Perhaps I can find some excuse for the "addle-pates" when I remember that proud and eager head, and that bearing so full of character and energy. One can imagine the author of "Alton Locke " not finding very great favor with foreign mouchards and gendarmes, and suggesting indefinite terrors and suspicions to their minds.

drizzle of rain and falling smuts from our wideawakes for Italian hats, and the funnel. This was the Kingsley fam- got it into their addle-pates that we ily, consisting of the rector of Chelsea were emissaries of Mazzini.' and his wife and his two sons (Charles Kingsley was the elder of the two), then going abroad for his health. It will now be seen that my recollections concern more historical headdresses than our unlucky bonnets; associations which William Tell himself might not have disdained. Mr. Kingsley and his brother were wearing brown felt hats with very high and pointed crowns, and with very broad brims, of a different shape from my father's commonplace felt. The hats worn by Mr. Kingsley and his brother were more like those well-known brims and peaks which have crowned so many poets' heads since then.

Fortunately for the lovers of nature, unfortunately for autobiographers, the dates of the years as they pass are not written up in big letters on the blue vaults overhead, though the seasons themselves are told in turn by the clouds and lights and by every waving tree and every country glade. And so, though

years are apt to get a little shifted at times, and I cannot quite tell whether it was this year or that one following in which we found ourselves still in glorious summer weather returning home from distant places, and coming back by Germany and by Weimar.

It was a stormy crossing; the waves were curling unpleasantly round about the boat; I sat by Mrs. Kingsley, mis-one remembers the aspect of things, the erable, uncomfortable, and watching in a dazed and hypnotized sort of way the rim of Charles Kingsley's hat as it rose and fell against the horrible horizon. He stood before us holding on to some ropes, and the horizon rose and fell, and the steamer pitched and tossed, and it seemed as if time stood still. But we reached those further shores at last, and parted from our companions, and very soon afterwards my father told us with some amusement of the adventure which befell Mr. Charles Kingsley and his brother almost as soon as they landed and after they had parted from their parents. They were arrested by the police, who did not like the shape of their wideawakes. I may as well give the story in Mr. Kingsley's own words, which I found in his life in an extract from a letter written immediately after the event to Mrs. Charles Kingsley at home:

In common with most children, the stories of our father's youth always delighted and fascinated us, and we had often heard him speak of his own early days at college and in Germany, and of his happy stay at PumpernickelWeimar, where he went to court and saw the great Goethe and was in love with the beautiful Amalia von X. And now coming to Weimar we found ourselves actually alive in his past somehow, almost living it alongside with him, just like Gogo in Mr. du Maurier's story. I suddenly find myself walking up the centre of an empty, shady street, and my father is pointing to a row of shutters on the first floor of a large and comfortable-looking house, "That is where Frau von X. used to live," he said.

"Here we are at Treves,' he says, 'having been brought there under arrest with a gendarme from the mayor of Gettesburg, and liberated next morn"How kind she was to us, and ing with much laughter and many curses what a pretty girl Amalia was." And from the police here. However, we had then a little further on we passed the the pleasure of spending a night in house in the sunshine of a plaz in which prison among fleas and felons, on the he told us he himself had lodged with a bare floor. The barbarians took our friend; and then we came to the palace fishing-tackle for Todt-instrumenten and with the soldiers and sentries looking

like toys wound up from the Burlington | and breakfast at my lodging," said Dr. Arcade and going backwards and for- Weissenborne. wards with their spikes in front of their "And is this your old dog?" my faown striped boxes; and we saw the ther asked, after accepting the doctor's acacia-trees with their cropped heads, invitation. Dr. Weissenborne shook his and the iron gates; and we went across head. Alas! the old dog was no more, the courtyard into the palace and were he died two years before. Meanwhile shown the ballroom and the smaller the young dog was very much there, saloons, and we stood on the shining frisking and careering in cheerful cirfloors and beheld the classic spot where cles round about us. The doctor and for the first and only time in all his life, his dog had just been starting for their I believe, my father had invited the daily walk in the woods when they met lovely Amalia to waltz. And then us and they now invited us to accomcoming away all absorbed and delighted pany them. We called at the lodging with our experiences in living back- by the way to announce our return to wards, my father suddenly said, "I breakfast and then started off together wonder if old Weissenborne is still for the park. The park (I am writing alive? He used to teach me Ger- of years and years ago) was a bright man. And lo! as he spoke a tall, thin green little wood, with leaves and twigs old man, in a broad-brimmed straw hat and cheerful lights, with small trees with a beautiful Pomeranian poodle not very thickly planted on the steep running before him came stalking along slopes, with many narrow paths wanderwith a newspaper under his arm. ing into green depths, and with seats "Good gracious, that looks like - yes, erected at intervals along the way. that is Doctor Weissenborne. He is one of these seats the old professor hardly changed a bit," said my father, showed us an inscription cut deep into stopping short for a moment, and then the wood with a knife, "Doctor W. and he too stepped forward quickly with an his dog." Who had carved it! He did outstretched hand, and the old man in not know. But besides this inscription, turn stopped, stared, frowned. "I am on every one of the benches where Thackeray, my name is Thackeray," Goethe used to rest, and on every tree said my father eagerly and shyly as was which used to shade his head, was writhis way; and after another stare from ten another inscription, invisible indeed, the doctor, suddenly came a friendly and yet which we seemed to read all lighting up and exclaiming and welcom- along the way, "Here Goethe's life ing and hand-shaking and laughing, was spent; here he walked, here he while the pretty white dog leapt up and rested; his feet have passed to and fro down as much interested as we were along this narrow pathway. It leads to in the meeting. his garden-house.

"You have grown so grey I did not know you at first," said the doctor in English. And my father laughed and said he was a great deal greyer now than the doctor himself; then he introduced us to the old man, who shook us gravely by the finger-tips with a certain austere friendliness, and once more he turned again with a happy, kind, grim face to my father. Yes, he had followed his career with interest; he had heard of him from this man and that man; he had read one of his books-not all. Why had he never sent any, why had he never come back before? "You must bring your misses and all come

On

It was lovely summer weather as I have said, that weather which used to be so common when one was young, and which I dare say our children still discover now, though we cannot always enjoy it. We came back with our friend the doctor and breakfasted with him in his small apartment, in a room full of books, at a tiny table drawn to an open window; then after breakfast we sat in the professor's garden among the nasturtiums. My sister and I were given books to read; they were translations for the use of students, I remember; and the old friends smoked together and talked over a hundred things. Amalia

she was away.

was married and had several children; | selves being conducted through the little Madame von Goethe shady wood. But to be walking there was still in Weimar with her sons, and with Goethe's family, with his grandsons Fraulein von Pogwishe, her sister, was and their mother, the Ottilie who had also there. "They would be delighted held the dying poet's hand to the last; to see you again," said the professor. to be going to his favorite resort where "We will go together, and leave the so much of his time was spent ; to hear young misses here till our return." But him so familiarly quoted and spoken of not so; our father declared we also was something like hearing a distant must be allowed to come. My recollec- echo of the great voice itself; something tions (according to the wont of such like seeing the skirts of his dressingprovoking things) here begin to fail me, gown just waving before us. And at and in the one particular which is of the age I was then impressions are so any interest, for though we visited vivid that I have always all my life had Goethe's old house I can scarcely re- a vague feeling of having been in member it at all, only that the doctor Goethe's presence. We seemed to find said Madame von Goethe had moved something of it everywhere, most of all after Goethe's death. She lived in a in the little garden-house, in the bare handsome house in the town, with a and simple room where he used to fine staircase running up between write. One of the kind young men straight walls, and leading into a sort of went to the window and showed us open hall where, amid a good deal of something on the pane. What it was I marble and stateliness, stood two little, know not clearly, but I think it was his unpretending ladies by a big round name written with a diamond; and table piled with many books and papers. finally in the garden, at a wooden table, The ladies were Madame de Goethe and among trees and dancing shadows, we her sister. Doctor Weissenborne went drank our tea, and I remember Wolffirst and announced an old friend, and gang von Goethe handing a teacup, and then ensued more welcomings and the look of it, and suddenly the whole friendly exclamations and quick recog- thing vanishes. There was a certain nitions on both sides, benevolently su- simple dignity and hospitality in it all perintended by our Virgil. "And are which seems to belong to all the trayou both as fond of reading novels as ditions of hospitable Weimar, and my ever?" my father asked. The ladies father's pleasure and happy emotion laughed; they said, "Yes, indeed," and gave a value and importance to every pointed to a boxful of books which had tiny detail of that short but happy time. just arrived, with several English novels | Even the people at the inn remembered among them, which they had been un- him, and came out to greet him; but, packing as we came in. Then the sons only, alas for human nature! they sent of the house were sent for,-kind and in such an enormous bill as we were friendly and unassuming young men, departing on the evening of the second walking in, and as much interested and day, that he exclaimed in dismay to the pleased to witness their parents' pleas- waiter, "So much for sentimental recure as we were; not handsome, with ollections! Tell the host I shall never nothing of their grandfather's noble be able to afford to come back to Weiaspect (as one sees it depicted), but mar again." with most charming and courteous ways. One was a painter, the mother told us, the other a musician. And while my father talked to the elder ladies, the young men took us younger ones in hand. They offered to show us the celebrated garden-house and asked us to drink tea there next day. And so it happened that once more we found our

The waiter stared; I wonder if he delivered the message. The hotel bill I have just mentioned was a real disappointment to my father, and, alas for disillusions!

another more serious shock, a meeting which was no meeting, somewhat dashed the remembrance of Amalia von X.

It happened at Venice, a year or two

And then he went on to tell us that years and years afterwards, when they met again on the occasion of one of the lecturing tours in Scotland, he, Dr. MacLeod, and the rest of the notabilities were all assembled to receive the lecturer on the platform, and as my father came by carrying his papers and advancing to take his place at the reading-desk, he recognized Dr. MacLeod as he passed, and in the face of all the audience he bent forward and said gravely, without stopping one moment on his way, "Ich liebe Amalia doch,” and so went on to deliver his lecture.

after our visit to Weimar. We were "Dear me! do you know about Amabreakfasting at a long table where a fat lia?" said Dr. MacLeod, "and do you lady also sat a little way off, with a pale, know about old Weissenborne? I fat little boy beside her. She was stout, thought I was the only person left to she was dressed in light green, she was remember them. We all learnt from silent, she was eating an egg. The sala Weissenborne, we were all in love with of the great marble hotel was shaded Amalia, every one of us, your father from the blaze of sunshine, but stray too! What happy days those were!" gleams shot across the dim hall, falling on the palms and the orange-trees beyond the lady, who gravely shifted her place as the sunlight dazzled her. Our own meal was also spread, and my sister and I were only waiting for my father to begin. He came in presently, saying he had been looking at the guest-book in the outer hall, and he had seen a name which had interested him very much. "Frau von Z. Geboren von X. It must be Amalia! She must be here -in the hotel," he said; and as he spoke he asked a waiter whether Madame von Z. was still in the hotel. "I believe that is Madame von Z.,” said the waiter, pointing to the fat lady. The lady looked up and then went on with her egg, and my poor father turned away saying in a low, overwhelmed voice, "That Amalia! That cannot be Amalia." I could not understand his silence, his discomposure. Aren't you going to speak to her? Oh, please do go and speak to her!" we both cried. "Do make sure if it is Amalia." But he shook his head. "I can't," he said; "I had rather not." Amalia, meanwhile having finished her egg, rose deliberately, put down her napkin and walked away, followed by her little boy. Things don't happen altogether at the same time; they don't quite begin or end all at once. Once more I heard Since writing all this, I have found of Amalia long years afterwards, when an old letter from my father to his by a happy, hospitable chance I met mother, and written from Weimar. It Dr. Norman MacLeod at the house of is dated 29th September, 1830. "There my old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Cunliffe. is a capital library here," he says, I was looking at him, and thinking that "which is open to me, an excellent in some indefinable way he put me in theatre which costs a shilling a night, mind of the past, when he suddenly and a charming petite société which costs asked me if I knew that he and my nothing. Goethe, the great lion of father had been together as boys at Weimar, I have not yet seen, but his Weimar, learning German from the daughter-in-law has promised to introsame professor, and both in love with duce me." Then he describes going the same beautiful girl. "What, Ama- to court: "I have had to air my legs in lia! Dr. Weissenborne?" I cried. black breeches and to sport a black coat,

Dr. MacLeod also met Amalia once again in after life, and to him, too, had come a disillusion. He, too, had been overwhelmed and shocked by the change of years. Poor lady! I can't help being very sorry for her, to have had two such friends and not to have kept them seems a cruel fate. To have been so charming, that her present seemed but a calumny upon the past. It is like the story of the woman who flew into a fury with her own portrait, young, smiling, and triumphant, and who destroyed it, so as not to be taunted by the past any more. Let us hope that Frau von Z. was never conscious of her loss, never looked upon this picture and on that.

the little elves there were clapping their green and slender hands.

August 6. — I find a way down a rutty green lane, and then over a rickety gate, through cornfields waving yellow against the blue sea and the dazzling cliff; and so down a broken warren to a lonely bay, where the sea lunges at me with a mighty laziness. A gipsy tent flaps among the tumbled rocks, and little maidens with stiff pigtails run out of it with a shrill and pretty clamor to bathe. Here I will rest a while and read good books. I begin with Stendhal's "Le Rouge et le Noir." In the farm I can only find the Penny Magazine for 1832.

black waistcoat, and cock-hat, looking | only the wind in the trees, as though something like a cross between a footman and a Methodist parson. "We have had three operas," he goes on: "Medea' and the Barber of Seville' and the 'Flauto Magico.' Hümmel conducts the orchestra [then comes a sketch of Hümmel with huge shirt collars]. The orchestra is excellent but the singers are not first-rate." Amalia must have had rivals, even in those early days, for this same letter goes on to say: "I have fallen in love with the Princess of Weimar, who is unluckily married to Prince Charles of Prussia. I must get over this unfortunate passion which will otherwise, I fear, bring me to an untimely end. There are several very charming young persons of the female sex here, Miss Amalia von X., and ditto von Pappenheim are the evening belles."

A

Magpie Hill: Wednesday night. star, brilliant as though a slash were made in the purple sky, glitters over the thatch of my farm; the moon is clouded and the wind is high. It is long, long since I have seen the night; one cannot see it in London for the houses. All have gone to bed, and I step out on to the pebbles under my verandah, where the fowls cluck in the morning and the churn stands idle. The peace of it! VOL. LXXX. 4112

LIVING AGE.

August 7.-No one comes near me all day, except two little pink girls who rap timidly on the door and beg milk. I have seen them and their party all the morning, sitting on the down under the lee of a hedge; for the wind rages at me as though jealous of my peace, and trying to tear me out of it.

In the post-office I meet a breathless old man in a battered sort of haymaking hat, who, on my inquiry, offers to show me the way to the Roman villa. So we go that way together, and I carry his carpet camp-stool, while he puffs and wheezes over his enormous rumpled shirt. Is not pleased with the neighborhood of Magpie Hill, finds no society, no sympathy, nothing congenial; fact is, if one has been accustomed to the free interchange of thought in one of the best suburbs (comes from Upper Tooting, he does), the country does not do. Not so much health he has been after these past three months, he says solemnly, as something deeper, something more spiritual; and he ain't found it; and he wheezes about sympathy and higher thoughts, and wipes a corrugated brow. I take him for an amateur preacher of the well-meaning sort, and am not surprised to find he was two-and-twenty years in the corporation offices, and had millions passing through his fat hands, that now grasp an ancient umbrella and an exceedingly dirty bundle of papers.

When I return from finding the Roman villa shut up, there he sits on his