o
reckon with; yet still again, as I say, enabled a compromise to work.

The compromise in fact worked beautifully under my renewal of
impression--for which a second visit at Eaton Place offered occasion;
and this even though I had to interweave with the scene as best I might
a highly complicating influence. To speak of James Russell Lowell's
influence as above all complicating on any scene to the interest of
which he contributed may superficially seem a perverse appreciation of
it; and yet in the light of that truth only do I recover the full sense
of his value, his interest, the moving moral of his London adventure--to
find myself already bumping so straight against which gives me, I
confess, a sufficiently portentous shake. He comes in, as it were, by a
force not to be denied, as soon as I look at him again--as soon as I
find him for instance on the doorstep in Eaton Place at the hour of my
too approaching it for luncheon as he had just done. There he is, with
the whole question of him, at once before me, and literally superimposed
by that fact on any minor essence. I quake, positively, with the
apprehension of the commemorative dance he may lead me; but for the
moment, just here, I steady myself with an effort and go in with him to
his having the Laureate's personal acquaintance, by every symptom, and
rather to my surprise, all to make. Mrs. Tennyson's luncheon table was
an open feast, with places for possible when not assured guests; and no
one but the American Minister, scarce more than just installed, and his
extremely attached compatriot sat down at first with our gracious
hostess. The board considerably stretched, and after it had been
indicated to Lowell that he had best sit at the end near the window,
where the Bard would presently join him, I remained, near our hostess,
separated from him for some little time by an unpeopled waste. Hallam
came in all genially and auspiciously, yet only to brush us with his
blessing and say he was lunching elsewhere, and my wonder meanwhile hung
about the representative of my country, who, though partaking of offered
food, appeared doomed to disconnection from us. I may say at once that
my wonder was always unable _not_ to hang about this admired and
cherished friend when other persons, especially of the eminent order,
were concerned in the scene. The case was quite other for the unshared
relation, or when it was shared by one or other of three or four of our
common friends w