his own family sprang. He then, having bought
an estate in an English county, proceeded to build a Norman castle in
ruins, and adjoining this he built a turreted Tudor mansion. Here was a
family pedigree translated into terms of stone. The builder crowned his
work by the adoption of feudal manners, to which his domestics had so to
adapt their own that when a neighbor, who called on him, asked if Mr.
B---- was at home, the reply of the footman was, "The right honorable
gentleman is taking a walk on the barbican." My host, having finished
his story, was for a moment called away. He had no sooner gone than the
admiral, coming up to me, jerked his thumb in the direction of the
surrounding panels, and said, confidentially, "The whole of this was put
up by that man's father."

But in a much more memorable way romance conquered reality one night in
the drawing-room. The ladies of the party had disappeared; and by way of
doing something Lytton, two other men, and myself became somehow grouped
round a card table with our minds made up for whist. At first we put
down our cards with promptitude and a semblance of attention, but
someone before long made some observation which, though interesting, was
wholly irrelevant to the game. The three others put down their cards to
listen, and had, when they took them up again, some difficulty in
remembering who was to play next. Presently one of them quoted a line of
poetry. It was from Coleridge's "Kublai Khan." Somebody else suggested a
mild doubt as to whether that poem had, as the author contended, really
been composed in a dream. The game once more proceeded, but our host's
eyes had already begun to wander, and at last he frankly threw his own
cards on the table. Everybody else followed him. Cards were things
forgotten. Their place was taken by poetry. Single lines were cited
which the authors had dreamed undoubtedly. The most remarkable was
dreamed by a brother of Tennyson, after a day spent in examining a
bundle of ancient manuscripts. The line--it was Latin--was as follows:

"_Immemorabilium per fulva crepuscula palpans_"--that is to say,
"fumbling among the tawny twilights of immemorables." Lord Lytton looked
as if he were in a dream himself. Presently he spoke as though his mind
were coming back from a distance. "I," he said, "dreamed a poem in
India. It has never been written down, but I still can remember every
line of it. Listen." The poem, which was full of vague Oriental imag