What I Remember, Volume 2

ually 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 directi

rred within a few days of each other, were big with

ife, as the reader has seen. The visit of Mr. and Mrs. Garrow to the

the banks of the first that my first married life was passed; on those of the more

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

continued till the untimely death of Harriet. But never were two sisters

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

re 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 en

he 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 har

re, grief at the time. Within two years after my marriage, poor, dear, good, loving Harriet caught small

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

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 repl

e 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, wa

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 pr

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 c

gs, 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

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 no

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.

y contrived to sit in the gondolas, in the Piazza in the evening, etcaetera. It was lovely September weather-just the time for Venice. The su

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, Rom

r 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

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,

tous, 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 c

ome 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,

heels a little too audaciously at Venice under Austria's nose; a

isted 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

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

pendence, I was busy in forging the chains of that dependence which was to be a more unmixed so

on 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

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 n

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 pers

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 Chur

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, ge

riage, till the spring of forty-eight. We were finally married on the 3rd of April in that year, in the British

the next day. "All right!" said he; "will ten o'clock do?" "Could not be better!" "Very good! Tell Robbins [the then English clergyman]

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

breakfast at the house of Mr. Garrow in the Piazza di Santa Maria Novella,