Smollet lies yonder, at Livorno; and Ouida hard by, at Bagni di Lucca.
She died in one of these same featureless streets of Viareggio, alone,
half blind, and in poverty....
I know Suffolk, that ripe old county of hers, with its pink villages
nestling among drowsy elms and cornfields; I know their "Spread Eagles"
and "Angels" and "White Horses" and other taverns suggestive - sure sign
of antiquity - of zoological gardens; I know their goodly ale and old
brown sherries. Her birthplace, despite those venerable green mounds, is
comparatively dull - I would not care to live at Bury; give me Lavenham
or Melford or some place of that kind. While looking one day at the
house where she was born, I was sorely tempted to crave permission to
view the interior, but refrained; something of her own dislike of prying
and meddlesomeness came over me. Thence down to that commemorative
fountain among the drooping trees. The good animals for whose comfort it
was built would have had some difficulty in slaking their thirst just
then, its basin being chocked up with decayed leaves.
We corresponded for a good while and I still possess her letters
somewhere; I see in memory that large and bold handwriting, often only
two words to a line, on the high-class slate-coloured paper. The sums
she spent on writing materials! It was one of her many ladylike traits.
I tried to induce her to stay with me in South Italy. She made three
conditions: to be allowed to bring her dogs, to have a hot bath every
day, and two litres of cream. Everything could be managed except the
cream, which was unprocurable. Later on, while living in the Tyrolese
mountains, I renewed the invitation; that third condition could now be
fulfilled as easily as the other two. She was unwell, she replied, and
could not move out of the house, having been poisoned by a cook. So we
never met, though she wrote me much about herself and about
"Helianthus," which was printed after her death. In return, I dedicated
to her a book of short stories; they were published, thank God, under a
pseudonym, and eight copies were sold.
She is now out of date. Why, yes. Those guardsmen who drenched their
beards in scent and breakfasted off caviare and chocolate and sparkling
Moselle - they certainly seem fantastic. They really were fantastic. They
did drench their beards in scent. The language and habits of these
martial heroes are authenticated in the records of their day; glance,
for instance, into back numbers of Punch. The fact is, we were all
rather ludicrous formerly. The characters of Dickens, to say nothing of
Cruikshank's pictures of them:
