s
I think of Florence, and the kindness I found there under my small
miseries. Pray offer my kind regards to Miss Blagden when you see
her, and tell her that I hope to shake hands with her in London this
spring.

"We shall obey Mr. Trollope's injunctions to write again from Perugia
or elsewhere, according to our route homeward. But pray warn him, that
when my throat is not sore, and my head not stagnant, I am a much
fiercer antagonist. It is perhaps a delight to one's egoism to have a
friend who is among the best of men with the worst of theories. One
can be at once affectionate and spit-fire. Pray remember me with
indulgence, all of you, and believe, dear Mrs. Trollope,

"Most truly yours,

"M.E. LEWES."

* * * * *

It will be seen from the above that George Eliot had very quickly
fraternised--what is the feminine form?--with my second wife, as I,
without any misgivings, foresaw would be the case. Indeed subsequent
circumstances allowed a greater degree of intimacy to grow up
between them than had been possible in the case of my Bice's mother,
restricted as her intercourse with the latter had been by failing
health, and the comparative fewness of the hours they had passed
together. Neither she nor Lewes had ever passed a night under my roof
until I received them in the villa at Ricorboli, where I lived with my
second wife.

What was the subject of the "antagonism" to which the above letter
alludes, I have entirely forgotten. In all probability we differed on
some subject of politics,[1] by reason of the then rapidly maturing
Conservatism which my outlook ahead forced upon me. Nevertheless it
would seem from some words in a letter written to me by Lewes in the
November of 1869, that my political heresies were not deemed
deeply damning. There was a question of my undertaking the foreign
correspondence of a London paper, which came to nothing till some four
years later, under other circumstances; and with reference to that
project he writes:--

[Footnote 1: My wife, on reading this passage, tells me that according
to her recollection the differences in question had no reference to
politics at all, but to matters of higher interest relating to man's
ultimate destinies.]

* * * * *

"Polly and I were immensely pleased at the prospect for you. She
was rejoiced that you should once more be giving yourself to public
affairs, which you so well understan