le who had loved the man's _soul_ for so many years should
be brought face to face with the _man_ before that soul put on
immortality. Great was Miss Cobbe's interest in the bust of Theodore
Parker executed by the younger Robert Hart from photographs and casts,
and which is without doubt the best likeness of Parker that has yet been
taken. Its merits as a portrait-bust have never been appreciated, and
the artist, whose sad death occurred two years ago, did not live to
realize his hope of putting it into marble. The clay model still remains
in Florence.
Miss Cobbe is the embodiment of genial philanthropy, as delightful a
companion as she is heroic in her great work of social reform. A true
daughter of Erin, she excels as a _raconteur_, nor does her philanthropy
confine itself to the human race. Italian maltreatment of animals has
almost reduced itself to a proverb, and often have we been witness to
her righteous indignation at flagrant cruelty to dumb beasts. Upon
expostulating one day with a coachman who was beating his poor straw-fed
horse most unmercifully, the man replied, with a look of wonderment,
"_Ma, che vole, Signora? non e Cristiano!_" (But what would you have,
Signora? he is not a Christian!) Not belonging to the Church, and having
no soul to save, why should a horse be spared the whip? The reasoning is
not logical to our way of thinking, yet it is Italian, and was delivered
in good faith. It will require many Miss Cobbes to lead the Italians out
of their Egypt of ignorance.
It was at Villino Trollope that we first saw the wonderfully clever
author, George Eliot. She is a woman of forty, perhaps, of large frame
and fair Saxon coloring. In heaviness of jaw and height of cheek-bone
she greatly resembles a German; nor are her features unlike those of
Wordsworth, judging from his pictures. The expression of her face is
gentle and amiable, while her manner is particularly timid and retiring.
In conversation Mrs. Lewes is most entertaining, and her interest in
young writers is a trait which immediately takes captive all persons of
this class. We shall not forget with what kindness and earnestness she
addressed a young girl who had just begun to handle a pen, how frankly
she related her own literary experience, and how gently she _suggested_
advice. True genius is always allied to humility, and in seeing Mrs.
Lewes do the work of a good Samaritan so unobtrusively, we learned to
respect the woman as much as we had
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