A Writer's Recollections � Volume 2 by Ward, Humphry, Mrs., 1851-1920

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Chapter Ii London Friends

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Chapter Iii The Publication Of Robert Elsmere

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Chapter Iv First Visits To Italy

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Chapter V Amalfi And Rome. Hampden And Marcella

Chapter Vi Helbeck Of Bannisdale

W. E. Gladstone.

T. H. Huxley.

Chapter Vii The Villa Barberini. Henry James

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Chapter Viii Roman Friends. Eleanor

The following year I sent him _Eleanor_, as a reminder of our meeting in Rome, and he wrote:

To me the revisiting of Rome is the brightest spot of the day-dreams
of life, and I treasure all its recollections. After the
disappointment of the day when we were to have seen Albano and Nemi
under your guidance, we managed the expedition, and were entranced
with the scene even beyond our hopes, and since that time I have
lived through it again in the pages of _Eleanor_, which I read with
greediness, waiting each number as it appeared.Now about Manisty. What a fortunate beggar, to have two such
charming women in love with him! It is always so. The less a man
deserves it the more they adore him. That is the advantage you women
writers have. You always figure men as they are and women as they
ought to be. If I had the composition of the history I should never
represent two women behaving so well to one another under the
circumstances. Even American girls, according to my observation, do
not show so much toleration to their rivals, even though in the end
they carry off their man....Your sincerely attached

W. V. HARCOURT.

Let me detach a few other figures from a gay and crowded time, the ever-delightful and indefatigable Boni--Commendatore Boni--for instance. To hear him talk in the Forum or hold forth at a small gathering of friends on the problems of the earliest Italian races, and the causes that met in the founding and growth of Rome, was to understand how no scholar or archeologist can be quite first-rate who is not also something of a poet. The sleepy blue eyes, so suddenly alive; the apparently languid manner which was the natural defense against the outer world of a man all compact of imagination and sleepless energy; the touch in him of "the imperishable child," combined with the brooding intensity of the explorer who is always guessing at the next riddle; the fun, simplicity, _bonhomie_ he showed with those who knew him well--all these are vividly present to me.

So, too, are the very different characteristics of Monseigneur Duchesne, the French Lord Acton; like him, a Liberal, and a man of vast learning, tarred with the Modernist brush in the eyes of the Vatican, but at heart also like Lord Acton, by the testimony of all who know, a simple and convinced believer.