And wholly to please me she forthwith made the
attempt, and though her landscape was never equal to her figure
drawing, I possess some couple of hundred of water-colour sketches
done by her from nature on the spot.
I used to say that if I wanted a Sanscrit dictionary, I had only to
put her head straight at it, and let her feel the spur, and it would
have been done!
We lived together seventeen happy years. During the five first, I
think I may say that she lived wholly and solely in, by, and for me.
That she should live for somebody other than herself was an absolute
indefeasible necessity of her nature. During the last twelve years I
shared her heart with her daughter. Her intense worship for her "Baby
Beatrice" was equalled only by--that of all the silliest and all the
wisest women, who have true womanly hearts in their bosoms, for their
children. The worship was, of course, all the more absorbing that the
object of it was unique. I take it that, after the birth of her child,
I came second in her heart. But I was not jealous of little Bice.
I do not think that she would have quite subscribed to the opinion of
Garibaldi on the subject of the priesthood, which I mentioned in a
former chapter--that they ought all to be forthwith put to death. But
all her feelings and opinions were bitterly antagonistic to them. She
was so deeply convinced of the magnitude of the evil inflicted by them
and their Church on the character of the Italians, for whom she ever
felt a great affection, that she was bitter on the subject.
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