rs alone and, chiefly American as was the group at their fireside,
it was never without a foreigner or two. The first person we were
introduced to on the first visit was the Englishman who would have
deserted us in the _Ghetto_ had we let him have his way, and who, when
he saw us, looked as if he wished the Vedders had learned to be less
indiscriminate in their hospitality. We had the satisfaction of knowing
that we made him supremely uncomfortable. He frowned upon us then as he
continued to all through the winter. He could not forgive us for having
found him out and was evidently afraid we were going to tell everybody
about it. He was something very learned and was occupied in writing a
book on Ancient Rome; later he became something more important at South
Kensington. But no degree of learning and importance helped him to
forget, or anyway to forgive. At chance meetings years afterwards in
London he frowned, as no doubt he would still had he not long since gone
to the land where I hope all frowns are smoothed from his frowning brow.

If he frowned, there was another Englishman who smiled: an elderly man
with the imperturbable serenity of a Buddha. He also had written books,
I believe. I remember articles by him, with art for subject, in the
_Portfolio_ at a time when everybody had taken to writing about art, and
I think his name was Davies. But it would be more in character to forget
that he ever worked or had a name. When I was in Rome he had risen above
activity and toil to the contemplative life and, I suppose, to the
income that made it possible. One night he explained his philosophy to
me. Men could not be happy without sunshine, he thought. The sun was
house, food, clothes, furniture, identity, everything, and as most of
the year in England sunshine was not to be had at any price, he had come
to live in Rome where almost all the year it was his for nothing. He sat
on the Pincian or in other gardens during the day, doing nothing in the
sunshine--that was living. And he urged me to follow his example and not
to wait until half my life had been wasted in the pursuit of happiness
where it was not to be found. He may have been right, but I never needed
to become a philosopher to value the virtue of indolence,--my trouble is
that I have never had the money to pay for it. Any man has the ability
to do nothing, a great authority has said, and I can answer for one
woman who has more than her fair share of it. I have always