Frescobaldi e Bardi e Mozzi_ ma di piccolo +cominciamento.' And c. lxxxi. '_e questi furono le principale case +de Guelfi che uscirono di Firenze. Del Sesto d' Oltr' Arno, i Rossi, +Nerli, e parte de' Manelli, Bardi, e Frescobaldi de' Popoloni dal +detto Sesto_, case nobili _Canigiani_,' &c. These passages corrected +my previous impression that they were originally Lombard nobles. + +[It needs some familiarity with the Florentine chroniclers to +understand that the words quoted by no means indicate that the +families named were not of patrician origin. "There walked into the +lobby with the Radicals, Lord ---- and Mr. ----," would just as much +prove that the persons named had not belonged to the class of +landowners. But the passage is interesting as showing the great care +she took to make her Italian novel historically accurate. And it is to +be remembered that she came to the subject absolutely new to it. She +would have known otherwise, that the _Case_ situated in the Oltr' +Arno quarter, were almost all noble. That ward of the city was the +Florentine _quartier St. Germain_.] + +"Concerning the phrase _in piazza_, and _in mercato_, my choice of +them was partly founded on the colloquial usage as represented by +Sacchetti, whose dialogue is intensely idiomatic. Also _in piazza_ is, +I believe, used by the historians (I think even by Macchiavelli), when +speaking of popular _turn-outs_. The ellipse took my fancy because of +its colloquial stamp. But I gather from your objection that it seems +too barbarous in a modern Italian ear. Will you whisper your final +opinion in Mr. Lewes's ear on Monday? + +[I do not remember what the ellipse in question was. As regards the +use of the phrase _in piazza_ she is perfectly right. The term keeps +the same meaning to the present day, and is equivalent in political +language to _the street_.] + +"_Boto_ was used on similar grounds, and as it is recognised by the +_Voc. della, Crusca_, I think I may venture to keep it, having a +weakness for those indications of the processes by which language is +modified. + +[_Boto_ for _voto_ is a Florentinism which may be heard to the present +day, though the vast majority of strangers would never hear it, or +understand it if they did. George Eliot no doubt met with it in some +of those old chroniclers who wrote exactly as not only the lower +orders, but the generality of their fellow citizens, were speaking +around them. And her use of it testifies to the minuteness of her +care to reproduce the form and pressure of the time of which she was +writing.] + +"Once more thank you, though my gratitude is in danger of looking too +much like a lively sense of anticipated favours, for I mean to ask you +to take other trouble yet. + +"Yours very truly, + +"MARION E. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +The following letter, written from Blandford Square on the 5th July, +1861, is, as regards the first three pages, from him, and the last +from her. + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR TROLLOPE,--We have now read _La Beata_ [my first novel], and +must tell you how charmed we have been with it. _Nina_ herself is +perfectly exquisite and individual, and her story is full of poetry +and pathos. Also one feels a breath from the Val d'Arno rustling amid +the pages, and a sense of Florentine life, such as one rarely gets out +of books. The critical objection I should make to it, apart from minor +points, is that often you spoil the artistic attitude by adopting +a critical antagonistic attitude, by which I mean that instead of +painting the thing objectively, you present it critically, _with an +eye to the opinions_ likely to be formed by certain readers; thus, +instead of relying on the simple presentation of the fact of Nina's +innocence you _call up_ the objection you desire to anticipate by side +glances at the worldly and 'knowing' reader's opinions. In a word +I feel as if you were not engrossed by your subject, but were +sufficiently aloof from it to contemplate it as a spectator, which is +an error in art. Many of the remarks are delicately felt and finely +written. The whole book comes from a noble nature, and so it impresses +the reader. But I may tell you what Mrs. Carlyle said last night, +which will in some sense corroborate what I have said. In her opinion +you would have done better to make two books of it, one the love +story, and one a description of Florentine life. She admires the book +very much I should add. Now, although I cannot by any means agree +with that criticism of hers, I fancy the origin of it was some such +feeling, as I have endeavoured to indicate in saying you are often +critical when you should be simply objective. + +"We had a pleasant journey home over the St. Gothard, and found our +boy very well and happy at Hofwyl, and our bigger boy _ditto_ awaiting +us here. Polly is very well, and as you may imagine talks daily of +Florence and our delightful trip, our closer acquaintance with you and +yours being among the most delightful of our reminiscences. + +"Yesterday Anthony dined with us, and as he had never seen Carlyle he +was glad to go down with us to tea at Chelsea. Carlyle had read and +_agreed_ with the West Indian book, and the two got on very well +together; both Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle liking Anthony, and I suppose +it was reciprocal, though I did not see him afterwards to hear what he +thought. He had to run away to catch his train. + +"He told us of the sad news of Mrs. Browning's death. Poor Browning! +That was my first, and remains my constant reflection. When people +love each other and have lived together any time they ought to die +together. For myself I should not care in the least about dying. The +dreadful thing to me would be to live after losing, if I should ever +lose, the one who has made life for me. Of course you who all knew and +valued her will feel the loss, but I cannot think of anybody's grief +but his. + +"The next page must be left for Polly's postscript, so I shall only +send my kindest regards and wishes to Mrs. Trollope and the biggest of +kisses to _la cantatrice_" [my poor girl Bice!]. + +"Ever faithfully yours, + +"G.H. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +"DEAR MRS. TROLLOPE,--While I am reading _La Beata_ I constantly feel +as if Mr. Trollope were present telling it all to me _viva voce_. It +seems to me more thoroughly and fully like himself than any of his +other books. And in spite of our having had the most of his society +away from you" [on our Camaldoli excursion] "you are always part of +his presence to me in a hovering aerial fashion. So it seems quite +natural that a letter addressed to him should have a postscript +addressed to you. Pray reckon it amongst the good you do in this +world, that you come very often into our thoughts and conversation. +We see comparatively so few people that we are apt to recur to +recollections of those we like best with almost childish frequency, +and a little fresh news about you would be a welcome variety, +especially the news that you had quite shaken off that spine +indisposition which was still clinging to you that last morning when +we said our good-byes. We have enough knowledge about you and your +world to interpret all the details you can give us. But our words +about our own home doings would be very vague and colourless to you. +You must always imagine us coming to see you and wanting to know as +much about you as we can, and like a charming hostess gratify that +want. I must thank you for the account of Cavour in _The Athenaeum_, +which stirred me strongly. I am afraid I have what _The Saturday +Review_ would call 'a morbid delight in deathbeds'--not having reached +that lofty superiority which considers it bad taste to allude to them. + +"How is Beatrice, the blessed and blessing? That will always be a +history to interest us--how her brown hair darkens, how her voice +deepens and strengthens, and how you get more and more delight in her. +I need send no separate message to Mr. Trollope, before I say that + +"I am always yours, with lively remembrance, + +"MARION E. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +It needed George Eliot's fine and minute handwriting to put all this +into one page of note-paper. + +The next letter that came from Blandford Square, dated 9th December, +1861, was also a joint one, the larger portion of which however is +from her pen. + + * * * * * + +"DEAR GOOD PEOPLE,--If your ears burn as often as you are talked about +in this house, there must be an unpleasant amount of aural circulation +to endure! And as the constant _refrain_ is, 'Really we must write to +them, that they may not altogether slip away from us,' I have this +morning screwed my procrastination to the writing-desk. + +"First and foremost let us know how you are, and what are the results +of the bathing. Then a word as to the new novel, or any other work, +will be acceptable. I lend about _La Beata_ in all good quarters, and +always hear golden opinions from all sorts of people. Of course you +hear from Anthony. + +"Is he prosperous and enjoying his life? The book will have an enormous +sale just now; but I fancy he will find more animosity and less +friendliness than he expected, to judge from the state of exasperation +against the Britisher, which seems to be general. + +"We have been pursuing the even baritone--I wish I could say tenor--of +our way. My health became seriously alarming in September, so we went +off to Malvern for a fortnight; and there the mountain air, exercise, +and regular diet set me up, so that I have been in better training for +work than I had been for a long while. Polly has not been strong, yet +not materially amiss. But as she will add a postscript to this I shall +leave her to speak for herself. + +"In your (T.A.T.) book huntings, if you could lay your hand on a copy +of Hermolaus Barbarus, _Compendium Scientiae Naturalis_, 1553, or any +of Telesio's works, think of me and pounce on them. I was going to +bother you about the new edition of Galileo, but fortunately I fell in +with the Milan edition cheap, and contented myself with that. Do you +know what there is _new_ in the Florentine edition? I suppose you +possess it, as you do so many enviable books. + +"We heard the other day that Miss Blagden had come to stay in London +for the winter, so Polly sent a message to her to say how glad we +should be to see her. If she comes she will bring us some account of +_casa_ Trollope. When you next pass Giotto's tower salute it for me; +it is one of my dearest Florentines, and always beckoning to us to +come back. + +"Ever your faithful friend, + +"G.H. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +She writes:-- + + * * * * * + +"DEAR FRIENDS,--Writing letters or asking for them is not always the +way to make one's memory agreeable, but you are not among those people +who shudder at letters, since you _did_ say you would like to hear +from us, and let us hear from you occasionally. I have no good news to +tell about myself; but to have my husband back again and enjoying his +work is quite enough happiness to fall to one woman's share in this +world, where the stock of happiness is so moderate and the claimants +so many. He is deep in Aristotle's _Natural Science_ as the first step +in a history of science, which he has for a long while been hoping +that he should be able to write. So you will understand his demand for +brown folios. Indeed, he is beginning to have a slight contempt +for authors sufficiently known to the vulgar to be inserted in +biographical dictionaries. Hermolaus Barbaras is one of those +distinguished by omission in some chief works of that kind; and we +learned to our surprise from a don at Cambridge that _he_ had never +heard the name. Let us hope there is an Olympus for forgotten authors. + +"Our trial of the water cure at Malvern made us think with all the +more emphasis of the possible effect on a too delicate and fragile +friend at Florence." [My wife.] "It really helped to mend George. And +as I hope the Florentine hydropathist may not be a quack as Dr.---- +at Malvern certainly is, I shall be disappointed if there is no good +effect to be traced to 'judicious packing and sitz baths' that you can +tell us of. Did Beatrice enjoy her month's dissipation at Leghorn? And +is the voice prospering? Don't let her quite forget us. We make rather +a feeble attempt at musical Saturday evenings, having a new grand +piano, which stimulates musical desires. But we want a good violin and +violoncello--difficult to be found among amateurs. Having no sunshine +one needs music all the more. It would be difficult for you to imagine +very truthfully what sort of atmosphere we have been living in here in +London for the last month--warm, heavy, dingy grey. I have seen some +sunshine once--in a dream. Do tell us all you can about yourselves. It +seems only the other day that we were shaking you by the hand; and all +details will be lit up as if by your very voice and looks. Say a kind +word for me sometimes to the bright-eyed lady by whose side I sat in +your balcony the evening of the National Fete. At the moment I cannot +recall her name. We are going now to the British Museum to read--a +fearful way of getting knowledge. If I had Aladdin's lamp I should +certainly use it to get books served up to me at a moment's notice. +It may be better to search for truth than to have it at hand without +seeking, but with books I should take the other alternative. + +"Ever yours, + +"M.E. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +The lady in the balcony spoken of in the above letter was Signora +Mignaty, the niece of Sir Frederick Adam, whom I had known long years +previously in Rome, and who had married Signor Mignaty, a Greek +artist, and was (and is) living in Florence. She was, in fact, the +niece of the Greek lady Sir Frederick married. I remember her aunt, a +very beautiful woman. The niece, Signorina Margherita Albani as she +was when I first knew her at eighteen years old in Rome, inherited so +much of the beauty of her race that the Roman artists were constantly +imploring her to sit for them. She has made herself known in the +literary world by several works, especially by a recent book on +Correggio, his life and works, published in French. + +The next letter from Lewes, written from Blandford Square on the 2nd +June, without date of year, but probably 1863, is of more interest to +myself than to the public. But I may perhaps be permitted to indulge +my vanity by publishing it as a testimony that his previous praise +of what I had written was genuine, and not merely the laudatory +compliments of a correspondent. + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR TROLLOPE,--Enclosed is the proof you were good enough to say +you would correct. When am I to return the compliment? + +"I have finished _Marietta_. Its picture of Italian life is extremely +vivid and interesting, but it is a long way behind _La Beata_ in +interest of story. I have just finished one volume of Anthony's +_America_, and am immensely pleased with it--so much so that I hope to +do something towards counteracting the nasty notice in the _Saturday_. + +"Ever yours faithfully, + +"G.H. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +The next letter is from Lewes, dated "The Priory, North Bank, Regent's +Park, 20th March, 1864."-- + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR TROLLOPE,--My eldest boy, who spends his honeymoon in +Florence (is not that sugaring jam tart?), brings you this greeting +from your silent but affectionate friends. Tell him all particulars +about yourselves, and he will transmit them in his letters to us. +First and foremost about the health of your wife, and how this bitter +winter has treated her. Next about Bice, and then about yourself. + +"We rejoice in the prospect of your _History of Florence_, and I am +casting about, hoping to find somebody to review it worthily for the +_Fortnightly Review_. By the way, would not you or your wife help me +there also! Propose your subjects! + +"I hope you will like our daughter. She is a noble creature; and +Charles is a lucky dog (his father's luck) to get such a wife. + +"We have been and are in a poor state of health, but manage to +scramble on. Charles will tell you all there is to tell. With our love +to your dear wife and Bice, + +"Believe me, ever faithfully yours, + +"G.H. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +Shortly after receiving this my wife had a letter from George Eliot, +from Venice, dated 15th May, 1864. She writes from the "Hotel de +Ville." + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR MRS. TROLLOPE,--I wonder whether you are likely to be at Lake +Como next month, or at any other place that we could take on our way +to the Alps. It would make the prospect of our journey homeward much +pleasanter if we could count on seeing you for a few hours; and I will +not believe that you will think me troublesome if I send the question +to you. I am rather discontented with destiny that she has not let us +see anything of you for nearly three years. And I hope you too will +not be sorry to take me by the hand again. + +"My ground for supposing it not unlikely that you will be at one of +the lakes, is the report I heard from Mr. Pigott, that such a plan was +hovering in your mind. My chief fear is that our return, which is not +likely at the latest to be later than the middle of June, may be too +early for us to find you. We reached Venice three days ago, after a +short stay at Milan, and have the delight of finding everything more +beautiful than it was to us four years ago. That is a satisfactory +experience to us, who are getting old, and are afraid of the +traditional loss of glory on the grass and all else, with which +melancholy poets threaten us. + +"Mr. Lewes says I am to say the sweetest things that can be said with +propriety to you, and love to Bice, to whose memory he appeals, in +spite of all the friends she has made since he had the last kiss from +her. + +"I too have love to send to Bice, whom I expect to see changed like +a lily-bud to something more definitely promising. Mr. Trollope, +I suppose, is in England by this time, else I should say all +affectionate regards from us both to him. I am writing under +difficulties. + +"Ever, dear Mrs. Trollope, + +"Very sincerely yours, + +"M.E. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +Here is another from Lewes, which the post-mark only shows to have +been written in 1865:-- + + * * * * * + +"DEAR TROLLOPE,--Thank Signor ---- for the offer of his paper, and +express to him my regret that in the present crowded state of the +_Review_ I cannot find a place for it. Don't you however run away with +the idea that I don t want _your_ contributions on the same ground! +The fact is ----'s paper is too wordy and heavy and not of sufficient +interest for our publication; and as I have a great many well on hand, +I am forced to be particular. Originally my fear was lest we should +not get contributors enough. That fear has long vanished. But _good_ +contributions are always scarce; so don't you fail me! + +"We have been at Tunbridge Wells for a fortnight's holiday. I was +forced to 'cave in,' as the Yankees say--regularly beat. I am not very +flourishing now, but I can go into harness again. Polly has been, +and alas! still is, anything but in a satisfactory state. But she is +gestating, and gestation with her is always perturbing. I wish the +book were done with all my heart. + +"I don't think I ever told you how very much your _History of +Florence_ interested me. I am shockingly ignorant of the subject, and +not at all competent to speak, except as one of the public; but you +made the political life of the people clear to me. I only regretted +here and there a newspaper style which was not historic. Oscar +Browning has sent me his review, but I have not read it yet. It is at +the printers. Polly sends her love. + +"Ever faithfully yours, + +"G.H.L." + + * * * * * + +He writes again, dating his letter 1st January, 1866, but post-marked +1865. It is singular, that the date as given by the writer, 1866, must +have been right, and that given by the post-mark, 1865, wrong. And +the fact may possibly some day be useful to some counsel having to +struggle against the evidence of a post-mark. The letter commences:-- + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR TROLLOPE,--A happy new year to you and Bice! + +[It is quite impossible that Lewes could have so written, while my +wife, Theodosia, so great a favourite with both him and his wife, and +so constantly inquired for tenderly by them, was yet alive. I lost +her on the 13th of April, 1865. It is certain therefore, that Lewes's +letter was written in 1866, and not as the post-mark declares in 1865. +After speaking of some literary business matters, the letter goes +on:--] + +"And when am I to receive those articles from you, which you +projected? I suppose other work keeps you ever on the stretch. But so +active a man must needs 'fulfil himself in many ways.' + +"We have been ailing constantly without being ill, but our work gets +on somehow or other. Polly is miserable over a new novel, and I am +happy over the very hard work of a new edition of my _History of +Philosophy_, which will almost be a new book, so great are the changes +and additions. Polly sends her love to you and Bice. + +"Yours very faithfully, + +"G.H. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +Then after a long break, and after a new phase of my life had +commenced, Lewes writes on the 14th of January, 1869, from "21, North +Bank":-- + + * * * * * + +"DEAR T.T.,--We did not meet in Germany because our plans were +altogether changed. We passed all the time in the Black Forest, and +came home through the Oberland. I did write to Salzburg however, and +perhaps the letter is still there; but there was nothing in it. + +"You know how fond we are of you, and the pleasure it always gives +us to get a glimpse of you. (Not that we have not also very pleasant +associations with your wife,[1] but she is as yet stranger to us of +course.) But we went away in search of complete repose. And in the +Black Forest there was not a soul to speak to, and we liked it so much +as to stay on there. + +[Footnote 1: I had married my second wife on the 29th of October, +1866.] + +"We contemplate moving southwards in the spring, and if we go to Italy +and come _near_ Florence, we shall assuredly make a _detour_ and come +and see you. Polly wants to see Arezzo and Perugia. And I suppose we +can still get a _vetturino_ to take us that way to Rome? Don't want +railways, if to be avoided. I don't think we can get away before +March, for my researches are so absorbing, that, if health holds out, +I must go on, if not, we shall pack up earlier. The worst of Lent is +that one gets no theatres, and precisely because we never go to the +theatre in London, we hugely enjoy it abroad. Yesterday we took the +child of a friend of ours to a morning performance of the pantomime, +and are utterly knocked up in consequence. Somehow or other abroad the +theatre agrees with us. Polly sends the kindest remembrances to you +and your wife. Whenever you want anything done in London, consider me +an idle man. + +"Ever yours faithfully, + +"G.H. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +And on the 28th February, in the same year, accordingly he writes:-- + + * * * * * + +"Touching our visit to Florence, you may be sure we could not lightly +forego such a pleasure. We start to-morrow, and unless we are recalled +by my mother's health, we calculate being with you about the end of +March. But we shall give due warning of our arrival. We both look +forward to this holiday, and 'languish for the purple seas;' though +the high winds now howl a threat of anything but a pleasant crossing +to Calais. _Che! Che!_ One must pay for one's pleasure! With both of +our warmest salutations to you and yours, + +"Believe me, yours faithfully, + +"G.H. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +The travellers must, however, have reached us some days before the end +of March, for I have a letter to my wife from George Eliot, dated +from Naples on the 1st of April, 1869, after they had left us. She +writes:-- + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR MRS. TROLLOPE,--The kindness which induces you to shelter +travellers will make you willing to hear something of their subsequent +fate. And I am the more inclined to send you some news of ourselves +because I have nothing dismal to tell. We bore our long journey better +than we dared to expect, for the night was made short by sleep in +our large coupe, and during the day we had no more than one headache +between us. Mr. Lewes really looks better, and has lost his twinges. +And though pleasure-seekers are notoriously the most aggrieved and +howling inhabitants of the universe, we can allege nothing against +our lot here but the persistent coldness of the wind, which is in +dangerously sudden contrast with the warmth of the sunshine whenever +one gets on the wrong side of a wall. This prevents us from +undertaking any carriage expeditions, which is rather unfortunate, +because such expeditions are among the chief charms of Naples. We have +not been able to renew our old memories of that sort at all, except by +a railway journey to Pompeii; and our days are spent in the museum +and in the sunniest out-of-door spots. We have been twice to the San +Carlo, which we were the more pleased to do, because when we were here +before, that fine theatre was closed. The singing is so-so, and the +tenor especially is gifted with limbs rather than with voice or +ear. But there is a baritone worth hearing and a soprano, whom the +Neapolitans delight to honour with hideous sounds of applause. + +"We are longing for a soft wind, which will allow us to take the long +drive to Baiae during one of our remaining days here. At present we +think of leaving for Rome on Sunday or Monday. But our departure will +probably be determined by an answer from the landlord of the Hotel +de Minerva, to whom Mr. Lewes has written. We have very comfortable +quarters here, out of the way of that English and American society, +whose charms you can imagine. Our private dinner is well served; and I +am glad to be away from the Chiaja, except--the exception is a great +one--for the sake of the sunsets which I should have seen there. + +"Mr. Lewes has found a book by an Italian named Franchi, formerly a +priest, on the present condition of philosophy in Italy. He emerges +from its depths--or shallows--to send his best remembrances; and to +Bice he begs especially to recommend Plantation Bitters. + +"I usually think all the more of things and places the farther I get +from them, and, on that ground, you will understand that at Naples +I think of Florence, and the kindness I found there under my small +miseries. Pray offer my kind regards to Miss Blagden when you see +her, and tell her that I hope to shake hands with her in London this +spring. + +"We shall obey Mr. Trollope's injunctions to write again from Perugia +or elsewhere, according to our route homeward. But pray warn him, that +when my throat is not sore, and my head not stagnant, I am a much +fiercer antagonist. It is perhaps a delight to one's egoism to have a +friend who is among the best of men with the worst of theories. One +can be at once affectionate and spit-fire. Pray remember me with +indulgence, all of you, and believe, dear Mrs. Trollope, + +"Most truly yours, + +"M.E. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +It will be seen from the above that George Eliot had very quickly +fraternised--what is the feminine form?--with my second wife, as I, +without any misgivings, foresaw would be the case. Indeed subsequent +circumstances allowed a greater degree of intimacy to grow up +between them than had been possible in the case of my Bice's mother, +restricted as her intercourse with the latter had been by failing +health, and the comparative fewness of the hours they had passed +together. Neither she nor Lewes had ever passed a night under my roof +until I received them in the villa at Ricorboli, where I lived with my +second wife. + +What was the subject of the "antagonism" to which the above letter +alludes, I have entirely forgotten. In all probability we differed on +some subject of politics,[1] by reason of the then rapidly maturing +Conservatism which my outlook ahead forced upon me. Nevertheless it +would seem from some words in a letter written to me by Lewes in the +November of 1869, that my political heresies were not deemed +deeply damning. There was a question of my undertaking the foreign +correspondence of a London paper, which came to nothing till some four +years later, under other circumstances; and with reference to that +project he writes:-- + +[Footnote 1: My wife, on reading this passage, tells me that according +to her recollection the differences in question had no reference to +politics at all, but to matters of higher interest relating to man's +ultimate destinies.] + + * * * * * + +"Polly and I were immensely pleased at the prospect for you. She +was rejoiced that you should once more be giving yourself to public +affairs, which you so well understand.... We are but just come back +from the solitudes of a farm-house in Surrey, whither I took Polly +immediately after our loss [of his son], of which I suppose Anthony +told you. It had shaken her seriously. She had lavished almost a +mother's love on the dear boy, and suffered a mother's grief in the +bereavement. He died in her arms; and for a long while it seemed as if +she could never get over the pain. But now she is calm again, though +very sad. But she will get to work, and _that_ will aid her. + +"For me, I was as fully prepared (by three or four months' conviction +of its inevitableness) as one can be in such cases. It is always +sudden, however foreseen. Yet the preparation was of great use; and +I now have only a beautiful image living with me, and a deep +thankfulness that his sufferings are at an end, since recovery was +impossible. + +"Give my love to your wife and Bice, and believe ever in yours +faithfully, + +"G.H. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +The following highly interesting letter was written to my wife by +Mrs. Lewes, about a year after his death. It is dated "The Priory, 19 +December, 1879":-- + + * * * * * + +"DEAR MRS. TROLLOPE,--In sending me Dr. Haller's words you have sent +me a great comfort. A just appreciation of my husband's work from a +competent person is what I am most athirst for; and Dr. Haller has +put his finger on a true characteristic. I only wish he could print +something to the same effect in any pages that would be generally +read. + +"There is no biography. An article entitled 'George Henry Lewes' +appeared in the last _New London Quarterly_. It was written by a man +for whom he had much esteem; but it is not strong. A few facts about +the early life and education are given with tolerable accuracy, but +the estimate of the philosophic and scientific activity is inadequate. +Still it is the best thing you could mention to Dr. Haller. You know +perhaps that a volume entitled _The Study of Psychology_ appeared in +May last, and that another volume (500 pp.) of _Problems of Life +and Mind_ has just been published. The best history of a writer is +contained in his writings; these are his chief actions. If he happens +to have left an autobiography telling (what nobody else can tell) how +his mind grew, how it was determined by the joys, sorrows, and other +influences of childhood and youth--that is a precious contribution +to knowledge. But biographies generally are a disease of English +literature. + +"I have never yet told you how grateful I was to you for writing to me +a year ago. For a long while I could read no letter. But now I have +read yours more than once, and it is carefully preserved. You had been +with us in our happiness so near the time when it left me--you and +your husband are peculiarly bound up with the latest memories. + +"You must have had a mournful summer. But Mr. Trollope's thorough +recovery from his severe attack is a fresh proof of his constitutional +strength. We cannot properly count age by years. See what Mr. +Gladstone does with seventy of them in his frame. And my lost one had +but sixty-one and a half. + +"You are to come to England again in 1881, I remember, and then, if I +am alive, I hope to see you. With best love to you both, always, dear +Mrs. Trollope, + +"Yours faithfully, + +"M.E. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +The "words of Dr. Haller," to which the above letter refers, were to +the effect that one of Lewes's great advantages in scientific and +philosophical research was his familiar acquaintance with the works +of German and French writers, which enabled him to follow the +contemporaneous movement of science throughout Europe, whereas many +writers of learning and ability wasted their own and their readers' +time in investigating questions already fully investigated elsewhere, +and advancing theories which had been previously proved or disproved +without their knowledge. Dr. Ludwig Haller, of Berlin, in writing to +me about G.H. Lewes, then recently deceased, had said, if I remember +rightly, that he had some intention of publishing a sketch of Lewes in +some German periodical. I am not aware whether this intention was ever +carried into effect. + +The attack to which the above letter alludes was a very bad one +of sciatica. At length the baths of Baden in Switzerland cured me +permanently, but after their--it is said ordinary and normal, but very +perverse--fashion, having first made me incomparably worse. I suffered +excruciatingly, consolingly (!) assured by the doctor that sciatica +never kills--only makes you wish that it would! While I was at the +worst my brother came to Baden to see me, and on leaving me after +a couple of days, wrote to my wife the following letter, which I +confiscated and keep as a memorial. + +After expressing his commiseration for me, he continues:-- + +"For you, I cannot tell you the admiration I have for you. Your +affection and care and assiduity were to be expected. I knew you well +enough to take them as a matter of course from you to him. But your +mental and physical capacity, your power of sustaining him by your +own cheerfulness, and supporting him by your own attention, are +marvellous. When I consider all the circumstances I hardly know how to +reconcile so much love with so much self-control." + +Every word true! And what he saw for a few hours in each of a couple +of days, I saw every hour of the day and night for four terrible +months! + +But all this is a parenthesis into which I have been led, I hope +excusably, by Mrs. Lewes's mention of my illness. + +N.B.--I said at an early page of these recollections that I had never +been confined to my bed by illness for a single day during more than +sixty years. The above-mentioned illness leaves the statement still +true. The sciatica was bad, but never kept me in bed. Indeed I was +perhaps in less torment out of it. + +Here is the last letter of George Eliot's which reached us. It is +written by Mrs. Lewes to my wife, from "The Priory, 30 December, +1879":-- + + * * * * * + +"DEAR MRS. TROLLOPE,--I inclose the best photograph within my reach. +To me all portraits of him are objectionable, because I see him more +vividly and truly without them. But I think this is the most like what +he was as you knew him. I have sent your anecdote about the boy to Mr. +Du Maurier, whom it will suit exactly. I asked Charles Lewes to copy +it from your letter with your own pretty words of introduction. + +"Yours affectionately, + +"M.E. LEWES." + + * * * * * + +It is pretty well too late in the day for me to lament the loss of old +friends. They have been well-nigh some time past all gone. I have +been exceptionally fortunate in an aftermath belonging to a younger +generation. But they too are dropping around me! And few losses from +this second crop have left a more regretted void than George Henry +Lewes and his wife. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +I have thought that it might be more convenient to the reader to have +the letters contained in the foregoing chapter all together, and have +not interrupted them therefore to speak of any of the events which +were meantime happening in my own life. + +But during the period which the letters cover the two greatest sorrows +of my life had fallen upon me--I had lost first my mother, then my +wife. + +The bereavement, however, was very different in the two cases. If my +mother had died a dozen years earlier I should have felt the loss as +the end of all things to me--as leaving me desolate and causing a void +which nothing could ever fill. But when she died at eighty-three she +had lived her life, upon the whole a very happy one, to the happiness +of which I had (and have) the satisfaction of believing I largely +contributed. + +It is very common for a mother and daughter to live during many years +of life together in as close companionship as I lived with my mother, +but it is not common for a son to do so. During many years, and many, +many journeyings, and more _tete-a-tete_ walks, and yet more of +_tete-a-tete_ home hours, we were inseparable companions and friends. +I can truly say that, from the time when we put our horses together on +my return from Birmingham to the time of my marriage, she was all in +all to me! During some four or five days in the early time of our +residence at Florence I thought I was going to lose her, and I can +never forget the blank wretchedness of the prospect that seemed to be +before me. + +She had a very serious illness, and was, as I had subsequently +reason to believe, very mistakenly treated. She was attended by a +practitioner of the old school, who had at that time the leading +practice in Florence. He was a very good fellow, and an admirable +whist player; and I do not think the members of our little colony +drew a sufficiently sharp line of division between his social and his +professional qualifications. He was, as I have said, essentially a man +of the (even then) old school, and retained the old-fashioned general +practitioners phraseology. I remember his once mortally disgusting an +unhappy dyspeptic old lady by asking her, "Do we go to our dinner with +glee?" As if the poor soul had ever done anything with glee! + +This gentleman had bled my mother, and had appointed another bleeding +for the evening. I believe she would assuredly have died if that had +been done, and I attribute to Lord Holland the saving of her. Her +doctor had very wrongly resisted the calling in of other English +advice, professional jealousy, and indeed enmity, running high just +then among us. Lord Holland came to the house just in the nick of +time; and over-ruling authoritatively all the difficulties raised by +the Esculapius in possession of the field, insisted on at once sending +his own medical attendant. The result was the immediate administration +of port wine instead of phlebotomy, and the patient's rapid recovery. + +My mother was at the time far past taking any part in the discussion +of the medical measures to be adopted in her case. But I am not +without a suspicion that she too, if she could have been consulted, +would have sided with phlebotomy and whist, as against modern practice +unrelieved by any such alleviation. For the phlebotomist had been a +constant attendant at her Friday night whist-table; and as it was she +lost him, for he naturally was offended at her recovery under rival +hands. + +What my mother _was_ I have already said enough to show, as far as +my imperfect words can show it, in divers passages of these +reminiscences. She was the happiest natured person I ever knew--happy +in the intense power of enjoyment, happier still in the conscious +exercise of the power of making others happy; and this continued to +be the case till nearly the end. During the last few years the bright +lamp began to grow dim and gradually sink into the socket. She +suffered but little physically, but she lost her memory, and then +gradually more and more the powers of her mind generally. I have often +thought that this perishing of the mind before the exceptionally +healthy and well-constituted physical frame, in which it was housed, +may have been due to the tremendous strain to which she was subjected +during those terrible months at Bruges, when she was watching the +dying bed of a much-loved son during the day, and, dieted on green tea +and laudanum, was writing fiction most part of the night. The cause, +if such were the case, would have preceded the effect by some forty +years; but whether it is on the cards to suppose that such an effect +may have been produced after such a length of time, I have not +physiological knowledge enough to tell. + +She was, I think, to an exceptional degree surrounded by very many +friends, mostly women, but including many men, at every period of her +life. But the circumstances of it caused the world of her intimates +during her youth, her middle life, and her old age, to be to a great +degree peopled by different figures. + +She was during all her life full of, and fond of, fun; had an +exquisite sense of humour; and at all times valued her friends and +acquaintances more exclusively, I think, than most people do, for +their intrinsic qualities, mainly those of heart, and, not so much +perhaps intellect, accurately speaking, as brightness. There is a +passage in my brother's _Autobiography_ which grates upon my mind, +and, I think, very signally fails to hit the mark. + +He writes (vol. i. p. 28):--"She loved society, affecting a somewhat +Liberal _role_, and professing an emotional dislike to tyrants, which +sprung from the wrongs of would-be regicides and the poverty of +patriot exiles. An Italian marquis who had escaped with only a second +shirt from the clutches of some archduke whom he had wished to +exterminate, or a French _proletaire_ with distant ideas of +sacrificing himself to the cause of liberty, were always welcome to +the modest hospitality of her house. In after years, when marquises of +another caste had been gracious to her, she became a strong Tory, and +thought that archduchesses were sweet. But with her, politics were +always an affair of the heart, as indeed were all her convictions. Of +reasoning from causes I think that she knew nothing." + +Now there is hardly a word of this in which Anthony is not more +or less mistaken; and that simply because he had not adequate +opportunities for close observation. The affection which subsisted +between my mother and my brother Anthony was from the beginning to the +end of their lives as tender and as warm as ever existed between a +mother and son. Indeed I remember that in the old days of our youth +we used to consider Anthony the Benjamin. But from the time that he +became a clerk in the Post Office to her death, he and my mother were +never together but as visitors during the limited period of a visit. +From the time that I resigned my position at Birmingham to the time +of her death, I was uninterruptedly an inmate of her house, or she of +mine. And I think that I knew her, as few sons know their mothers. + +No regicide, would-be or other, ever darkened her doors. No French +_proletaire_, or other French political refugee was ever among her +guests. She never was acquainted with any Italian marquis who had +escaped in any degree of distress from poverty. With General Pepe she +was intimate for years. But of him the world knows enough to perceive +that my brother cannot have alluded to him. And I recollect no other +marquis. It is very true that in the old Keppel Street and Harrow days +several Italian exiles, and I think some Spaniards, used to be her +occasional guests. This had come to pass by means of her intimacy with +Lady Dyer, the wife and subsequently widow of Sir Thomas Dyer, whose +years of foreign service had interested him and her in many such +persons. The friends of her friend were her friends. They were not +such by virtue of their political position and ideas. Though it is no +doubt true, that caring little about politics, and in a jesting way +(how jesting many a memorial of fun between her and Lady Dyer, and +Miss Gabell, the daughter of Dr. Gabell of Winchester, is still extant +in my hands to prove;) the general tone of the house was "Liberal." +But nothing can be farther from the truth than the idea that my mother +was led to become a Tory by the "graciousness" of any "marquises" or +great folks of any kind. I am inclined to think that there was _one_ +great personage, whose (not graciousness, but) intellectual influence +_did_ impel her mind in a Conservative direction. And this was +Metternich. She had more talk with him than her book on Vienna would +lead a reader to suppose; and very far more of his mind and influence +reached her through the medium of the Princess. + +To how great a degree this is likely to have been the case may be in +some measure perceived from a letter which the Princess addressed to +my mother shortly after she had left Vienna. She preserved it among a +few others, which she specially valued, and I transcribe it from the +original now before me. + + * * * * * + +"Vous ne pourriez croire, chere Madame Trollope, combien le portrait +que vous avez charge le Baron Huegel de me remettre m'a fait de +plaisir! + +"Il y a longtemps que je cachais au fonds de mon coeur le desir de +posseder votre portrait, qui, interressant pour le monde, est devenu +precieux pour moi, puisque j'ai le plaisir de vous connaitre telle +que vous etes, bonne, simple, bienveillante, et loin de tout ce qui +effroie et eloigne des reputations literaires. Je remercie M. Hervieu +de Tavoir fait aussi ressemblant. Et je vous assure, chere Madame +Trollope, que rien ne pouvait me toucher aussi vivement et me faire +autant de plaisir que ce souvenir venant de vous, qui me rappelera +sans cesse les bons moments que j'ai eu la satisfaction de passer avec +vous et qui resteront a jamais cheres a ma memoire. + +"MELANIE, PRINCESSE DE METTERNICH." + + * * * * * + +I think that the hours passed by the Princess and my mother +_tete-a-tete_, save for the presence of the artist occupied by his +work during the painting of the Princess Melanie's portrait for +my mother, were mainly the cause of the real intimacy of mind and +affection which grew up between them--though, of course, the painting +of the portrait shows that a considerable intimacy had previously +arisen. And it had been arranged that the portrait of my mother, which +was the occasion of the above letter, should be exchanged for that of +the Princess. But there had been no time amid the whirl of the Vienna +gaieties to get it executed. It was, therefore, sent from England by +Baron Huegel when he called on my mother, on visiting this country +shortly after her return from Austria. + +It occurs to me here to mention a circumstance which was, I think, +the first thing to begin--not the acquaintance but--the intimacy in +question; and which may be related as possessing an interest not +confined to either of the ladies in question. + +The Archduchess Sophie had graciously intimated her desire that my +mother should be presented to her, and an evening had been named +for the purpose. But a few days before--just three, if I remember +rightly--my mother caught a cold, which resulted in erysipelas, +causing her head to become swollen to nearly double its usual size! +Great was the dismay of the ladies who had arranged the meeting with +the Archduchess, chief among whom had been the Princess Melanie. +She came to my mother, and insisted upon sending to her an old +homoeopathic physician, who was her own medical attendant, and had +been Hahnemann's favourite pupil. He came, saw his patient, and +was told that what he had to do was to make her presentable by the +following Friday! He shook his head, said the time was too short--but +he would do his best. And the desired object was _fully_ attained. + +I have no doubt that my mother returned from her Vienna visit a more +strongly convinced Conservative in politics than she had hitherto +been. And it does not seem to me that the modification of her +opinions in that direction, which was doubtless largely operated by +conversation with the great Conservative statesman and his _alter +ego_, the Princess, needs to be in any degree attributed to the +"graciousness" of people in high position either male or female. Is +it not very intelligible and very likely that such opinions, so set +forth, as she from day to day heard them, should have honestly and +legitimately influenced her own? + +But I think that I should be speaking, if perhaps presumptuously, yet +truly, if I were to add that there was also one very far from great +personage, whose influence in the same direction was greater than even +that of Prince Metternich or of any other great folks whatever; and +that was the son in daily and almost hourly communion and conversation +with whom she lived. I also had begun life as a "Liberal," and was +such in the days when Mr. Gladstone was a high Tory. But my mind had +long been travelling in an inverse direction to his. And far too large +a number of my contemporaries distinguished and undistinguished have +been moving in the same direction for it to be at all necessary to +say that most assuredly my slowly maturing convictions were neither +generated nor fostered by any "graciousness" or other influence of +dukes or duchesses or great people of any sort. + +That my mother's political ideas were in no degree "an affair of the +heart," I will not say, and by no means regret not being able to say. +But I cannot but assert that it is a great mistake to say that they +were uninfluenced by "reasoning from causes," or that the movement +of her mind in this respect was in any degree whatever due to the +caresses which my brother imagines to have caused it. + +She was not a great or careful preserver of papers and letters, or +I might have been able to print here very many communications from +persons in whom the world feels an interest. Among her early and very +dear friends was Mary Mitford. + +I have a very vivid remembrance of the appearance of Mary Russell +Mitford as I used to see her on the occasions of my visits to Reading, +where my grandfather's second wife and then widow was residing. She +was not corpulent, but her figure gave one the idea of almost cubical +solidity. She had a round and red full moon sort of face, from the +ample forehead above which the hair was all dragged back and stowed +away under a small and close-fitting cap, which surrounding her face +increased the effect of full-blown rotundity. But the grey eye and +even the little snub nose were full of drollery and humour, and the +lines about the generally somewhat closely shut mouth indicated +unmistakable intellectual power. There is a singular resemblance +between her handwriting and that of my mother. Very numerous letters +must have passed between them. But of all these I have been able to +find but four. + +On the 3rd of April, 1832, she writes from the "Three Mile Cross," so +familiar to many readers, as follows:-- + + * * * * * + +"My dear Mrs. Trollope,--I thank you most sincerely for your very +delightful book, as well as for its great kindness towards me; and I +wish you joy from the bottom of my heart of the splendid success which +has not merely attended but awaited its career--a happy and I trust +certain augury of your literary good fortune in every line which you +may pursue. I assure you that my political prejudices are by no +means shocked at your dislike of Republicanism. I was always a very +aristocratic Whig, and since these reforming days am well-nigh become +a staunch Tory, for pretty nearly the same reason that converted +you--a dislike to mobs in action.... Refinement follows wealth, +but not often closely, as witness the parvenu people even in dear +England.... I heard of your plunge into the Backwoods first from Mr. +Owen himself, with whom I foregathered three years ago in London, +and of whom you have given so very true and graphic a picture. What +extraordinary mildness and plausibility that man possesses! I +never before saw an instance of actual wildness--madness of theory +accompanied by such suavity and soberness of manner. Did you see my +friend, Miss Sedgwick? Her letters show a large and amiable mind, and +a little niece of nine years old, who generally writes in them, has +a style very unusual in so young a girl, and yet most youthful and +natural too.... Can you tell me if Mr. Flint be the author of _George +Mason, or the Young Backwoodsman_? I think that he is; and whether +the name of a young satirical writer be Sams or Sands? Your answering +these questions will stead me much, and I am sure that you will answer +them if you can. + +"Now to your kind questions. I am getting ready a fifth and last +volume of _Our Village_ as fast as I can, though with pain and +difficulty, having hurt my left hand so much by a fall from an +open carriage that it affects the right, and makes writing very +uncomfortable to me. And I am in a most perplexed state about my +opera, not knowing whether it will be produced this season or not, in +consequence of Captain Polhill and his singers having parted. This +would not have happened had my coadjutor the composer kept to his +time. And I have still hopes that when the opera be [shall, omitted +probably] taken in (the music is even now not finished), a sense of +interest will bring the parties together again. I hope that it may, +for it will not only be a tremendous hit for all of us, but it will +take me to London and give me the pleasure of a peep at you, a +happiness to which I look forward very anxiously. I know Mr. Tom, and +like him of all things, as everybody who knows him must, and I hear +that his sisters are charming. God bless you, my dear friend. My +father joins me in every good wish, and + +"I am ever most affectionately yours, + +"M.R. MITFORD." + + * * * * * + +A few weeks later she writes a very long letter almost entirely filled +with a discussion of the desirability or non-desirability of writing +in this, that, and the other "annual" or magazine. Most of those she +alludes to are dead, and there is no interest in preserving her mainly +unfavourable remarks concerning them and their editors and publishers. +One sentence, however, is so singularly and amusingly suggestive +of change in men and women and things, that I must give it. After +reviewing a great number of the leading monthlies she says "as for +Fraser's and Blackwood's, they are hardly such as a lady likes to +write for"! + +After advising my mother to stick to writing novels, she says, "I have +not a doubt that that is by far the most profitable branch of the +literary profession. If ever I be bold enough to try that arduous +path, I shall endeavour to come as near as I can to Miss Austen, my +idol. You are very good about my opera. I am sorry to tell you, and +you will be sorry to hear, that the composer has disappointed me, +that the music is not even yet ready, and that the piece is therefore +necessarily delayed till next season. I am very sorry for this on +account of the money, and because I have many friends in and near +town, yourself amongst the rest, whom I was desirous to see. But +I suppose it will be for the good of the opera to wait till the +beginning of a season. It is to be produced with extraordinary +splendour, and will, I think, be a tremendous hit. I hope also to have +a tragedy out at nearly the same time in the autumn, and _then_ I +trust we shall meet, and I shall see your dear girls. + +"How glad I am to find that you partake of my great aversion to the +sort of puffery belonging to literature. I hate it! and always did, +and love you all the better for partaking of my feeling on the +subject. I believe that with me it is pride that revolts at the trash. +And then it is so false; the people are so clearly flattering to be +flattered. Oh, I hate it!!! + +"Make my kindest regards [_sic_] and accept my father's. + +"Ever most faithfully and affectionately yours, + +"M.R. MITFORD. + +"P.S.--I suppose my book will be out in about a month. I shall desire +Whittaker to send you a copy. It is the fifth and last volume." + + * * * * * + +The following interesting letter, franked by her friend Talfourd, and +shown only by the post-mark to have been posted on the 20th of June, +1836, is apparently only part of a letter, for it is written upon one +page, and the two "turnovers" only; and begins abruptly:-- + + * * * * * + +"My being in London this year seems very uncertain, although if Mr. +Sergeant Talfourd's _Ion_ be played, as I believe it will, for Mr. +Macready's benefit, I shall hardly be able to resist the temptation of +going up for a very few days to be present upon that occasion. But +I scarcely ever stir. I am not strong, and am subject to a painful +complaint, which renders the service of a maid indispensable not only +to my comfort but to my health; and that, besides the expense, has an +appearance of fuss and finery, to which I have a great objection, and +to which indeed I have from station no claim. My father, too, hates to +be left even for a day. And splendid old man as he is in his healthful +and vigorous age, I cannot but recollect that he is seventy-five, and +that he is my only tie upon earth--the only relation (except, indeed, +a few very distant cousins, Russells, Greys, Ogles, and Deans, whom I +am too proud and too poor to hook on upon), my only relation in the +wide world. This is a desolate view of things; but it explains a +degree of clinging to that one most precious parent which people can +hardly comprehend. You can scarcely imagine how fine an old man he is; +how clear of head and warm of heart. He almost wept over your letter +to-day, and reads your book with singular delight and satisfaction, +in spite of the difference in politics. He feels strongly, and so, I +assure you, do I, your kind mention of me and my poor writings--a sort +of testimony always gratifying, but doubly so when the distinguished +writer is a dear friend. Even in this desolation, your success--that +of your last work [_Paris and the Parisians_] especially must be +satisfactory to you. I have no doubt that two volumes on Italy will +prove equally delightful to your readers, whilst the journey will be +the best possible remedy for all that you have suffered in spirits and +health. + +"I am attempting a novel, for which Messieurs Saunders and Ottley have +agreed to give 700_l_. It is to be ready some time in September--I +mean the MS.--and I am most anxious upon every account to make it as +good as possible, one very great reason being the fair, candid, and +liberal conduct of the intended publishers. I shall do my very best. +Shall I, do you think, succeed? I take for granted that our loss is +your gain, and that you see Mr. Milman and his charming wife, who +will, I am sure, sympathise most sincerely in your present[1] +affliction. + +[Footnote 1: Mr. Milman had resigned recently the incumbency of a +parish in Reading. My mother's affliction alluded to was the death of +her youngest daughter, Emily.] + +"Adieu, my dear friend. I am tying myself up from letter-writing until +I have finished my novel. While I cannot but hope for one line from +you to say that you are recovering. Letters to me may always be +inclosed to Mr. Sergeant Talfourd, M.P., 2, Elm Court, Temple. Even if +he be on circuit, they will reach me after a short delay. God bless +you all. My father joins heartily in this prayer, with + +"Your faithful and affectionate, + +"M.R. MITFORD." + + * * * * * + +The next, and last which I have found, is entirely undated, but +post-marked 20th April, 1837. + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR FRIEND,--I don't know when a trifle has pleased me so much as +the coincidence which set us a-writing to each other just at the same +time. I have all the north-country superstition flowing through my +veins, and do really believe in the exploded doctrine of sympathies. +That is to say, I believe in all _genial_ superstitions, and don't +like this steam-packet railway world of ours, which puts aside with so +much scorn that which for certain Shakespeare and Ben Jonson held for +true. I am charmed at your own account of yourself and your doings. +Mr. Edward Kenyon--(whose brother, John Kenyon, of Harley Place, the +most delightful man in London--of course you know him--is my especial +friend)--Mr. Edward Kenyon, who lives chiefly at Vienna, although, +I believe, in great retirement, spending 200_l_. upon himself, and +giving away 2,000_l_.--Mr. Edward Kenyon spoke of you to me as having +such opportunities of knowing both the city and the country as rarely +befell even a resident, and what you say of the peasantry gives me a +strong desire to see your book. + +"A happy subject is in my mind, a great thing, especially for you +whose descriptions are so graphic. The thing that would interest me +in Austria, and for the maintenance of which one almost pardons (not +quite) their retaining that other old-fashioned thing, the State +prisons, is their having kept up in their splendour those grand old +monasteries, which are swept away now in Spain and Portugal. I have +a passion for Gothic architecture, and a leaning towards the +magnificence of the old religion, the foster-mother of all that is +finest and highest in art, and if I have such a thing as a literary +project, it is to write a romance, of which Reading Abbey in its +primal magnificence should form a part, not the least about forms +of faith, understand, but as an element of the picturesque, and as +embodying a very grand and influential part of bygone days. At present +I have just finished (since writing _Country Stories_, which people +seem so good as to like) writing all the prose (except one story about +the fashionable subject of Egyptian magicians, furnished to me by your +admirer, Henry Chorley; I wish you had seen him taking off his hat to +the walls as I showed him your father's old residence at Heckfield), +all the prose of the most splendid of the annuals, Finden's +_Tableaux_, of which my longest and best story--a Young Pretender +story--I have been obliged to omit in consequence of not calculating +on the length of my poetical contributors. But my poetry, especially +that by that wonderful young creature Miss Barrett, Mr. Kenyon, and +Mr. Procter, is certainly such as has seldom before been seen in an +annual, and joined with Finden's magnificent engravings ought to make +an attractive work. + +"I am now going to my novel, if it please God to grant me health. For +the last two months I have only once crossed the outer threshold, and, +indeed, I have never been a day well since the united effects of the +tragedy and the influenza ... [word destroyed by the seal]. What will +become of that poor play is in the womb of time. But its being by +universal admission a far more striking drama than _Rienzi_, and by +very far the best thing I ever wrote, it follows almost of course, +that it will share the fate of its predecessor, and be tossed about +the theatres for three or four years to come. Of course I should be +only too happy that it should be brought out at Covent Garden under +the united auspices of Mr. Macready and Mr. Bartley.[1] But I am in +constitution and in feeling a much older person than you, my dear +friend, as well as in look, however the acknowledgment of age (I +am 48) may stand between us; and belonging to a most sanguine and +confiding person, I am of course as prone to anticipate all probable +evil as he is to forestall impossible good. He, my dear father, is, +I thank Heaven, splendidly well. He speaks of you always with much +delight, is charmed with your writings, and I do hope that you will +come to Reading and give him as well as me the great pleasure of +seeing you at our poor cottage by the roadside. You would like my +flower-garden. It is really a flower-garden becoming a duchess. People +are so good in ministering to this, my only amusement. And the effect +is heightened by passing through a labourer's cottage to get at it, +for such our poor hut literally is. + +[Footnote 1: This gentleman was an old and highly valued friend of my +mother.] + +"You have heard, I suppose, that Mr. Wordsworth's eldest son, who +married a daughter of Mr. Curwen, has lost nearly, if not quite, all +of his wife's portion by the sea flowing in upon the mine, and has now +nothing left but a living of 200_l._ given him by his father-in-law. +So are we all touched in turn. + +"I have written to the Sedgwicks for the scarlet lilies mentioned by +Miss Martineau in her American book. Did you happen to see them in +their glory? of course they would flourish here; and having sent them +primroses, cowslips, ivy, and many other English wild flowers, which +took Theodore Sedgwick's fancy, I have a right to the return. How glad +I am to hear the good you tell me of my friend Tom. His fortune seems +now assured. My father's kindest regards. + +"Ever my dear friend, + +"Very faithfully yours, + +"M.R. MITFORD. + +"P.S.--Mr. Carey, the translator of Dante, has just been here. He +says that he visited Cowper's residence at Olney lately, and that his +garden room, which suggested mine, is incredibly small, and not +near so pretty. Come and see. You know, of course, that the 'Modern +Antiques' in _Our Village_ were Theodosia and Frances Hill, sisters of +Joseph Hill, cousins and friends of poor Cowper." + + * * * * * + +What the "good" was by which my "fortune was assured" I am unable +to guess. But I am sure of the sincerity of the writer's rejoicing +thereat. + +Mary Mitford was a genuinely warm-hearted woman, and much of her talk +would probably be stigmatised by the young gentlemen of the present +generation, who consider the moral temperature of a fish to be "good +form," as "gush." How old Landor, who "gushed" from cradle to grave, +would have massacred and rended in his wrath such talkers! Mary +Mitford's "gush" was sincere at all events. But there is a +"hall-mark," for those who can decipher it, "without which none is +genuine." + +A considerable intimacy grew up between my mother and the author of +_Highways and Byeways_ during the latter part of his residence in +England, and subsequently, when returning from Boston on leave, he +visited Florence and Rome. Many letters passed between them after +his establishment as British Consul at Boston, some characteristic +selections from which will, I doubt not, be acceptable to many +readers. + +The following was written on the envelope enclosing a very long letter +from Mrs. Grattan, and was written, I think, in 1840:-- + + * * * * * + +"I cannot avoid squeezing in a few words more just as the ship is on +the point of sailing or steaming away for England ... 'The President' +has been a fatal title this spring. Poor Harrison, a good and honest +man, died in a month after he was elected, and this fine ship, about +which we have been at this side of the Atlantic so painfully excited +ever since March, is, I fear, gone down with its gallant captain +(Roberts, with whom we crossed the Atlantic in the _British Queen_) +and poor Power, whom the public cannot afford to lose. + +"Since I wrote my letter three days ago--pardon the boldly original +topic--the weather has mended considerably. Tell Tom that every tree +is also striving to turn over a new leaf, and it is well for you that +I have not another to turn too. God bless you. + +"T.C.G." + + * * * * * + +I beg to observe that the exhortation addressed to me had no moral +significance, but was the writer's characteristic mode of exciting me +to new scribblements. + +The following, also written on the envelope enclosing a letter from +Mrs. Grattan, is dated the 30th of July, 1840:-- + + * * * * * + +"I cannot let the envelope go quite a blank, though I cannot quite +make it a prize ... In literature I have done nothing but write a +preface and notes for two new editions of the old _Highways and +Byeways_, and a short sketchy article in this month's number of the +_North American Review_ on the present state of Ireland. I am going to +follow it up in the next number in reference to the state of the Irish +in America, and I hope I shall thus do some good to a subject I have +much at heart. I have had various applications to deliver lectures at +Lyceums, &c, and to preside at public meetings for various objects. +All this I have declined. I have been very much before the public at +dinners for various purposes, and have refused many invitations to +several neighbouring cities. I must now draw back a little. I think I +have hitherto done good to the cause of peace and friendship between +the countries. But I know these continued public appearances will +expose me to envy, hatred, and malice. I hope to do something +historical by and by, and perhaps an occasional article in the _North +American Review_. But anything like light writing I never can again +turn to." + + * * * * * + +From a very long letter written on the 13th of May, 1841, I will give +a, few extracts:-- + + * * * * * + +"MY DEAR AND VALUED FRIEND,--Your letter from Penryth [_sic_] without +date, but bearing the ominous post-mark, 'April 1st,' has completely +made a fool of me, in that sense which implies that nothing else can +excuse a grey head and a seared heart for thinking and feeling that +there are such things in the world as affection and sincerity. Being +fond of flying in the face of reason, and despising experience, +whenever they lay down general rules, I am resolved to believe in +exceptions, to delight in instances, and to be quite satisfied that I +have 'troops of friends'--you being one of the troopers--no matter how +few others there may be, or where they are to be found. + +"You really must imagine how glad we were to see your handwriting +again, and I may say also, how surprised; for it passeth our +understanding to discover how you _make_ time for any correspondence +at all. We have followed all your literary doings step by step since +we left Europe, and we never cease wondering at your fertility and +rejoicing at your success. But I am grieved to think that all this is +at the cost of your comfort. Or is it that you wrote in a querulous +mood, when you said those sharp things about your grey goose quill. +Surely composition must be pleasant to you. No one who writes so fast +and so well can find it actually irksome. I am aware that people +sometimes think they find it so. But we may deceive ourselves on the +dark as well as on the bright side of our road, and more easily, +because it _is_ the dark. That is to say, we may not only cheat +ourselves with false hopes of good, but with false notions of +evil, which proves, if it proves anything just now, that you are +considerably mistaken when you fancy writing to be a bore, and that I +know infinitely better than you do what you like or dislike." + +It is rather singular to find a literary _workman_ talking in this +style. Grattan was not a fertile writer, and, I must suppose, was +never a very industrious one. But he surely must have known that talk +about the pleasures of "composition" was wholly beside the mark. +_That_ may be, often is, pleasant enough, and if the thoughts could +be telephoned from the brain to the types it would all be mighty +agreeable; and the world would be very considerably more overwhelmed +with authorship than it is. It is the "grey goose quill" work, the +necessity for incarnating the creatures of the brain in black and +white, that is the world's protection from this avalanche. And I for +one do not understand how anybody who, eschewing the sunshine and +the fields and the song of birds, or the enjoyment of other people's +brain-work, has glued himself to his desk for long hours, can say +or imagine that his task is, or has been, aught else than hard and +distasteful work, demanding unrelaxing self-denial and industry. And +however fine the frenzy in which the poet's eye may roll while he +builds the lofty line, the work of putting some thousands of them on +the paper when built must be as irksome to him as the penny-a-liner's +task is to _him_--more so, in that the mind of the latter does not +need to be forcibly and painfully restrained from rushing on to the +new pastures which invite it, and curbed to the pack-horse pace of the +quill-driving process. + +"You must not," he continues, "allow yourself to be, or even to fancy +that you are tired or tormented, or worn out. Work the mine to the +last. Pump up every drop out of the well. Put money i' thy purse; and +add story after story to that structure of fame, which will enable you +to do as much to that house by the lake side, where I _will_ hope to +see you yet." + + * * * * * + +He then goes on to speak at considerable length of the society of +Boston, praising it much, yet saying that it is made more charming to +a visitor than to a permanent resident. "In this it differs," he says, +"from almost all the countries I have lived in in Europe, except +Holland." + +Speaking of a visit to Washington during the inauguration of General +Harrison, which seems to have delighted him much, he says he travelled +back with a family, "at least with the master and mistress of it, +of whom I must tell you something. Mr. Paige is a merchant, and +brother-in-law of Mr. Webster; Mrs. Paige a niece of Judge Story. From +this double connection with two of the first men in the country their +family associations are particularly agreeable. Mrs. Paige is one of +three sisters, all very handsome, spirited, and full of talent. One is +married to Mr. Webster's eldest son. Another, Mrs. Joy, has for her +husband an idle gentleman, a rare thing in this place. Mrs. Paige was +in Europe two years ago with Mr. and Mrs. Webster senior (the latter +by the bye is a _most_ charming person) and had the advantage of +seeing society in England and France in its best aspect, and is one +who can compare as well as see ... Among the men [of the Boston +society] are Dr. Chinning, a prophet in our country, a pamphleteer +in his own; Bancroft, _the_ historian of America, a man of superior +talents and great agreeability, but a black sheep in society, on +account of his Van Buren politics, against whom the white sheep of the +Whig party will not rub themselves; Prescott, the author of _Ferdinand +and Isabella_, a handsome, half blind shunner of the vanities of the +world, with some others, who read and write a good deal, and no one +the wiser for it. Edward Everett is in Italy, where you will surely +meet him [we saw a good deal of him]. He is rather formal than +cold, if all I hear whispered of him be true; of elegant taste in +literature, though not of easy manners, and altogether an admirable +specimen of an American orator and scholar. At Cambridge, three miles +off, we have Judge Story, of the Supreme Court, eloquent, deeply +learned, garrulous, lively, amiable, excellent in all and every way +that a mortal can be. He is decidedly the gem of this western world. +Mr. Webster is now settled at Washington, though here at this moment +on a visit to Mrs. Paige. Among our neighbouring notabilities is John +Quincy Adams, an ex-President of the United States, ex-Minister at +half the courts in Europe, and now at seventy-five, a simple Member of +Congress, hard as a piece of granite, and cold as a lump of ice." + +Speaking of his having very frequently appeared at public meetings +during the first year of his Consulship, and of his having since that +refrained from such appearances, he continues: "I was doubtful as to +the way my being so much _en evidence_ might be relished _at home_. Of +late public matters have been on so ticklish a footing, that all the +less a British functionary was seen the better. + +"In literature I have done nothing barring a couple of articles on +Ireland and the Irish in America, a subject I have much at heart. +But much as I feel for them and with them, I refused dining with my +countrymen on St. Patrick's Day because they had the _gaucherie_ (of +which I had previous notice), to turn the festive meeting into a +political one, by giving 'O'Connell and success to repeal' as one of +their 'regular' toasts, and by leaving out the Queen's health, which +they gave when I dined with them last year." + +Then after detailed notices of the movements of his sons, he goes on: + +"We have many plans in perspective, Niagara, Canada, Halifax, the +mountains, the springs, the sea; the result of which you shall know as +soon as we receive a true and faithful account of your adventures in +just as many pages as you can afford; but Tom must in the meantime +send me a long letter ... Tell Tom I have half resolved to give up +punning and take to repartee. A young fellow said to me the other day, +'Ah! Mr. Consul (as I am always called), I wish I could discover a +new pleasure.' 'Try virtue!' was my reply. A pompous ex-Governor said +swaggeringly to me at the last dinner party at which I assisted, +'Well, Mr. Consul, I suppose you Europeans think us semi-civilised +here in America?' 'Almost!' said I. Now ask Tom if that was not pretty +considerable smart. But assure him at the same time, it is nothing at +all to what I _could_ do in the way of impertinence! Need I say how +truly and affectionately we all love you? + +"T.C. GRATTAN." + + * * * * * + +I wrote back that I would enter the lists with him in the matter of +impertinence; and as a sample told him that I thought he had better +return to the punning. + +I could, I doubt not, find among my mother's papers some further +letters that might be worth printing or quoting. But my waning space +warns me that I must not indulge myself with doing so. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +I said at the beginning of the last chapter, that during the period, +some of the recollections of which I had been chronicling, the two +greatest sorrows I had ever known had befallen me. A third came +subsequently. But that belonged to a period of my life which does not +fall within the limits I have assigned to these reminiscences. Of the +first, the death of my mother, I have spoken. The other, the death of +my wife, followed it at no great distance, and was of course a far +more terrible one. She had been ailing--so long indeed that I had +become habituated to it, and thought that she would continue to live +as she had been living. We had been travelling in Switzerland, in the +autumn of 1864; and I remember very vividly her saying on board the +steamer, by which we were leaving Colico at the head of the Lake of +Como, on our return to Italy, as she turned on the deck to take a last +look at the mountains, "Good-bye, you big beauties!" I little thought +it was her last adieu to them; but I thought afterwards that she +probably may have had some misgiving that it was so. + +But it was not till the following spring that I began to realise that +I must lose her. She died on the 13th of April, 1865. + +I have spoken of her as she was when she became my wife, but without +much hope of representing her to those who never had the happiness +of knowing her, as she really was, not only in person, which matters +little, but in mind and intellectual powers. And to tell what she was +in heart, in disposition--in a word, in soul--would be a far more +difficult task. + +In her the aesthetic faculties were probably the most markedly +exceptional portion of her intellectual constitution. The often cited +dictum, _les races se feminisent_ was not exemplified in her case. +From her mother, an accomplished musician, she inherited her very +pronounced musical[1] faculty and tendencies, and, I think, little +else. From her father, a man of very varied capacities and culture, +she drew much more. How far, if in any degree, this fact may be +supposed to have been connected in the relation of cause and effect, +with the other fact that her mother was more than fifty years of age +at the time of her birth, I leave to the speculations of physiological +inquirers. In bodily constitution her inheritance from her father's +mother was most marked. To that source must be traced, I conceive, the +delicacy of constitution, speaking medically, which deprived me of +her at a comparatively early age; for both father and mother were +of thoroughly healthy and strong constitutions. But if it may be +suspected that the Brahmin Sultana, her grandmother, bequeathed her +her frail diathesis, there was no doubt or difficulty in tracing to +that source the exterior delicacy of formation which characterised +her. I remember her telling me that the last words a dying sister of +her mother's ever spoke, when Theodosia standing by the bedside placed +her hand on the dying woman's forehead were, "Ah, that is Theo's +little Indian hand," And truly the slender delicacy of hand and foot, +which characterised her, were unmistakably due to her Indian descent. +In person she in nowise resembled either father or mother, unless it +were possibly her father in the conformation and shape of the teeth. + +[Footnote 1: But this she might also have got from her father, who was +passionately fond of music, and was a very respectable performer on +the violin.] + +I have already in a previous chapter of these reminiscences given +a letter from Mrs. Browning in which she speaks of Theodosia's +"multiform faculty." And the phrase, which so occurring, might in +the case of almost any other writer be taken as a mere epistolary +civility, is in the case of one whose absolute accuracy of veracity +never swerved a hair's-breadth, equivalent to a formal certificate of +the fact to the best of her knowledge. And she knew my wife well both +before and after the marriage of either of them. Her faculty was truly +_multiform_. + +She was not a great musician; but her singing had for great musicians +a charm which the performances of many of their equals in the art +failed to afford them. She had never much voice, but I have rarely +seen the hearer to whose eyes she could not bring the tears. She had +a spell for awakening emotional sympathy which I have never seen +surpassed, rarely indeed equalled. + +For language she had an especial talent, was dainty in the use of +her own, and astonishingly apt in acquiring--not merely the use for +speaking as well as reading purposes, but--the delicacies of other +tongues. Of Italian, with which she was naturally _most_ conversant, +she was recognised by acknowledged experts to be a thoroughly +competent critic. + +She published, now many years ago, in the _Athenaeum_, some +translations from the satirist Giusti, which any intelligent reader +would, I think, recognise to be cleverly done. But none save the very +few in this country, who know and can understand the Tuscan poet's +works in the original, can at all conceive the difficulty of +translating him into tolerable English verse. And I have no hesitation +in asserting, that any competent judge, who is such by virtue of +understanding the original, would pronounce her translations of Giusti +to be a masterpiece, which very few indeed of contemporary men or +women could have produced. I have more than once surprised her in +tears occasioned by her obstinate struggles with some passage of +the intensely idiomatic satirist, which she found it almost--but +eventually not quite--impossible to render to her satisfaction. + +She published a translation of Niccolini's _Arnaldo da Brescia_, which +won the cordial admiration and friendship of that great poet. And +neither Niccolini's admiration nor his friendship were easily won. He +was, when we knew him at Florence in his old age, a somewhat crabbed +old man, not at all disposed to make new acquaintances, and, I think, +somewhat soured and disappointed, not certainly with the meed of +admiration he had won from his countrymen as a poet, but with the +amount of effect which his writings had availed to produce in the +political sentiments and then apparent destinies of the Italians. +But he was conquered by the young Englishwoman's translation of +his favourite, and, I think, his finest work. It is a thoroughly +trustworthy and excellent translation; but the execution of it was +child's play in comparison with the translations from Giusti. + +She translated a number of the curiously characteristic _stornelli_ of +Tuscany, and especially of the Pistoja mountains. And here again it +is impossible to make any one, who has never been familiar with these +_stornelli_ understand the especial difficulty of translating them. Of +course the task was a slighter and less significant one than that of +translating Giusti, nor was the same degree of critical accuracy and +nicety in rendering shades of meaning called for. But there were +not--are not--many persons who could cope with the especial +difficulties of the attempt as successfully as she did. She produced +also a number of pen-and-ink drawings illustrating these _stornelli_, +which I still possess, and in which the spirited, graphic, and +accurately truthful characterisation of the figures could only have +been achieved by an artist very intimately acquainted _intus et in +cute_ with the subjects of her pencil. + +She published a volume on the Tuscan revolution, which was very +favourably received. The _Examiner_, among other critics--all of them, +to the best of my remembrance, more or less favourable--said of these +_Letters_ (for that was the form in which the work was published, all +of them, I think, having been previously printed in the _Athenaeum_), +"Better political information than this book gives may be had in +plenty; but it has a special value which we might almost represent by +comparing it to the report of a very watchful nurse, who, without the +physician's scientific knowledge, uses her own womanly instinct in +observing every change of countenance and every movement indicating +the return of health and strength to the patient ... She has written a +very vivid and truthful account." The critic has very accurately, and, +it may be said, graphically, assigned its true value and character to +the book. + +I have found it necessary in a former chapter, where I have given a +number of interesting and characteristic letters from Landor to my +wife's father, to insert a deprecatory _caveat_ against the exuberant +enthusiasm of admiration which led him to talk of the probability of +her eclipsing the names and fame of other poets, including in this +estimate Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The preposterousness of this +no human being would have felt more strongly than Theodosia Garrow, +except Theodosia Trollope, when such an estimate had become yet +more preposterous. But Landor, whose unstinted admiration of Mrs. +Browning's poetry is vigorously enough expressed in his own strong +language, as may be seen in Mr. Forster's pages, would not have +dreamed of instituting any such comparison at a later day. But that +his critical acumen and judgment were not altogether destroyed by the +enthusiasm of his friendship, is, I think, shown by the following +little poem by Theodosia Trollope, written a few years after the birth +of her child. I don't think I need apologise for printing it. + +The original MS. of it before me gives no title; nor do I remember +that the authoress ever assigned one to the verses. + + + I. + + "In the noon-day's golden pleasance, + Little Bice, baby fair, + With a fresh and flowery presence, + Dances round her nurse's chair, + In the old grey loggia dances, haloed by her shining hair. + + II. + + "Pretty pearl in sober setting, + Where the arches garner shade! + Cones of maize like golden netting, + Fringe the sturdy colonnade, + And the lizards pertly pausing glance across the balustrade. + + III. + + "Brown cicala drily proses, + Creaking the hot air to sleep, + Bounteous orange flowers and roses, + Yield the wealth of love they keep, + To the sun's imperious ardour in a dream of fragrance deep. + + IV. + + "And a cypress, mystic hearted, + Cleaves the quiet dome of light + With its black green masses parted + But by gaps of blacker night, + Which the giddy moth and beetle circle round in dubious flight. + + V. + + "Here the well chain's pleasant clanging, + Sings of coolness deep below; + There the vine leaves breathless hanging, + Shine transfigured in the glow, + And the pillars stare in silence at the shadows which they throw. + + VI. + + "Portly nurse, black-browed, red-vested, + Knits and dozes, drowsed with heat; + Bice, like a wren gold-crested, + Chirps and teases round her seat, + Hides the needles, plucks the stocking, rolls the cotton o'er her feet. + + VII. + + "Nurse must fetch a draught of water, + In the glass with painted wings,[1] + Nurse must show her little daughter + All her tale of silver rings, + Dear sweet nurse must sing a couplet--solemn nurse, who _never_ + sings! + + VIII. + + "Blest Madonna! what a clamour! + Now the little torment tries, + Perched on tiptoe, all the glamour + Of her coaxing hands and eyes! + May she hold the glass she drinks from--just one moment, Bice cries. + + IX. + + "Nurse lifts high the Venice beaker, + Bossed with masks, and flecked with gold, + Scarce in time to 'scape the quicker + Little fingers over-bold, + Craving tendril-like to grasp it, with the will of four years old. + + X. + + "Pretty wood bird, pecking, flitting, + Round the cherries on the tree. + Ware the scarecrow, grimly sitting, + Crouched for silly things, like thee! + Nurse hath plenty such in ambush. 'Touch not, for it burns,'[2] quoth + she. + + XI. + + "And thine eyes' blue mirror widens + With an awestroke of belief; + Meekly following that blind guidance, + On thy finger's rosy sheaf, + Blow'st thou softly, fancy wounded, soothing down a painless grief. + + XII. + + "Nurse and nursling, learner, teacher, + Thus foreshadow things to come, + When the girl shall grow the creature + Of false terrors vain and dumb, + And entrust their baleful fetish with her being's scope and sum. + + XIII. + + "Then her heart shall shrink and wither, + Custom-straitened like her waist, + All her thought to cower together, + Huddling sheep-like with the rest, + With the flock of soulless bodies on a pattern schooled and laced. + + XIV. + + "Till the stream of years encrust her + With a numbing mail of stone, + Till her laugh lose half its lustre, + And her truth forswear its tone, + And she see God's might and mercy darkly through a glass alone! + + XV. + + "While our childhood fair and sacred. + Sapless doctrines doth rehearse, + And the milk of falsehoods acrid, + Burns our babe-lips like a curse, + Cling we must to godless prophets, as the suckling to the nurse. + + XVI. + + "As the seed time, so the reaping, + Shame on us who overreach, + While our eyes yet smart with weeping, + Hearts so all our own to teach, + Better they and we lay sleeping where the darkness hath no speech!" + + +[Footnote 1: Those unacquainted with the forms of the old decorated +Venetian glass will hardly understand the phrase in the text. Those +who know them will feel the accuracy of the picture.] + +[Footnote 2: "_Non toccare che brucia_," Tuscan proverb.] + +It is impossible for any but those who know--not Florence, but--rural +Tuscany well, to appreciate the really wonderful accuracy and +picturesque perfection of the above scene from a Tuscan afternoon. But +I think many others will feel the lines to be good. In the concluding +stanzas, in which the writer draws her moral, there are weak lines. +But in the first eleven, which paint her picture, there is not one. +Every touch tells, and tells with admirable truth and vividness of +presentation. In one copy of the lines which I have, the name is +changed from Bice to "Flavia," and this, I take it, because of the +entire non-applicability of the latter stanzas to the child, whose +rearing was in her own hands. But the picture of child and nurse--how +life-like none can tell, but I--was the picture of her "baby +Beatrice," and the description simply the reproduction of things seen. + +I think I may venture to print also the following lines. They are, in +my opinion, far from being equal in merit to the little poem printed +above, but they are pretty, and I think sufficiently good to do no +discredit to her memory. Like the preceding, they have no title. + + I. + + "I built me a temple, and said it should be + A shrine, and a home where the past meets me, + And the most evanescent and fleeting of things, + Should be lured to my temple, and shorn of their wings, + To adorn my palace of memories. + + II. + + "The pearl of the morning, the glow of the noon, + The play of the clouds as they float past the moon, + The most magical tint on the snowiest peak, + They are gone while I gaze, fade before you can speak, + Yet they stay in my palace of memories. + + III. + + "I stood in the midst of the forest trees, + And heard the sweet sigh of the wandering breeze, + And this with the tinkle of heifer bells, + As they trill on the ear from the dewy dells, + Are the sounds in my palace of memories. + + IV. + + "I looked in the face of a little child, + With its fugitive dimples and eyes so wild, + It springs off with a bound like a wild gazelle, + It is off and away, but I've caught my[1] + And here's mirth for my palace of memories. + + V. + + "In the morning we meet on a mountain height, + And we walk and converse till the fall of night, + We hold hands for a moment, then pass on our way, + But that which I've got from the friend of a day, + I'll keep in my palace of memories." + + +[Footnote 1: Word here illegible.] + +The verses which Landor praised with enthusiasm so excessive were +most, or I think all of them, published in the annual edited by his +friend Lady Blessington, and were all written before our marriage. I +have many long letters addressed to her by that lady, and several by +her niece Miss Power, respecting them. They always in every instance +ask for "more." + +Many of her verses she set to music, especially one little poemlet, +which I remember to this day the tune of, which she called the _Song +of the Blackbird_, and which was, if I remember rightly, made to +consist wholly of the notes uttered by the bird. + +Another instance of her "multiform faculty" was her learning landscape +sketching. I have spoken of her figure drawing. And this, I take it, +was the real bent of her talent in that line. But unable to compass +the likeness of a haystack myself, I was desirous of possessing some +record of the many journeys which I designed to take, and eventually +did take with her. And wholly to please me she forthwith made the +attempt, and though her landscape was never equal to her figure +drawing, I possess some couple of hundred of water-colour sketches +done by her from nature on the spot. + +I used to say that if I wanted a Sanscrit dictionary, I had only to +put her head straight at it, and let her feel the spur, and it would +have been done! + +We lived together seventeen happy years. During the five first, I +think I may say that she lived wholly and solely in, by, and for me. +That she should live for somebody other than herself was an absolute +indefeasible necessity of her nature. During the last twelve years I +shared her heart with her daughter. Her intense worship for her "Baby +Beatrice" was equalled only by--that of all the silliest and all the +wisest women, who have true womanly hearts in their bosoms, for their +children. The worship was, of course, all the more absorbing that the +object of it was unique. I take it that, after the birth of her child, +I came second in her heart. But I was not jealous of little Bice. + +I do not think that she would have quite subscribed to the opinion of +Garibaldi on the subject of the priesthood, which I mentioned in a +former chapter--that they ought all to be forthwith put to death. But +all her feelings and opinions were bitterly antagonistic to them. She +was so deeply convinced of the magnitude of the evil inflicted by them +and their Church on the character of the Italians, for whom she ever +felt a great affection, that she was bitter on the subject. And it +is the only subject on which I ever knew her to feel in any degree +bitterly. Many of her verses written during her latter years are +fiercely denunciatory or humorously satirical of the Italian +priesthood, and especially of the Pontifical Government. I wish that +my space permitted me to give further specimens of them here. But I +must content myself with giving one line, which haunts my memory, and +appears to me excessively happy In the accurate truthfulness of its +simile. She is writing of the journey which Pius the Ninth made, and +describing his equipment, says that he started "with strings of cheap +blessings, like glass beads for savages." + +With the exception of this strong sentiment my wife was one of the +most tolerant people I ever knew. What she most avoided in those with +whom she associated was, not so much ignorance, or even vulgarity of +manner, as pure native stupidity. But even of that, when the need +arose, she was tolerant. I never knew her in the selection of an +acquaintance, or even of a friend, to be influenced to the extent +of even a hair's-breadth, by station, rank, wealth, fashion, or any +consideration whatever, save personal liking and sympathy, which was, +in her case, perfectly compatible with the widest divergence of views +and opinions on nearly any of the great subjects which most divide +mankind, and even with divergence of rules of conduct. Her own +opinions were the honest results of original thinking, and her conduct +the outcome of the dictates of her own heart--of her heart rather than +of her reasoning powers, or of any code of law--a condition of mind +which might be dangerous to individuals with less native purity of +heart than hers. + +As a wife, as a daughter, as a daughter-in-law, as a mother, she was +absolutely irreproachable. In the first relationship she was all in +all to me for seventeen years. She brought sweetness and light into +my life and into my dwelling. She was the angel in the house, if ever +human being was. + +Her father became an inmate of our house after the death of his wife +at a great age at Torquay, whither they had returned after the +death of my wife's half-sister, Harriet Fisher. He was a jealously +affectionate, but very exacting father; and few daughters, I think, +could have been more admirable in her affection for him, her attention +to him, her care of him. And I may very safely say that very few +mothers of sons have the fortune of finding such a daughter-in-law. +My mother had been very fond of her before our marriage, and became +afterwards as devotedly attached to her as she was to me, of whom she +knew her to be an indivisible part, while she was to my mother simply +perfect. Her own mother she had always been in the habit of calling by +that name. She always spoke to and of my mother as "mammy." What she +was to her own daughter I have already said. There was somewhat of +the tendency towards "spoiling," which is mostly inseparable from +the adoration which a young mother, of the right sort, feels for her +firstborn child, but she never made any attempt to avert or counteract +my endeavours to prevent such spoiling. When little Bice had to be +punished by solitary confinement for half an hour, she only watched +anxiously for the expiration of the sentence.[1] + +[Footnote 1: I do not remember that little Bice ever consoled herself +under the disgrace of such captivity as my present wife has confessed +to me that she did when suffering under the same condemnation. _Her_ +method of combining the maintenance of personal dignity with revenge +on the oppressor, was to say to the first person who came to take her +out of prison: "No! you can't come into _my_ parlour!"] + +But that her worth, her talent, her social qualities, were recognised +by a wider world than that of her own family, or her own circle of +friends, is testified by the recording stone, which the Municipality +placed on my house at the corner of the Piazza dell' Independenza, +where it may still be seen. Indeed the honour was not undeserved. For +during the whole of her residence in Italy, which nearly synchronised +with the struggle of Italy for her independence and unity, she had +adopted the Italian cause heart and soul, and done what was in her to +do, for its advancement. The honour was rendered the more signal, and +the more acceptable, from the fact that the same had recently been +rendered by the same body to Elizabeth Barrett Browning. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +The house in the Piazza dell' Independenza, which was known in the +city as "Villino Trollope," and of which I have spoken at the close of +the last chapter, was my property, and I had lived in it nearly the +whole of my married life. During that time four deaths had occurred +among its inmates. + +The first to happen was that of the old and highly valued servant +of whom I had occasion to speak when upon the subject of Mr. Hume's +spiritualistic experiences at my house. She had been for many years +a much trusted and beloved servant in the family of Mr. Garrow at +Torquay, and had accompanied them abroad. Her name was Elizabeth +Shinner. Her death was felt by all of us as that of a member of our +family, and she lies in the Protestant cemetery at Florence by the +side of her former master, and of the young mistress whom she had +loved as a child of her own. + +The next to go was Mr. Garrow. His death was a very sudden and +unexpected one. He was a robust and apparently perfectly healthy man. +I was absent from home when he died. I had gone with a Cornishman, a +Mr. Trewhella, who was desirous of visiting Mr. Sloane's copper mine, +in the neighbourhood of Volterra, of which I have before spoken. We +had accomplished our visit, and were returning over the Apennine about +six o'clock in the morning in a little _bagherino_, as the country +cart-gigs are called, when we were hailed by a man in a similar +carriage meeting us, whom I recognised as the foreman of a carpenter +we employed. He had been sent to find me, and bring me home with all +speed, in consequence of the sudden illness of Mr. Garrow. As far as +I could learn from him there was little probability of finding my +father-in-law alive. I made the best of my way to Florence. But he had +been dead several hours when I arrived. He had waked with a paralytic +attack on him, which deprived him of the power of moving on the left +side, and drawing his face awry, made speech almost impossible to him. +He assured his servant--who was almost immediately with him--speaking +with much difficulty, that it was nothing of any importance, and that +he should soon get over it. But these were the last words he ever +spoke, and in two or three hours afterwards he breathed his last. + +Then in a few years more the _crescendo_ wave of trouble took my +mother from me at the age of eighty-three. For the last two or three +years she had entirely lost her memory, and for the last few months +the use of her mental faculties. And she did not suffer much. The last +words she uttered were "Poor Cecilia!"--her mind reverting in her +latest moments to the child whose loss had been the most recent. She +had for years entertained a great horror and dread of the possibility +of being buried alive, in consequence of the very short time allowed +by the law for a body to remain unburied after death; and she had +exacted from me a promise that I would in any case cause a vein to be +opened in her arm after death. In her case there could be no possible +room for the shadow of doubt as to the certainty of death; but I was +bound by my promise, and found some difficulty in the performance of +it. The medical man in attendance, declaring the absolute absurdity of +any doubt on the subject, refused to perform an operation which, he +said, was wholly uncalled for, and argued that my promise could only +be understood to apply to a case of possible doubt. I had none; but +was none the less determined to be faithful to my promise. But it +was not till I declared that I would myself sever a vein, in however +butcher-like a manner, that I induced him to accompany me to the +death-chamber and perform under my eyes the necessary operation. + +My mother, the inseparable companion of so many wanderings in so many +lands, the indefatigable labourer of so many years, found her rest +near to the two who had gone from my house before, in the beautiful +little cemetery on which the Apennine looks down. + +But it was not long before this sorrow was followed by a very much +sorer one--by the worst of all that could have happened to me! After +what I have written in the last chapter it is needless to say anything +of the blank despair that fell upon me when my wife died, on the 13th +of April, 1865. She also lies near the others. + +My house was indeed left unto me desolate, and I thought that life and +all its sweetness was over for me! + +I immediately took measures for disposing of the house in the Piazza +dell' Independenza, and before long found a purchaser for it. I had +bought it when the speculator, who had become the owner of the ground +at the corner of the space which was beginning to assume the semblance +of a "square" or "piazza," had put in the foundations but had not +proceeded much further with his work. I completed it, improving +largely, as I thought, on his plan; adapted it for a single residence, +instead of its division into sundry dwellings; obtained possession of +additional ground between the house and the city wall, sufficient for +a large garden; built around it, looking to the south, the largest and +handsomest "stanzone"[1] for orange and lemon plants in Florence, and +gathered together a collection of very fine trees, the profits from +which (much smaller in my hands than would have been the case in those +of a Florentine to the manner born) nevertheless abundantly sufficed +to defray the expenses of the garden and gardeners. In a word, I made +the place a very complete and comfortable residence. Nearly the whole +of my first married life was spent in it. And much of the literary +work of my life has been done in it. + +[Footnote 1: "Stanzone" is the term used in Tuscany to signify the +buildings destined to shelter the "Agrumi," as the orange and lemon +plants are called generically, in the winter; which in Florence is too +severe to permit of their being left in the open air.] + +I used in those days, and for very many years afterwards, to do all +my writing standing; and I strongly recommend the practice to brother +quill-drivers. Pauses, often considerable intervals, occur for thought +while the pen is in the hand. And if one is seated at a table, one +remains sitting during these intervals. But if one is standing, it +becomes natural to one, during even a small pause, to take a turn up +and down the room, or even, as I often used to do, in the garden. And +such change and movement I consider eminently salutary both for mind +and body. + +I had specially contrived a little window immediately above the desk +at which I stood, fixed to the wall. The room looking on the "loggia," +which was the scene of the little poem transcribed in the preceding +chapter, was abundantly lighted, but I liked some extra light close to +my desk. + +In that room my Bice was born. For it was subsequently to her birth +that the destination of it was changed from a bedroom to a study. + +Few men have passed years of more unchequered happiness than I did in +that house. And I was very fond of it. + +But, as may be readily imagined, it became all the more odious and +intolerable to me when the "angel in the house" had been taken from +me. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +CONCLUSION. + + +Assuredly it seemed to me that all was over; and the future a dead +blank. And for a time I was as a man stunned. + +But in truth it was very far otherwise! I was fifty-five; but I was in +good health, young for my years, strong and vigorous in constitution, +and before a year had passed it began to seem to me that a future, +and life and its prospects, might open to me afresh; that the curtain +might be dropped on the drama that was passed, and a new phase of life +begun. + +I had had, and vividly enjoyed an entire life, according to the +measure that is meted out to many, perhaps I may say to most men. +But I felt myself ready for another! And--thanks this time also to +a woman--I have _had_ another, _in no wise_ less happy, in some +respects, as less chequered by sorrows--more happy than the first! I +am in better health too, having outgrown apparently several of the +maladies which young people are subject to! + +Of this second life I am not now going to tell my readers anything. +"What I remember" of my first life may be, and I hope has been, told +frankly without giving offence or annoyance to any human being. I +don't know that the telling of the story of my second life would +necessarily lead me to say anything which could hurt anybody. But +mixed up as its incidents and interests and associations have been +with a great multitude of men and women still living and moving and +talking and writing round about me, I should not feel myself so +comfortably at liberty to write whatever offered itself to my memory. + +Ten years hence, perhaps ("Please God, the public lives!" as a +speculative showman said), I may tell the reader, if he cares to hear +it, the story of my second life. For the present we will break off +here. + +But not without some words of parting kindness--and shall we say, +wisdom!--from an old man to readers, most of whom probably might be +his sons, and many doubtless his grandsons. + +Especially, my young friends, don't pay overmuch attention to what the +Psalmist says about "the years of man." I knew _dans le temps_ a fine +old octo-and-nearly-nonogenarian, one Graberg de Hemsoe, a Swede (a man +with a singular history, who passed ten years of his early life in the +British navy, and was, when I knew him, librarian at the Pitti Palace +in Florence), who used to complain of the Florentine doctors that "Dey +doosen't know what de nordern constitooshions is!" and I take it the +same may be said of the Psalmist. The years beyond three score and +ten need not be all sorrow and trouble. Depend upon it kindly +nature--_prudens_, as that jolly fellow, fine gentleman, and true +philosopher, Horace, says in a similar connection--kindly nature knows +how to make the closing decade of life every whit as delightful as any +of the preceding, if only you don't baulk her purposes. Don't weigh +down your souls, and pin your particles of divine essence to earth by +your yesterday's vices; be sure that when you cannot jump over the +chairs so featly as you can now, you will not want to do so; tell the +girls with genial old Anacreon, when the time comes, that whether the +hairs on your forehead be many or few, you know not, but do know +well that it behoves an old man to be cheery in proportion to the +propinquity of his exit, and go on your way rejoicing through this +beautiful world, which not even the Radicals have quite spoilt yet. + +And so _a rivederci_--_au revoir_--_auf Wiedersehn_--why have we no +English equivalent better than "Here's to our next pleasant meeting!" + + + +INDEX. + +A. + +Abbey, Reading, Mary Mitford's project concerning +Aberdeen, Lord, and Lord Cowley +Abrams, the Misses +Absolute, Sir A., my representation of +Ackland, Captain +Adam, Sir Frederick +Adam the forger, Dante's +Adams, John Quincy, Grattan on +Affinities Elective +Age not counted by years +Aladdin's lamp, G. Eliot wishes for +Albani, Margherita +Alberi, Signor +Albertazzi in 1840 +Alinari, photographer at Florence +_All the Year Round_, contributions to +American lady at Tuileries +Americans at the Pitti Palace + anecdote of + meeting Lewes at an +America, my brother's book on + criticised by Lewes + Irish in, Grattan on +Amiens, excursion to +Ampere, his eloge at the Academy by Arago +Amphytrion, Venice as +Anacreon on old age +Antagonism with G. Eliot, subject of +Antagonist, G. Eliot as an +Antiboini, the +Antiques, modern, in _Our Village_ +Antonelli, Cardinal +Apennines, Grand Duke crossing the + figure representing the, by Michael Angelo + scenery among the +Apoplexy, man dying of, anecdote of +Appony, Comte d', his receptions in Paris +April fool, Grattan an +Arago, M., at the Academy +Archduchesses, sweetness of +Archduchess Sophie +Arezzo, marshes near + Pulszky at + G. Eliot wishes to see +Aristotle's Natural Science +Army, Tuscan attitude of at the Revolution +_Arnaldo da Brescia_, Niccolini's +Arno river in flood + the +Articulation, George Eliot's +Ashley, Lord, letter from +Aspirates, Landor used to drop them +Aspirations, early +_Athenaeum_, my wife's letters in the +_Atlantic Monthly_ on Landor +Aubrey, Miss +Aumale, Duke of +Aunt, Dante's +Aural circulation, Lewes on +_Aurora Leigh_, Mrs. Browning's +Austen, Miss, Mary Mitford's idol +Austin, Alfred +Austrian troops in Florence + officers, anecdote of +Austria, Mary Mitford on + Napoleon III.'s negotiations with +Autobiography, G. Eliot on +Autograph collectors +Autolycus, his song +Auvergne, pedestrianising in + dialect of +Aylmer, Admiral + Lord +Azeglio d'Massimo, anecdote of + +B. + +Baby Beatrice +_Backwoodsman, Young_, Mary Mitford asks about +Baden in Switzerland +Bagni Caldi at Lucca Baths +Baiae, excursion to, G. Eliot's +Balzac's suppressed play +Bamberg, Baroness Zandt at +Banagher, my brother at +Bancroft, the Historian, Grattan on + his anti-Whig politics +Bandi, the family at Florence +Barbaras, Hermolaus +Bargello, at Florence, Dante's portrait in +Baritone of our way, Lewes +Barrett, Elizabeth, at Torquay + Theodosia Garrow's appreciation of + her affection for Isa Blagden + Landor on + Mary Mitford's admiration for +Bartley, Mrs., and Mary Mitford +Bartolomei, Marchese +Bath, and W.S. Landor +Bavaria, ramble in +Bay tree, Wordsworth's +Beacon Terrace, Torquay, Mrs. Browning at +_Beata, La_, my novel, Lewes and G. Eliot on + Mrs. Carlyle on +Beatrice, my daughter, George Eliot on +Beaufort, Duke of +Belial, Bishop, Landor calls Philpotts a +Bellosguardo, at Florence +Benjamin, my mother's +Ben Jonson's superstition, Mary Mitford on +Bereavements, different +Berkeley, Grantley, and Landor +Berington's _Middle Ages_ +Berti Palazzo, in Florence, +Bezzi, Signor A. and Landor +Bible, persecution for reading the +Bier, open, used in Florence +_Biglow Papers_, Lowell's +Biographies, G. Eliot on +Birmingham, my return from +Blackbird, Song of the +Black Down, Tennyson's house at +Black Forest, Leweses in the +_Blackwood's Magazine_, Mary Mitford on +Blagden, Isa, Miss + her poems + her death + note from + Lewes inquires after + and George Eliot +Blandford Square, Leweses at +Blaze de Bury, Madame +Blessington, Lady +Bob Acres, my representation of +Boboli Gardens, the, at Florence + anecdote of Lady Bulwer in +Bohemia, Grand Duke's estates in +Bologna, Grand Duke on way to + Austrians at +Bologna, "la Grassa" +Boodh, Landor on +_Book of Beauty_, Lady Blessington's +Booksellers, Landor eschews all +Bordeaux, Conversations at +Borgo, San Sepolcro, Pulszky at +Boston Consulate, Grattan on leave from + Society of, Grattan on the +"Boto," Florentine for "Voto" +Bourbonnais, travels in +Boutourlin family +Braddons, the, at Torquay +Brahman Princess, my wife's grandmother +Brest +Bretons, changes in character of +Brightness, my mother's value for +Brittany, book on + costume in +Broons in Brittany, costume of + innkeeper's daughter, at +Brougham Castle +Browning, Oscar +Browning, Robert + at Florence + his care for Landor in Florence +Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, specialties of her character + letters from + her absolute truthfulness + on Napoleon III + and Theodosia Garrow + her handwriting + her death, Lewes on + on Theodosia Trollope's faculty +Bull, Rev. Mr., of Bradford +Bullock, Reuben +Bully, an Irish +Bulwer, Lord, Landor on +Bulwer, Henry, at Paris +Bulwer, Lady, at Florence + her character + anecdote of + in Boboli gardens + letters from her +Burial, manner of, in Florence +Burial, premature fear of +Burridge, Landor's landlady at Torquay +Butcher's wife, anecdote of the +Butter, not used by Tuscans +Byron + +C + +Cadogan, Lady Honoria +Calais, crossing to, Lewes on +Camaldoli, with George Eliot to + _Padre forestieraio_ at +Cambridge, near Boston, notable men there +Canada +Cancellieri, Francesco, his mode of writing +Canigiani family at Florence +Canino, Prince + is marched off to the frontier + his sale of his title + his personal appearance +Capstone Hill, at Ilfracombe +Caravan, _summum bonum_ +Carlo, San, theatre at Naples, G. Eliot at +Carlsruhe +Carlton Hill at Penrith +Carlyle, Thomas, his description of Dickens's person + Landor on + and Anthony Trollope +Carlyle, Mrs., her description of Dickens's personal appearance + on my novel _La Beata_ +Carnival at Rome + at Florence +Carey, translator of Dante, with Miss Mitford +"Casa Colonica," Tuscan +Casentino, the +Casino dei Nobili at Florence +Cathedral in Florence and Mr. Sloane + burial of priest in, anecdote of +Cavour, my wife's account of his death, George Eliot on +Cemetery, Protestant, at Florence +Champion, the, at the Pitti, anecdote of +Charming, Dr., of Boston, Grattan on +Chappell, Mr. Arthur, dinner with +Chateaubriand +Cheapness at the Baths of Lucca +Chelsea, tea at +Chiaja at Naples, G. Eliot on the +Chiana, draining marshes of +Chianti wine, price of +Chiusi, marshes near +Chorley, Henry, and Mary Mitford, + at Heckfield +Church, the, Landor on +Church, English, Dickens on the +Citta di Castello, Pulszky at +Clarke, Miss (Mme. Mohl) +Clemow, Mr. and Mrs., of the Royal Hotel, Ilfracombe +Clergy, French, in 1840 + Guizot on the +Clericalism at Florence +Clifden, Turbot at +_Cobler, Northern, The_, read by Tennyson +Coins in use at Florence +Coker, Mrs. +Colburn, Mr. + and Lady Bulwer +Colico on Lake Como +Collins, Wilkie, story by + dinner with +Colloquial use of a language must be learned young +Cologne +Colonna Vittoria +Commons, House of, Dickens on +_Commonwealth of Florence_, my history of the +Como, Lake of + George Eliot at +"Compagnatico." Tuscan +Composition, George Eliot's difficulty in +Composition, literary, Grattan on +_Confessor's Manual_ +Congress, member of +Congresses, Italian Scientific +Conservatism forced on me +Consolation, child's, in confinement +Consul, British, at Boston, Grattan + Mr. Grattan addressed as +Consulship at Boston, Grattan on the +Consultations and plans, my mother's and mine +"Contadini," Tuscan +Convocation, Dickens on +Copper mine near Volterra +Coquerel, Athanase, his preaching +Corinne, a new +_Cornhill Magazine_ +Cornish jury, verdict of +Correggio, book on, by Signor Mignaty +Correspondence of London paper +_Country Stories_, Mary Mitford's +Court Supreme, American judge, story of the +Cousin, his philosophy obsolete +Covent Garden Theatre, Mary Mitford's play at +Cowley, Lord, ambassador in Paris +Cowley, Lady, as ambassadress +Cowper's home at Olney, Mary Mitford on +Cramer, John +_Crazy Jane_, authoress of +Crime almost unknown in Grandducal Florence +Croce, Santa, church of, in Florence and Mr. Sloane +Cross, Mr., his _Life of George Eliot_ +Cruikshank and Lady Bulwer +Curwen, Mr., flooding of his mine + +D. + +Dalling, Lord, at Paris + at Florence +Dall' Ongaro, the Poet +Dante, his portrait at Florence +Deak, Pulszky's visits to +Deans, cousins of Mary Mitford +Death in the street at Florence, anecdote of +Death of Lewes's son +Deathbeds, taste for, George Eliot's +Decade of Italian Women, my book on +Decade, last of life + how to enjoy the +Decision, a momentous +D'Henin + Mdlle + her letters to my mother, _et seq._ + at Tuileries ball + her death +"Dehors Trompeurs, les;" Mdlle. Mars in +_Democrat Le_, French newspaper anecdote of +Departure of the Duke from Florence +Deputies, Chamber of, opening of in 1840 + at the +Desk, writing, standing at +Devonshire farmer, a +De Whelpdale, Lord of Manor Penrith +Dexter, Arthur, of Boston +Dialect, Florentine + anecdote of lady speaking +Dialect, provincial, as read by Tennyson +Dialect, George Eliot on use of +Dibden, Dr. + his preaching +Dickens, Charles, first meeting with + personal appearance of in early youth + subsequently + was near-sighted + his manner + his so-called exaggerations + his character + his opinions on Italy + on public schools + letters from + on conversation + on Gibson the sculptor + on Italian political situation + on Louis Napoleon + on Home the Medium + introduces me to my first wife + on the general elections + on the House of Commons + on the English Church + on my brothers standing for Beverley + last letter from +Dinner, going with glee to +Director of Museum, Pesth +Disaffection in Tuscany, beginning of +Doherty, John, +Doney's coffee-house at Florence +Don Giovanni, Protestant, +Douarnenez, sardine fishing, etc +Doubt of death +Doyle, Sir F., his reminiscences +Dramatic College, Royal, Dickens at +Dresden as a residence +Drinking-song, sung by Mr. Du Maurier +Duel at Baths of Lucca, +Du Maurier, Mrs. +Du Maurier, Mr. and Mrs. +Dupin, at the Chamber +Dupin and Lady Bulwer +Dyer, Lady + Sir Thomas +Dymock, Champion, at Florence + +E. + +Easter devotions +Edenhall in Cumberland + Luck of +Election in Ireland + General, Dickens on + in Hungary, cost of + Hungarian +Elm Court, Temple, Sergeant Talfourd's address +English Government and Tuscany +English language, George Eliot on the +Enunciation, George Eliot's +Eotvoes, Baron, and Pulszky +Eremo, Sagro at Camaldoli + rule there + ride up to + inmates of +Error in post-mark, singular +Erysipelas, attack of, cured by Homoeopathy +Esterhazy, his picture gallery +Eternal City, French hated in +Everett, Ed, Grattan on +_Examiner_, the, criticism of, on my first wife's letters +Exchange of portraits +Ex-governor, pompous, and Grattan + +F. + +Factory legislation + Lords, leaders of +Faculty, multiform, my first wife's +"Falkland" in the _Rivals_, by Sir F. Vincent +"Falstaff House," of Dickens +Falterona, rivers rising in Mount + the mountain +Fanny Bent +Fauche, Mrs. +Fauriel, M. +Fete, National, at Florence +Field, Miss, + a favourite with Landor + returns his present of a scrap book +Fiesole, Leader's villa at +Filippo Strozzi, my book on +Finance Committee, Pesth, Pulszky on +Finden's tableaux +Fine Arts Society at Pesth, Pulszky chairman of +Finisterre, at + anecdote of +_Firenze la Gentile_ + no longer such +Firing on Florence, orders for + Duke never gave such +Fisher, Harriet, my wife's half sister + her character + her death +Fisher, Harriet, her brother + always a peacemaker + her beneficent influence +Flanders, French, rambles in +Flavia, verses on, by my first wife +Flint, Mrs. and Mary Mitford +Flood in Florence +Florence decided on as a residence + departure from London for + society of + flood at + coins in use at + cheapness of life at + police at + revolution at + number of English residing at + singular social change at + social changes in, causes of + my History of + Lewes criticises + leading medical practitioner at +Florentine nobles + Municipality places a tablet to the memory of my first wife + characteristics +Flower garden, Mary Mitford's +Fonblanque, Mr. Landor on +Fontebranda fountain +Fool, April, Grattan is made an +Foreign Affairs Committee at Pesth, Pulszky on +Forster, Mr., on Dickens + his life of Landor + portraits prefixed to + Landor gives him all his works +Fortezza da Basso at Florence, Grand Duke at + in Florentine revolution +_Fortnightly Review_ +France, Central, Journey through + which portion most interesting +Franchi, book by G.H. Lewes, reading +Francis, St., and Pulszky +_Fraser's Magazine_, Mary Mitford on +French hated at Rome +Frescobaldi family, at Florence +Friday receptions, my mother's in Florence + my mother's whist parties +Friends, my mother's, in youth and age +Fun, my mother's love of + +G. + +Gabell, Miss +Gabell, Dr., of Winchester +Galileo, new edition of work of + Milan edition of +Gambling tables at Lucca Baths +Garcia, P., in 1840 +Garibaldi and Dickens + Col. Peard's judgment of + my remembrance of him + visits me at Ricorboli + his personal appearance + dispute with him, a + at Palermo +Garrow, Mr. Joseph + Landor's letters to + his musical talent + a very exacting father + his death +Garrow, Mrs. +Garrow, Judge +Garrow, Theodosia + her position in her family + her fortune and prospects + her personal appearance + her ancestors + in Rome + her Church opinions + as an inmate + at the "Braddons," + her appreciation of Miss Barrett + and Landor +Genoa, fishing near + La Superba +George Eliot. _See_ Lewes, Mrs. +Germany, Lewes's in +Ghosts of memory +Gianchetti and whitebait +Gibson the sculptor + Dickens on +Giglio, Via del, at Florence +Gilchrist, Dr., dinner given by +Giotto's tower at Florence + anecdote concerning + G.H. Lewes on +Giusti, the poet, and Grand Duke of Tuscany + my first wife's translations from +Gladstone, his age, G. Eliot on + when a High Tory +"Glass beads for savages," +Glee, going to dinner with +Gore House +Gothard, St. over the, Lewes's journey +Gothic architecture, Mary Mitford on +Grand Duke of Tuscany + anecdote of + exit of, from Tuscany +Grand Duchess Florentini, burial of +Grant, General +Granville, Lord + his receptions in Paris +Grattan, T.C., consul at Boston + letters from + his message to me + blank, no prize, Grattan + prepares new edition of _Highways and Byeways_ + writes in _North American Review_ + endeavours to promote peace between England and America + speaks of his seared heart + pessimism as often deceptive as optimism + not a fertile writer + his advice to my mother as a writer + visits Washington + doubts respecting his conduct as consul + writes on Ireland + proposes various travels + resolves to give up punning + his repartees +Grattan, Mrs +Graves, Miss, at Florence +Green tea and laudanum, effects of +Gregory XVI. a Camaldolese + beans annually sent to +Grey goose quill work, Grattan on +Greys, cousins of Mary Mitford +Grisi in 1840 +Guidi Casa, visits to +Guizot on the French clergy +"Gush" and Mary Mitford +Gyoengyoes in Hungary, election for + +H + +Haddon Hall +Haine, Notre Dame de la +Hahnemann's favourite pupil +Halifax +Hall, Mr. Horace, and Mr. Sloane +Hall, Alfred, and family at Florence +Haller, Dr., of Berlin + on Lewes's philosophic work +Hamilton, Mr., Minister at Florence +Hamilton, Captain, author of _Cyril Thornton_ + his boat on lake +Handwriting, Mary Mitford's +Hare, Landor's friend +Harrison, American President +Harrow days, old +Hatred, Our Lady of +Hebraist, learned +Heckfield, Mary Mitford at +Heenan the pugilist +Heidelberg +Heights, Witley +Hennell, Miss Sara, Mrs. Lewes to +Heretics, persecution of +Hermolaus, Barbarus +Hervieu, M., his portrait of my mother +High Church opinions, my sister's +_Highways and Byeways_, Grattan's + new edition of +Hill, Herbert, Southey's nephew +Hill, Theodosia, in _Our Village_ +Hill, Frances, in _Our Village_ +Hill, Joseph, Cowper's cousin +_History of Philosophy_, G.H. Lewes's +_History of Florence_, my, G.H. Lewes's criticism of +Hoche, General, his daughter, anecdote of +Hobhouse, Edward, at Florence +Hofwyl, Lewes's at +Holland, society of, Grattan on +Holland, Lord, Minister at Florence + anecdote of + saved my mother's life + Lady +Homoeopathic cure of erysipelas +_Household Words_, my contributions to +Huegel, Baron +Hume, Mr., the "Medium," Dickens on +Humour, that of George Eliot + that of Lewes, different + my mother's sense of +Hungarian politics, Pulszky on + elections +Hungarians, Pulszky proud of the +Huntingford, Bishop of Hereford + his handwriting +Hustings, fall of + +I. + +Ilfracombe, visit to + Royal Clarence Hotel, at +Impudence, Irish, notable case of +Independenza, Piazza, dell', in Florence +Index, the Roman Catholic +Indian hand, my first wife's +Influenza and tragedy, Mary Mitford suffers from +Inghirami Marchese +Intimates, my mother's, in youth and age +_Ion_, Sergeant Talfourd's +Ireland in 1841 + Grattan on +Irish in America, Grattan on the +Italy, my mother's book on + takes to political thinking + +J. + +James, G.P.R., Lander's friend +Jealousy, professional, at Florence +Joy, Mr., of Boston +Joyce's Inn, dinner at +Judge Story, Grattan on + +K. + +Kenyon, Mr. + and Landor + his poems, Landor on + Landor on + and Miss Mitford +Kenyon, Mr. Edward, and Miss Mitford + his munificence +Keppel Street days, old +Killeries, excursion to +Kingstown, landing at +Kirkup, Seymour, and Signor Bezzi + +L. + +_La Beata_, my novel, George Eliot on + Lewes on +Lablache in 1840 +"Lady" for wife, used by Landor +Laffarge, Madame +Lake of Como, George Eliot at +Lamartine, cited +Landor, Walter Savage + at Siena + circumstances under which he left England + his character + personal appearance + last days at Florence + anecdote of + his deafness + dropped his aspirates + threw his dinner service out of window + his vivacity of manner + his objection to scattering his photograph + letters to Mr. Garrow + offers to let his villa at Florence + his extravagant exaggerations + anger respecting Lieutenantcy of Monmouth + abuses the Whigs + at a breakfast at Milman's + and Mary Mitford +Land's End, the +Landseer, Edwin +Langdale, Little, Wordsworth's lines on +Lanleff, Temple of +_Lascia Passare_ extraordinary +Laudanum and green tea, effects of +La Vernia + ride to + _forestieria_, &c, + night-lodging at +Layard, visit to Dickens + and G.P. Marsh +Leaf, turning over a new, Grattan on +"Lenten Journey," my +Leopoldine laws at Florence +Le Roi, Madame, anecdote of +Letters, my first wife's in the _Athenaeum_ +Lewes, G.H., my first acquaintance with + a delightful companion + his incessant care for his wife + his anxiety about Mrs. Lewes's fatigue + his fourth visit to Italy + as a _raconteur_ + at the house of the American Minister + his adieu to me about my novel + happier than previously + last adieu to him and Mrs. Lewes + his saying of George Eliot's person and constitution + his literary influence on George Eliot + his faith in her powers + his insistance on her superiority to him + his delight in talking of her + letters from him and George Eliot + letter criticizing my novel _La Beata_ + his remarks on Mrs. Browning's death + visits Malvern + his criticism of my _Marietta_ + his ill health + _Fortnightly Review_, his editing of + at Tunbridge Wells + his _History of Philosophy_ + in the Black Forest + at a pantomime + on crossing to Calais + on my corresponding with a London paper + death of his son + no biography of + his special advantages in writing on philosophy + photograph of him +Lewes, Mrs. excursion to Camaldoli + her cheerfulness under fatigue + her sensitiveness to all matters of interest +passes the night in the cow-house + at La Vernia + her fourth visit to Italy + her intellectual power + consideration for others + as a companion + her Catholic tolerance + would have been an admirable confessor + not happy + subsequently more so + her sense of humour + my visit to her at Witley + her growth + optimism in her case + her articulation + her love for a drinking song + her improved health + last adieu to her and Lewes + her personal appearance + her likeness to Savonarola + to Dante + her voice + and mode of speaking + her opinion of Lewes's scientific attainments + Bohemianism in Lewes pleasant to her + letters from her and Lewes + questions concerning Florentine history, letter on + her remarks on my novel _La Beata_ +speaks of her interest in deathbeds + her handwriting + on letter-writing + her Sunday musical evenings + her poor state of health + at Venice + difficulties in composing + in the Black Forest + wishes to see Arezzo and Perugia + at Naples + as an antagonist + and my second wife + her affection for Lewes's son + her wishes concerning her husband + after her husband's death + on her husband's photograph +Lewes, Charles +Liberalism, my mother's +_Life and Mind, Problems of_, G.H. Lewes's book on +Lilies, scarlet, American +Lima, river +Lira, Tuscan +Literature, English, biographies in +"Loggia," Tuscan, picture of afternoon in a +Lombard nobles +Lombardy under the Austrians +_London Quarterly_ on G.H. Lewes +Longfellow and Sir G. Musgrave +Lorraine, ramble in +Lottery, Italian, scheme of +Louis Philippe, history of reign of + his hobby +Louis Philippe opens French Chambers + his grief at death of Duc d'Orleans + anecdote of + his wealth + his debts + his reign, character of +Lowell, his _Biglow Papers_, read by him +L.S.D, origin of our +Lucca, Scientific Congress at +Lucca Baths + journey thither from Florence + English Church at + tragedy at + _La Industriosa_ +Lucca, Duke of + at the Baths + his protestantizing tendencies + his English chamberlains + opposed to duelling + by his chamberlain's dying bed +Lucchesi, character of +Lucerne, visit to the Garrows at +"Luck of Edenhall" +"Lung' Arno," at Florence +Luscombe, Bishop, his preaching + anecdote of +Lydia Languish played by Madame di Parcieu + +M. + +Macaulay, Landor on +_Macchiavelli, Life of_, Villari's +"Macchie" in Italian landscape +Macleod, Col., at Penrith +Macready and Mary Mitford + and G.H. Lewes + plays _Ion_ for his benefit +M'Queen, Col. Potter +Madiai, the story of the +Magazines, writing in, Mary Mitford on +Mahomet, Landor on +Malcontenti, Via dei, Florence +Malvern, Mr. and Mrs. Lewes's visit +Manelli, family at Florence +Mannheim +Manual for Confessors +_Marietta_, my novel, criticized by Lewes +Mario, Jessie White +Mario, Alberto +Marriage, my first, opposition to + imprudence of + performed in Florence +Mars, Madame, in _Les Dehors Trompeurs_ +Marsellaise, in 1840 +Marsh, G.P., American Minister to Italy + dean of the diplomatic body + his work, _Man in Nature_ + letter from him + difficulty with the Italian Ministry + his death + and G. Eliot + Mrs. Marsh + and G. Eliot + at Rome +Martineau, Miss, her American book +"Mason, George," Mary Mitford inquires about +Massy, Dawson +Master of Foxhounds, Irish +Mazzinists, Col. Peard on +Medical practice, and whist +_Medici, Catherine de, Girlhood of_, my book on +Medici, General, his departure from Genoa +Mediterranean, the +Melanie, Princess Metternich + letter from + exchange of portraits +Melbourne, Lord, his family, Landor on +Member of Congress +"Memories, Palace of," verses by my first wife +Menage and Menagerie +"Mercato in," Italian phrase +Merimee, M. +Messenger, King's +Metternich, influence of, on my mother + Princess, influence of +Mezzeria system in Tuscany +Michael Angelo, his figure representing the Apennine +_Michael Armstrong_, novel by my mother +Mignaty, Signora +Mignaty, Signor +Mignet, M. +Milan, Scientific Congress at +Milk not used by Tuscans +Milman, Landor breakfasts with + Lander's criticism on + quits incumbency at Reading +Minerva Hotel, Rome, Lewes's at +Mitford, Mary + her personal appearance + letters from + her handwriting + an aristocratic Whig + remarks on Owen, of Lanark + and Captain Polhill + her opera + on writing in magazines + her hopes for her tragedy + her hatred of puffery + anxious to go to London for the performance of Talfourd's _Ion_ + necessity for travelling with a maid + her father + her cousins + writes a novel for Saunders and Ottley + her belief in sympathies + opinions on Austria + admiration for Gothic architecture + purposes a novel on Reading Abbey + her _Country Stories_ + her admiration for Miss Barrett + her garden + sends wild flowers to the Sedgwicks + Carey, translator of Dante, visits her + her "gush" +Misericordia, the Florentine + origin of + dress of + members of + proceedings of + anecdotes of + Roman +Modena, frontier line between it and Lucca + political feeling at + under the Este dukes +"Modern Antiques" in _Our Village_ +Mohl, Jules, at Madame Recamier's + anecdote told by + his great work + character of + Madam, life of, by K. O'Meara + note from +Monasteries, sites of +Monday Popular Concerts, at the +Monmouth, Deputy Lieutenantcy of +Montalembert, Dickens's remarks on +Mont Cenis, crossing in February +Moore, Thomas, Landor on +Monthlies, writing in, Mary Mitford on +Moses, Landor on +Mountains, last look on the +Movement of mind towards Conservatism +Mowatt, Mrs. +Mozzi family at Florence +Mulgrave, Lady +Municipality, Florentine, place a tablet to the memory of my first wife +Municipalities, rivalry between +Murder at Florence, anecdote of a +Murder, singular method of +Murray, John, of Albemarle Street +Museum, National, at Pesth +Museum, British, George Eliot reading at +Musgraves of Edenhall + Sir George + and the Holy Well + and Longfellow + walks with + Lady +Mutton, no more good + +N. + +Naples, Scientific Congress at + under the Bourbons + compared with Torquay + the Lewes's at + G. Eliot on quarters at +Napoleon, Louis, Dickens on + his Italian policy, Mrs. Browning on + W.S. Landor writes on +Nemours, Duc de, anecdote of + his grief for his brother's death +Nerli family at Florence +"Netto dispecchio," query of George Eliot respecting the phrase +Neuilly, body of Duc d'Orleans lying at +Niagara +Niccolini, the poet, my first wife's translations from + in his old age + a disappointed man +Nicholson, Dr., of Penrith + walks with +Nicholson, Dr. Wm., of Penrith +Nihilist, opinions of a + appearance of a +Noble, name of Landor's grandmother +Northampton, Lord +_North American Review_, Grattan writes in +_Northern Cobbler_, the, read by Tennyson +Northernhay, at Exeter +Novels, my +Novel-writing, Mary Mitford on +Nunziatina, Via, in Florence +Nurse and child, picture of +Nymzevitch, ex-chancellor of Poland, anecdote of + +O. + +Oastler, Mr. +Oberland, the +O'Connell's health drunk at Boston +Octroi of London +Officer, Austrian and Tuscan mob, anecdote of +Ogles, cousins of Mary Mitford +Old school, practitioner of the +Olney, Cowper's residence at, Mary Mitford on +Olympus for forgotten authors +O'Meara, Miss K., on Jules Mohl +Opera, Mary Mitford's +Optimism in George Eliot +Orleans, Duke of + his death + grief of royal family for + anecdote of +Ostend +Osteria, near Lucca baths, scene at +_Our Village_, last volume of +Owen, Mrs., of Lanark, Miss Mitford on + +P. + +Packing and Sitz baths +Paddington, Bishop Luscombe at +"Padre forestieraio" at Camaldoli + plans for his holiday +Padua "la dotta" +Paige, Mr., of Boston, Grattan on +Paige, Mrs. +"Palace of Memories," verses by my first wife +Pan, God, Mrs. Browning's poem on + morality of +Pantomime, Lewes at a +Papal Legion, the +Parcieu, Madame de, as Lydia Languish +Paris, second visit to + residence at + lodgings, cost of + society in 1840 + as a permanent residence +_Paris and the Parisians_, my mother's book, Mary Mitford on +Parma, Duke of, his death +Parma, political feeling at +Partington, Mr., my uncle +Pasolini, Count and Countess +Passerini, Palazzo, at Florence +Patrick's, Saint, day, Grattan on +_Paul the Pope and Paul the Friar_, my book on +Paynter, Fred +Peard, Colonel + letters from +Pelago in the Val d'Arno + Antonio da +Penini, Browning's son, at Siena + anecdote of +Penna de la Vernia + origin of word + appearance of +Penrith, at + my sister's confinement at + house at +Pepe, General, his marriage + my mother's intimacy with +Pergola Theatre at Florence, prices at + habits and manners at + crush room at +Persecution of heretics +Persiani in 1840 +Perugia, G. Eliot wishes to see + at +Pesth, museum at + ladies of + University + Museum +_Philosophy, History of_, Lewes's +Philpotts, Bishop of Exeter, Landor on + anecdote of +Phlebotomy _versus_ port wine + _versus_ whist +Photograph, Landor's +Physician, Princess Metternich's +Piastre, Landor fined one +Piazza del Duomo at Florence, cafe in +Piazza dell' Independenza at Florence +"Piazza in," Italian phrase +Picardy, ramble in +Picnics at Florence +Pigott, Edward, and G. Eliot +Pisa, Congress at + region between it and the sea +Pistoja, mountains in the +Pitti Palace, presentations, anecdote of + _versus_ Vatican +Pitti Palace, balls at + suppers at + Grand Duke at + Duchess at + Dowager Duchess at +Pitti Palace, the, at Florence +Pius IX., anecdote of + line on +Place Vendome +Plantation bitters, G.H. Lewes recommends +Plowden, Mr., at the baths of Lucca + his duel with the Duke's chamberlain +Plunkett, Mr., Minister at Florence +Poem by Theodosia Trollope +Pointer, French, anecdote of +Polhill, Captain, and Mary Mitford +Police at Florence under the Grand Duke +Political opinion, Parisian, in 1840 +Politics, Street, in Paris + an affair of the heart +Ponte Vecchio at Florence in danger + the +Ponte at baths of Lucca +Pontifical government, my first wife's hatred of +Populace, Florentine, anecdote of + violence of +"Por' Santa Maria," in Florence +Port wine _versus_ phlebotomy +Portugal, destruction of monasteries in, Mary Mitford on +Post-mark, singular error in +Potatoes, cost of +Power, Miss, Lady Blessington's niece +Power, lost in the _President_ +Prato Vecchio, town in the Apennines + osteria at, 272 +Pratolino, picnics at + Medician villa + view from +Premature burial, fear of +Prescott, the historian, Grattan on +"President," the, a fatal title +Pretender, Young, Mary Mitford's story of the +Priest, rescuing the + burial of, in Florence Cathedral +Priory, the, Mrs. Lewes at +_Problems of Life and Mind_, G.H. Lewes's book on +Proby, Mrs., as Mrs. Malaprop +Procter, Mr., his poetry, Mary Mitford on +Proletaire, French +Promise, my, to my mother +Protestant cemetery at Florence +Provincialism, affected + Tuscan +_Psychology, Study of_, Lewes's book on the +Puffery, Mary Mitford on +Pulszky, Franz + his talk + his villa at Florence + letters from + our tobacco parliament + and Deak + and Baron Eotvoes + on Hungarian politics + his children + at Vienna + his multifarious occupations + visit to, at Pesth +Pulszky, Madame +Punning, Grattan abandons +"Puseyite," my sister a + +Q. + +Quadruple Alliance, the +_Quarterly, London_, on G.H. Lewes +Quattro Fontane, Via della +Quincy Adams, John +Queen of the Adriatic, monograph on +Queen's health not drunk at Boston +_Queen, British_, the, steamship +Queen of the Baths, Lucca +Queen, the, should be Pope, says Landor +Quotations, Landor on + +R. + +Rachel, Mademoiselle, in _Cinna_ + her specialties + in _Marie Stuart_ + in _Adrienne_ +Railways, social effect of + the Lewes's wish to avoid +Ratcliffe, Mrs. anecdote of +Ratisbonne, M., his conversion +Ravenna, scene of a novel of mine +Reading, visits to +Reading Abbey, Mary Mitford's project concerning +Recamier, Madame, talk in her salon + and Lady Bulwer +Refinement, its connection with wealth, Mary Mitfoid on +Refugees, political, in Florence +Regicides, would-be +Religion in France in 1840 +Repartee, Grattan takes to +_Review, Fortnightly_ + _North American_,, Grattan writes in +Revolution at Florence + entirely bloodless + orders to fire on the city in the +Rialto, on the +Richie, Mrs. +Richelieu, Duc de, anecdote of +Ricorboli, my villa at +_Rienzi_, Mary Mitford's +Ristori, Madame, in _Mirra_ +_Rivals, The_, acted at Florence +Riviera, the, Whitebait on +_Rizpah_, read by Tennyson +_Road to Ruin, The_, Arthur Vansittart in +"Roba usata," +Robbins, English, clergyman at Florence +Roberts, Captain of the _President_ +Rogers, Landor on + at Milman's breakfast +_Role_, Liberal, profession of +Rome "la Eterna," +Romagna under the Pope +Romagnoli, the +Rome as a residence + takes no part in scientific congresses + winter in +_Romola_, George Eliot's, faults of + merits of +Romuald, Saint +Rossi family at Florence +Rousseau +Rubini in 1840 +Rule and example +Russells, cousins of Mary Mitford + +S. + +Sagro Eremo, the, at Camaldoli + rule there + ride up to + inmates of +Sainte-Beuve, cited +Saint Francis, sisters of the Order +Saint Patrick's Day, Giattan on +Sams or Sands? Miss Mitford asks +Sanctuaries, Tuscan +San Carlo Theatre at Naples, George Eliot at +San Gallo gate at Florence +Sainta Maria Maggiore in Rome +San Niccolo gate of Florence +Sanscrit dictionary, if wanted +Sardine fishing +_Saturday Review_, George Eliot on +Saunders and Ottley publish novel for Mary Mitford +Savonarola in George Eliot's _Romola_ + likeness of George, Eliot to +Savoy, tour in +Saws, Tuscan, for children +Sayers the pugilist +Sciatica, attack of +Scientific Congresses, Italian +Scrivelsby Manor +Seal, old, Landor loses his +Sedgwick Miss, Mary Mitford on + Theodore asks for English wild flowers +Segni, the historian +Serchio, river + upper valley of +Servite Monastery on the Apennines +Sestri di Ponente, fishery at + whitebait at +Sevestre, Lady + Sir Thomas +Shaftesbury, Lord +Shakespeare's superstition, Mary Mitford on +Shedden, Mr. +Shinner, Elizabeth, her death +Sicily and South Italy, Col. Peard on + departure of volunteers for +Siena, Mrs. Browning at + always Conservative +_Siren, A_, my novel + advice of Lewes concerning +Sledges on Mont Cenis +Sloane, Mr. at Florence + and Grand Duke + his Friday dinners +Smith, Sydney + his manner in the pulpit +Sophie, Austrian Archduchess +Sorrows, two greatest of my life +Soult, English frenzy about + at the Chamber of Deputies +Southampton, Landor goes to +Southey, Landor on his marriage + Landor on +Spain, destruction of monasteries, Mary Mitford on +"Specchio, netto di," query of George Eliot concerning +Standing to write +Stanley, Ed., Landor on +State prisons in Austria +Sterne quoted +Stephens, Mr., preacher +Stewart, Miss Rosa +Stisted, Mrs. + was Queen of the Baths + her harp playing + brings her husband's body from Rome + Colonel + his death + and bunal +"Stornelli," Tuscan + my first wife's translations from +Story, Judge, Grattan on +Story, the Misses, at Penrith + Charlotte +Sugaring jam tart, Lewes on +Sultana, my first wife's grandmother +Sunshine, George Eliot's, in London +Superstition, local +Suppers at the Pitti Palace +Supreme Court, American, Judge Story of the +Surrey, G. Eliot's home in +Swedenborgianism +Switzerland, Baden in, cured my sciatica + travel in +Sympathies, Mary Mitford's belief in +Szecseny, in Hungary, election for + +T. + +Tablet, monumental, to my first wife +Taffy, Lady Bulwer's dog +Talfourd, Sergeant, Mary Mitford's friend + his _Ion_ + franks Mary Mitford's letters +Tamburini, in 1840 +Taylor, Jeremy +Telesio, works of +Tennyson, visit to + his reading +Teste, at the Chamber +"Testor inferos," +Thackeray, W.M., his dictum about humour +Theatres in London and abroad, G.H. Lewes on +Theatricals, private, at Florence +Thibeaudeau, President +Thiers, M. + anecdote of + flatters the masses + and Lady Bulwer +Thorn, Colonel +_Three Clerks, The_, my brother's novel, Mrs. Browning on +Three Mile Cross, Miss Mitford's residence +_Three Peers, The_, by Lady S--, Lady Bulwer on +Tiber, river +Tirley, Sir John, married to my sister +_Times_, the, on Italian politics +Tito in George Eliot's _Romola_, merit of +Token, meaning of the term +Torquay, Landor at + compared with Naples +Torrens, Mr., as Sir Lucius o'Trigger +Tory, process of becoming a + Mary Mitford becomes a +Tours in France +Townsend, C.H. +Traditions of Landor in Florence +Travel, books of +Treguier in Brittany +Trewhella, Mr. +Trooper, Austrian, falls in streets of Florence +Trollope, Beatrice, my daughter, poem on, by her mother + her mother's worship of + early discipline of +Trollope, Cecilia, my sister, winters in Rome +Trollope, General Sir Charles, at Venice + his membership of the Congress at Venice +Trollope, Theodosia, my first wife, her death + her intellectual and moral qualities + influence of race on + Mrs. Browning on her multiform faculty + her musical talent + her talent for language + poem by + her landscape painting + her opinions + her hatred of the Pontifical Government + her social preferences + her rule of life + as a daughter-in-law +Trollope, Frances, my mother, winters in Rome + as Mrs. Malaprop + serious illness of, was wrongly treated + was my inseparable companion + her intense power of enjoyment + her last days + my brother Anthony's mistaken judgment of + portrait of, for Princess Metternich + attacked by erisypelas + her death + my promise to her, the keeping of +Trollope, Anthony, my brother, in Ireland + walk at the Killeries + his standing for Beverley, Dickens on + his criticism on Mrs. Browning + his _Three Clerks_, Mrs. Browning on + dines with G.H. Lewes + with Carlyle + comes to see me at Baden + his letter to my wife + his autobiography, a passage in + his mistaken judgment of my mother +Trollope, T. Adolphus, early literary work + a born rambler + taste for sermons + offends Wordsworth + first book + early habits of rambling + book on Brittany + second visit to Paris + preparation of house at Penrith + visit to Ireland + plans and consultations + acquaintance with Dickens + building a house + _Daily News_ correspondent + first marriage, opposition to + imprudence of + first meeting with future wife + with her at Venice + first marriage + book on _Tuscany in 1849 and 1859_ + acts Sir Anthony Absolute + three Thespian avatars + literary work at Florence + writes novels good and bad + knowledge of Italian + visits Pesth + visits to Landor + visits Camaldoli with Lewes and his wife + talk with her + receives her and Lewes + visits them at Witley + visit to Tennyson, at Black Down + my conversatism + attack of sciatica + closeness of association with my mother + my political opinions + sorrows come upon me + keeping my promise to my mother + end of first life + beginning of second life +Troops, Tuscan, and the Revolution +Tuckerman, Mr., American writer +Tuileries, _bal monstre_ at + suspected conspiracy at +Tunbridge Wells, G.H. Lewes at +Turrite Cava, gorge of +Tuscan cities, wedding trip among + Stornelli, my first wife's translations from +Tuscans, not progressive +Tuscany and Papal States + condition of, in 1840 + Duke of, his justice + Grandducal, disliked at the Vatican +Tyrol, ramble in + +U. + +Upper Arno, the valley of the + +V. + +Vallombrosa +Van Buren politics, Grattan on +Vansittart, Arthur +Varchi, the historian +Vatican, Dickens on the +Vein, opening of a +Venice as a residence + autumn at + Scientific Congress at + magnificent reception of the Congress + under the Austrians + George Eliot at + glass and child +Venetian ambassadors, reports of +Verey's in Regent Street, Dickens at + Dickens's "God speed" dinner at +Via Nazionale in Rome +Vienna Exhibition + Mr. E. Kenyon at +Villa, the, at Lucca Baths +Villafranca +_Village, Our_, last volume of +Villages on hills around Baths of Lucca + mode of keeping time at +Villani, the historian +Villari, Professor Pasquale + Linda +"Villino Trollope," at Florence + my study in the +Vincent, Sir Francis, at Florence +Visconti, Mademoiselle +Visits, two important +Vol-au-vent, true pronunciation of +Volterra, copper mines near, and Mr. Sloane +Volunteers, Colonel Peard on, 223 + +W. + +Wackerbarth, Mr., High Church curate +Walker and Wood, Memoirs of Bradford +Walter, Madame +Ward, Baron, his extraordinary career + anecdote of +Warwickshire, Landor goes to +Washington, Grattan's visit to +Watts, portrait of Lady Holland by +Webster, Mr., of Boston, Grattan on Mrs. +Wellington Street, No. 20, visits to +West India, Book on, Anthony's +Whig, aristocratic +Whigs, the, Landor on +Whist and medical practice +White, Linda +Whitebait and Gianchetti +Whittaker, Mr., Mary Mitford's publisher +Wife, my second, and G. Eliot +Wills, Mr., dinner with +Winchester, Dr. Gabell of +Wise, Mr. +Wiseman, Cardinal, in Casa Sloane +Witley, the Heights +Wood, Mr., of Bradford + and Walker, Messieurs +"Woonderful," favourite word with Landor +Wordsworth, visit to + his recitation of his own lines + manner of reciting + his eldest son's misfortune +Work the great consoler, Lewes on + +X. + +Ximenes, Palazzo, in Florence + +Y. + +York Street, in + return to + house in given up +"Young Backwoodsman," Mary Mitford asks about +"Young Pretender, the," Mary Mitford's story of + +Z. + +Zandt, Baroness + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT I REMEMBER, VOLUME 2
*** + + +******* This file should be named 12471.txt or 12471.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/4/7/12471 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS,' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + +https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + +https://gutenberg.org/etext06 + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** diff --git a/old/12471.zip b/old/12471.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8b650fc --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12471.zip |