“Florence, May 10.—Ten days here in the radiant spring-tide have been very delightful. I have seen a great deal of Mrs. Ross, Lady Duff Gordon’s beautiful daughter, who is now writing the story of her mother’s life. She has a noble head, which is almost more full of expression than that of any one I know, and I am sure that her character is noble too, with all the smallnesses of life, which make a thoroughly anglicised character ignoble, washed out, and its higher qualities remaining to be mingled with the Italian frankness and kindly simplicity which English-English do not possess, and consequently cannot understand. Her singing to a guitar is capital—chiefly of Italian stornelli, rendered with all the verve which a contadina herself could give them. It is no wonder that Italians adore her. Each summer she and her husband spend at Castagnuolo with the Marchese Lotteria della Stufa, the great friend of her father, who died in his arms. This is ‘Il Marchese’ par excellence with the Florentines, to whom he is public property. When a child accidentally shot him with a pistol through the crown of his hat, thousands of people thronged the street before his house to inquire, and in all the villages round his native valley of Signa the price of wax went up for a fortnight, so many candles were burnt to the Madonna as thank-offerings for his escape. The next day, as he was crossing one of the bridges, he met Giacomo, a flyman he knew, driving a carriage full of very respectable old Scotch ladies. Giacomo flung his reins on the box, and rushing up to the Marchese, threw himself sobbing on his breast.
“I have been out with Mrs. Ross to the Stufa villa of Castagnuolo, seven miles off, near the Badia di’ Settimo, in a tiny baroccino, drawn by Tocco, the smallest of spirited ponies, and with Picco, the weest terrier ever seen, upon our knees. As we turned up from the highroad to the villa on the hills through the rich luxuriant vineyards, the warmest welcome met us from all the peasants, and Mrs. Ross received them with ‘Ah, caro Maso, e come va la moglie,’—‘Addio, caro Guido mio.’ In a house in the grounds—a ‘podere’—the whole family of inmates thronged round her with ‘Vi pigliero un consiglio, Signora,’ about a sick child. We wandered up the woods, gathering lovely wild orchids, and then went to the farm, where the creatures, like the people, seemed to regard Mrs. Ross as one of themselves: the cows came and licked her, the sheep came and rubbed against her, the pigeons perched, and even the wild boars were gentleness itself. She was first able to make her way at Castagnuolo by nursing day and night an old contadino who died in her arms. She described comically, though pathetically, the frantic grief which ensued: how the son, Antonio, tried to drown himself, and was pulled out of the water by his breeches: how the whole family insisted upon being bled: how a married daughter, a niece, and a cousin came and had strong convulsions; and how, when she ventured to leave them for a little to go to her dinner, the fattore rushed after her with—‘Ma Signora, tutte le donne son svenute;’[92] how eventually she locked up each separately for the night with a basin of soup, having made them a little speech, &c. Whenever any of the contadini have burns, they are cured by poultices of arum-leaves.
“All is simple, graceful goodness at Castagnuolo.”
“Venice, May.—I feel that I am now learning much about masters I never knew before. One is introduced to them at one place and continues the acquaintance at another, till one becomes really intimate. Marco Basaiti is the best of these new friends, with his sad shadowy figures always painted against an afterglow. One learns how, as Savonarola says, ‘every painter paints himself. However varied his subjects, his works bear the sign-manual of his thought.’[93]
“At Milan, on the Eve of S. Ambrogio, an American next me at the table-d’hôte said to his neighbour opposite, ‘I have been, Marm, to see St. Ambrose; and I say, Marm, do you know that to-morrow they are going to tootle the old gentleman all round the town?’ ”
In returning from Italy this year I made the excursion to the curious shrine of Paray le Monial which I have described in an article in Evening Hours. All the time I had been abroad, as during my tour in Spain, I had sent monthly articles to Good Words, for which I was paid at the rate of five guineas a page—a sum, I believe, given besides only to Dean Alford and Arthur Stanley. But those were the palmy days of the magazine. I was paid much less afterwards, till it came down to a fifth of that sum. I spent the rest of the summer in London. It was during this year that I became a member of the Athenæum Club—an incalculable advantage. Twelve years before, old Dr. Hawtrey, the Provost of Eton, had said to me, “You ought to be a member of the Athenæum,” and I had answered “Then I wish you would propose me.” But I had quite forgotten about this, and had never known that the kind old man, long since dead, had really done it; so the news that my name was just coming up for ballot was a joyful surprise. I have since spent every London morning in steady work at the Athenæum, less disturbed there than even at Holmhurst. The difficulties which the club rules throw in the way of receiving visitors are a great advantage to students, and my life at the Athenæum has been as regular as clockwork. At breakfast I have always occupied the same table—behind the door leading to the kitchen, the one which, I believe, was always formerly used by Wilberforce. In the afternoons, when all the old gentlemen arrive, to poke up huge fires in winter and close all the windows in summer, I have never returned to the club.
Journal.
“London, June (in the Park).—Fine Lady.—‘How strange it is to see all these smart carriages driving about and nobody in them.’
“My simple self.—‘Nobody in them! why, they are quite full of people.’
“Fine Lady.—‘Ah, ye-es—people, but nobody all the same. We never drive in the Park now. It was only to show you this mob that I came. We are obliged to retreat, though, before their advancing battalions. They pursue us everywhere. There is no humiliation and suffering they won’t undergo in the chase. They drove us out of the Row long ago, and this year we took a row of chairs on Sunday afternoons on a little rising ground between Albert Gate and Stanhope Gate;[96] but the enemy pursued us, and as they always get the better of us, we shall be obliged to yield that position too. There is never any safety from them but in flight, for they are certainly our superiors in—numbers.’ ”
“June 22.—Went to see Madame du Quaire,[97] whom I found in her low French-looking room in Wilton Street, perfectly covered with pictures and oggetti. She talked of spiritualism—how she had been to a meeting at Mrs. Gregory’s—‘a truthful