Marsh.
The scene of the story is Ravenna. And Mrs. Marsh specially introduced
me to a very charming young couple, the Count and Countess Pasolini
of Ravenna, as the author of _A Siren_. They said they had been most
anxious to know who could have written that book! They thought that no
Englishman could have been resident at Ravenna without their having
known him, or at least known _of_ him. And yet it was evident that a
writer, who could photograph the life and society of Ravenna as it had
been photographed in the book in question must have resided there and
lived in the midst of it for some time. But I never was in Ravenna for
a longer time than a week in my life.
It was many years after the visit of George Eliot and Mr. Lewes to my
house at Ricorboli that I and my wife visited them at The Heights,
Witley, in Surrey. I found that George Eliot had grown! She was
evidently happier. There was the same specially quiet and one may say
harmonious gentleness about her manner and her thought and her ways.
But her outlook on life seemed to be a brighter, a larger, and as I
cannot doubt, a healthier one. She would no longer, I am well assured,
have talked of regretting that she had been born! It would be to give
an erroneous impression if I were to say that she seemed to be more in
charity with all men, for assuredly I never knew her otherwise. But,
if the words may be used, as I think they may be understood, without
irreverence, or any meaning that would be akin to blasphemy, she
seemed to me to be more in charity with her Creator.
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