I had visited both on
more than one occasion previously--once with a large and very merry
party of both sexes, of whom Colley Grattan was one--but the excursion
made in company with G.H. Lewes and George Eliot was another-guess
sort of treat, and the days devoted to it stand out in high relief in
my memory as some of the most memorable in my life.
They were anxious to be moving northwards from Florence, and I had
some difficulty in persuading them to undertake the expedition. A
certain weight of responsibility, therefore, lay on me--that folks
whose days were so sure of being turned to good profit, should not by
my fault be led to waste any of them. But I had already seen enough of
both of them to feel sure that the specialties of the very exceptional
little experience I proposed to them would be appreciated and
acceptable. Neither he nor she were fitted by their habits, or indeed
by the conditions of their health, to encounter much "roughing," and
a certain amount of that was assuredly inevitable--a good deal more
five-and-twenty years ago than would be the case now. But if the flesh
was weak, truly the spirit was willing! I have heard grumbling and
discontent from the young of either sex in the heyday of health and
strength in going over the same ground. But for my companions on the
present occasion, let the difficulties and discomforts be what they
might, the continually varied and continually suggestive interest they
found in everything around them, overrode and overbore all material
considerations.
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