Memoirs by Charles Godfrey Leland Part 28

"Mr. Leland," pursued Tennyson, as gravely as ever, grasping all the absurdity of the thing with evident enjoyment, "you have no idea how tourists trespa.s.s here to get at me. They climb over my gate and look in at my windows. It is a fact--one did so only last week. But I declare that you are the very first poet and man of letters who ever came here--to steal blackberries!" Here he paused, and then added forcibly--

"I _do_ believe you are a gypsy, after all."

Then we talked of the old manor-houses in the neighbourhood, and of the famous Mortstone, a supposed Saxon rude monolith near by. I thought it prehistoric, because I had dug out from the pile of earth supporting and coeval with it (and indeed only with a lead-pencil) a flint flake chipped by hand and a bit of cannel coal, which indicate dedication. My host listened with great interest, and then told me a sad tale: how certain workmen employed by him to dig on his land had found a great number of old Roman bronze coins, but, instead of taking them to him, had kept them, though they cared so little for them that they gave a handful to a boy whom they met. "I told them," said Tennyson, "that they had been guilty of malappropriation, and though I was not quite sure whether the coins belonged to me or to the Crown, that they certainly had no right to them. Whereupon their leader said that if I was not satisfied they would not work any longer for me, and so they went away." I had on this occasion a long and interesting discussion with Mr. Tennyson relative to Walt Whitman, and involving the principles or nature of poetry. According to the poet-laureate, poetry, as he understood it, consisted of elevated or refined, or at least superior thought, expressed in melodious form, and in this latter it seemed to him (for it was very modestly expressed) that Whitman was wanting. Wherein he came nearer to the truth than does Symonds, who overrates, as it seems to me, the value, as regards art and poetry, of simply _equalising_ all human intelligences. Though I never met Symonds, there was mutual knowledge between us, and when I published my "Etrusco-Roman Remains in Popular Traditions," which contains the results of six years' intimacy with witches and fortune-tellers, he wrote a letter expressing enthusiastic admiration of it to Mr. T. Fisher Unwin.

Now all three of these great men are dead. I shall speak of Whitman anon, for in later years for a long time I met him almost daily.

I can remember that during the conversation Tennyson expressed himself, rather to my amazement, with some slight indignation at a paltry review abusing his latest work; to which I replied--

"If there is anything on earth for which I have envied you, even more than for your great renown as a poet, it has been because I supposed you were completely above all such attacks and were utterly indifferent to them." Which he took amiably, and proceeded to discuss ripe fruit and wasps--or their equivalent. Yet I doubt whether I was quite in the right, since those who live for fame honourably acquired must ever be susceptible to stings, small or great. An editor who receives abusive letters so frequently that he ends by pitching them without reading into the waste-basket, and often treats ribald attacks in print in the same manner--as I have often done--has so many other affairs on his mind that he becomes case-hardened. But I have observed from long experience that there is a Nemesis who watches those who arrogate the right to lay on the rod, and gives it to them with interest in the end.

It was very soon after my arrival in London that I was invited to lunch at Hepworth Dixon's to meet Lord Lytton, or Bulwer, the great writer. His works had been so intensely and sympathetically loved by me so long, that it seemed as if I had been asked to meet some great man of the past. I found him, as I expected, quite congenial and wondrous kind. I remember a droll incident. Standing at the head of the stairs, he courteously made way and asked me to go before. I replied, "When Louis XIV. asked Crillon to do the same, Crillon complied, saying, 'Wherever your Majesty goes, be it before or behind, is always the first place or post of honour,' and I say the same with him," and so went in advance at once. I saw by his expression that he was pleased with the quotation.

We were looking at a portrait of Shakespeare which Dixon had found in Russia. Lord Lytton asked me if I thought it an original or true likeness. I observed that the face was full of many fine seamy lines, which infallibly indicate great nervous genius of the highest order--noting at the same time that Lord Lytton's countenance was very much marked in a like manner. The observation was new to him, and he seemed to be interested in it, as he always was in anything like chiromancy or metoscopy. A few days later I was invited to come and pa.s.s nearly a week with Hepworth Dixon at Knebworth, Lord Lytton's country seat. It is a very picturesque _chateau_, profusely adorned with fifteenth-century Gothic grotesques, with a fine antique hall, stained gla.s.s windows, and gallery. There is in it a chamber containing a marvellous and ma.s.sive carved oak bedstead, the posts of which are human figures the size of life, and in it and in the same room Queen Elizabeth is said to have slept when she heard of the destruction of the Spanish Armada. It was the room of honour, and it had been kindly a.s.signed to me. It all seemed like a dream.

There was in the family of the late Lord Lytton his son, who made a most favourable impression on me. I think the first _coup_ was my finding that he knew the works of Andreini, and that it had occurred to him as well as to me that Euphues Lily's book had been modelled on them. There was also his wife, a magnificent and graceful beauty; Lord Lytton's nephew, Mr. Bulwer; and several ladies. The first morning we all fished in the pond, and, to my great amazement, Lord Lytton pulled out _a great one-eyed perch_! I almost expected to see him pull out Paul Clifford or Zanoni next! In the afternoon we were driven out to Cowper Castle to see a fine gallery of pictures, our host acting as cicerone, and as he soon found that I was fairly well educated in art, and had been a special pupil of Thiersch in Munich, and something more than an amateur, we had many interesting conversations. I think I may venture to say that he did _not_ expect to find a whilom student of aesthetics, art-history, and Philosophy in the author of "Hans Breitmann." What was delightful was his exquisite tact in never saying as much; but I could detect it in the sudden interest and involuntary compliment implied in his tone of conversation. In a very short time he began to speak to me on all literary or artistic subjects without preliminary question, taking it for granted that I understood them and chimed in with him. I was with every interview more and more impressed with his _culture_--I mean with what had resulted from his reading--his marvellous tact of kindness in small things to all, and his quick and vigorous comparing and contrasting of images and drawing conclusions. But there was evidently enough a firm bed-rock or hard pan under all this gold. I was amazed one day when a footman, who had committed some _bevue_ or blunder, or apprehended something, actually turned pale and stammered with terror when Lord Lytton gravely addressed a question to him. I never in my life saw a man so much frightened, even before a revolver.

But Lord Lytton was beyond all question really interested when he found me so much at home in Rosicrucian and occult lore, and that I had been with Justinus Kerner in Weinsberg, and was familiar with the forgotten dusky paths of mysticism. He had in his house the famous Earl Stanhope crystal, and wished me to sleep with it under my pillow, but I was so afraid lest the precious relic should be injured, that I resolutely declined the honour, for which I am now sorry, for I sometimes have dreams of a most extraordinary character. This Stanhope crystal is not, however, the great mirror of Dr. Dee, though it has been said to be so.

The latter belonged to a gentleman in London, who also offered to lend it to me. It is made of cannel coal. That Lord Lytton made a very remarkable impression on me is proved by the fact that I continued to dream of him at long intervals after his death; and I am quite sure that such feeling is, by its very nature, always to a certain slight degree reciprocal. He had a natural and unaffected _voice_, yet one with a marked character; something like Tennyson's, which was even more striking. Both were far removed from the now fashionable intonation, which is the admiration and despair of American swells. It is only the _fin de siecle_ form of the _demnition_ dialect of the Forties and the _La-ard_ and _Lunnon_ of an earlier age.

Lord Lytton was generally invisible in the morning, sometimes after lunch. In the evening he came out splendidly groomed, fresh as a rose, and at dinner and after was as interesting as any of his books. He had known "everybody" to a surprising extent, and had anecdotes fresh and vivid of every one whom he had met. He loved music, and there was a lady who sang old Spanish ballads with rare taste. I enjoyed myself incredibly.

I may be excused for mentioning here that I sent a copy of the second edition of my "Meister Karl's Sketch-Book" to Lord Lytton. No one but Irving and Trubner had ever praised it. When Lord Lytton published afterwards "Kenelm Chillingly," I found in it _three_ pa.s.sages in which I recognised beyond dispute others suggested by my own work. I do not in the least mean that there was _any_ borrowing or taking beyond the mere suggestion of thought. Why I think that Lord Lytton had these hints in his mind is that he gave the name of Leland to one of the minor characters in the book.

When I published a full edition of "Breitmann's Poems," he wrote me a long letter criticising and praising the work, and a much longer and closely written one, of seven pages, relating to my "Confucius and Other Poems." I was subsequently invited to receptions at his house in London, where I first met Browning, and had a long conversation with him. I saw him afterwards at Mrs. Proctor's. This was the wife of Barry Cornwall, whom I also saw. He was very old and infirm. I can remember when the "Cornlaw Rhymes" rang wherever English was read.

As I consider it almost a duty to record what I can remember of Bulwer, I may mention that one evening, at his house in London, he showed me and others some beautiful old bra.s.s salvers in _repousse_ work, and how I astonished him by describing the process, and declaring that I could produce a _facsimile_ of any one of them in a day or two; to which a.s.sertion hundreds to whom I have taught the art, as well as my "Manual of Repousse," and another on "Metal Work," will, I trust, bear witness.

And this I mention, not vainly, but because Lord Lytton seemed to be interested and pleased, and because, in after years, I had much to do with reviving the practice of this beautiful art. It was practising this, and a three years' study of oak-wood carving, which led me to write on the Minor Arts. _Mihi aes et triplex robur_.

Lord Lytton had the very curious habit of making almost invisible hieroglyphics or crosses in his letters--at least I found them in those to me, as it were for luck. It was a very common practice from the most ancient Egyptian times to within two centuries. Lord Lytton's were evidently intended to escape observation. But there was indeed a great deal in his character which would escape most persons, and which has not been revealed by any writer on him. This I speedily divined, though, of course, I never discovered what it all was.

Lord Houghton, "Richard Monckton Milnes," to whom I had a letter of introduction from Lorimer Graham, was very kind to me. I dined and lunched at his house, where I met Odo Russell or Lord Ampthill, the Duke of Bedford, the Hon. Mrs. Norton, W. W. Story, and I know not how many more distinguished in society, or letters. At Lord Lytton's I made the acquaintance of the Duke of Wellington. I believe, however, that this meeting with Lord Houghton and the Duke was in my second year in London.

The first English garden-party which I ever attended was during this first season, at the villa of Mr. Bohn, the publisher, at Twickenham.

There I made the acquaintance of George Cruikshank, whom I afterwards met often, and knew very well till his death. He was a gay old fellow, and on this occasion danced a jig with old Mr. Bohn on the lawn, and joked with me. There, too, we met Lady Martin, who had been the famed Helen Faucit. Cruikshank was always inexhaustible in jokes, anecdotes, and reminiscences. At his house I made the acquaintance of Miss Ada Cavendish.

To revert to Mr. Trubner's, I may say that one evening after dinner, when, genial though quiet, Bret Harte was one of the guests, he was asked to repeat the "Heathen Chinee," which he could not do, as he had never learned it--which is not such an unusual thing, by the way, as many suppose. But I, who knew it, remarked, "Ladies and gentlemen, it is nothing to merely _write_ a poem. True genius consists in getting it by or from heart [_from_ Bret Harte, for instance], and repeating it. This genius nature has denied to the ill.u.s.trious poet before you--but not to me, as I will now ill.u.s.trate by declaiming the 'Heathen Chinee.'" Which performance was received with applause, in which Harte heartily joined.

But my claim to possess genius would hardly have borne examination, for it was years before I ever learned "Hans Breitmann's Barty," nor would I like to risk even a pound to one hundred that I can do it now without mixing the verses or committing some error.

Once during the season I went with my wife and Mr. W. W. Story to Eton, where we supped with Oscar Browning. We were taken out boating on the river, and I enjoyed it very much. There is a romance about the Thames a.s.sociated with a thousand pa.s.sages in literature which goes to the very heart. I was much impressed by the marked character of Mr. Browning and his frank, genial nature; and I found some delightful old Latin books in his library. May I meet with many such men!

This year, what with the German war and the Trubner-Hotten controversy, my "Breitmann Ballads" had become, I may say, well known. The character of Hans was actually brought into plays on three stages at once.

Boucicault, whom I knew well of yore in America, introduced it into something. I had found Ewan Colquhoun--the same old sixpence--and one night he took me to the Strand Theatre to see a play in which my hero was a prominent part. I was told afterwards that the company having been informed of my presence, all came to look at me through the curtain-hole.

There were some imitations of my ballads published in _Punch_ and the _Standard_, and the latter were so admirably executed--pardon the vain word!--that I feared, because they satirised the German cause, that they might be credited to me; therefore I wrote to the journal, begging that the author would give some indication that I had not written them, which was kindly done. Finally, a newspaper was started called _Hans Breitmann_, and the Messrs. Cope, of Liverpool, issued a brand of Hans Breitmann cigars. Owing to the resemblance between the words Bret and Breit there was a confusion of names, and my photograph was to be seen about town, with the name of Bret Harte attached to it. This great injustice to Mr. Harte was not agreeable, and I, or my friends, remonstrated with the shop-folk with the to-be-expected result, "Yes-sir, yes-sir--very sorry, sir--we'll correct the mistake, sir!" But I don't think it was ever corrected till the sale ceased.

I was sometimes annoyed with many imitations of my poems by persons who knew no German, which were all attributed to me. A very pious Presbyterian publication, in alluding to something of the kind, said that "Mr. Leland, _because he is the author of Bret Harte_, thinks himself justified in publishing any trash of this description." I thought this a _very_ improper allusion for a clergyman, not to say libellous. In fact, many people really believed that Bret Harte was a _nom de plume_ or the t.i.tle of a poem. And I may here say by the way that I never "wrote under" the pseudonym of Hans Breitmann in my life, nor called myself any such name at any time. It is simply the name of one of many _books_ which I have written. An American once insisting to me that I _should_ be called so from my work, I asked him if he would familiarly accost Mr.

Lowell as "Josh Biglow." If there is anything in the world which denotes a subordinate position in the social scale or defect in education, it is the pa.s.sion to call men "out of their names," and never feel really acquainted with any one until he is termed Tom or Jack. It is doubtless all very genial and jocose and sociable, but the man who shows a tendency to it should _not_ complain when his betters put him in a lower cla.s.s or among the "lower orders."

Once at a reception at George Boughton's, the artist, there was, as I heard, an elderly gentleman rushing about asking to see or be introduced to _Hart Bretmann_, whose works he declared he knew by heart, and with whom he was most anxious to become acquainted. Whether he ever discovered this remarkable conglomerate I do not know.

I once made the acquaintance of an American at the Langham Hotel who declared that I had made life a burden to him. His name was H.

Brightman, and being in business in New York, he never went to the Custom- House or Post-Office but what the clerks cried "Hans Brightman! of course. Yes, we have read about you, sir--in history."

But even in this London season I found more serious work to attend to than comic ballads or society. Mr. Trubner was very anxious to have me write a pamphlet vindicating the claim of Germany to Alsace and Lorraine, and I offered to do it gladly, if he would provide all the historical data or material. The result of this was the _brochure_ ent.i.tled "France, Alsace, and Lorraine," which had a great success. It at once reappeared in America, and even in Spanish in South America. The German Minister in London ordered six copies, and the _Times_ made the work, with all its facts and figures, into an editorial article, omitting, I regret to say, to mention the source whence it was derived; but this I forgive with all my heart, considering the good words which it has given me on other occasions. For the object of the work was not at all to glorify the author, but to send home great truths at a very critical time; and the article in the _Times_, which was little else but my pamphlet condensed, caused a great sensation. But the princ.i.p.al result from it was this: I had in the work discussed the idea, then urged by the French and their friends, that, to avoid driving France to "desperation,"

very moderate terms should be accepted in order to conciliate. For the French, as I observed in effect, will do their _very worst in any case_, and every possible extreme should be antic.i.p.ated and a.s.sumed. This same argument had previously been urged in my "Centralisation _versus_ States Rights."

When Prince Bismarck conversed with the French Commissioners to arrange terms of peace, he met this argument of not driving the French to extremes with a phrase so closely like the one which I had used in my pamphlet, that neither Mr. Trubner nor several others hesitated to declare to me that it was beyond all question taken from it. Bismarck had _certainly_ received the pamphlet, which had been recognised by the _Times_, and in many other quarters, as a more than ordinary paper, and Prince Bismarck, like all great diplomatists, _prend son bien ou il le trouve_. In any case this remains true, that that which formed the settling argument of Germany, found at the time expression in my pamphlet and in the Chancellor's speech.

We made soon after a visit to the Rev. Dean and Mrs. Carrington, in Bocking, Ess.e.x. They had a fair daughter, Eva, then quite a girl, who has since become well known as a writer, and is now the Countess Cesaresco Martinengro--an Italian name, and not Romany-Gypsy, as its terminations would seem to indicate. There is in the village of Bocking, at a corner, a curious and very large grotesque figure of oak, which was evidently in the time of Elizabeth a pilaster in some house-front. My friend Edwards, who was wont to roam all over England in a mule-waggon etching and sketching, when in Bocking was informed by a rustic that this figure was the image of Harkiles (Hercules), a heathen G.o.d formerly worshipped in the old Catholic convent upon the hill, in the old times!

From London we went in August, 1870, to Brighton, staying at first at the Albion Hotel. There, under the influence of fresh sea-air, long walks and drives in all the country round, I began to feel better, yet it was not for many weeks that I fairly recovered. A chemist named Phillips, who supplied me with bromide of pota.s.s, suggested to me, to his own loss, that I took a great deal too much. I left it off altogether, subst.i.tuting pale ale. Finding this far better, I asked Mr. Phillips if he could not prepare for me _lupulin_, or the anodyne of hops. He laughed, and said, "Do you find the result required in ale?" I answered, "Yes." "And do you like ale?" "Yes." "Then," he answered, "why don't you _drink_ ale?" And I did, but before I took it up my very vitality seemed to be well-nigh exhausted with the bromide.

Samuel Laing, M.P., the chairman of the Brighton Railway, had at that time a house in Brighton, with several sons and daughters, the latter of whom have all been very remarkable for beauty and accomplishments. In this home there was a hospitality so profuse, so kind, so brilliant and refined, that I cannot really remember to have ever seen it equalled, and as we fully partic.i.p.ated in it at all times in every form, I should feel that I had omitted the deepest claim to my grat.i.tude if I did not here acknowledge it. Mr. Laing was or is of a stock which deeply appealed to my sympathies, for he is the son of the famous translator of the _Heimskringla_, a great collection of Norse sagas, which I had read, and in which he himself somewhat aided. Of late years, since he has retired from more active financial business, Mr. Laing has not merely turned his attention to literature; he has deservedly distinguished himself by translating, as I may say, into the clearest and most condensed or succinct and lucid English ever written, so as to be understood by the humblest mind, the doctrines of Darwin, Huxley, and the other leading scientific minds of the day. Heine in his time received a great deal of credit for having thus acted as the flux and furnace by which the ore of German philosophy was smelted into pure gold for general circulation; but I, who have translated all that Heine wrote on this subject, declare that he was at such work as far inferior to Samuel Laing as a mere verbal description of a beautiful face is inferior to a first-cla.s.s portrait.

This family enters so largely into my reminiscences and experiences, that a chapter would hardly suffice to express all that I can recall of their hospitality for years, of the dinners, hunts, b.a.l.l.s, excursions, and the many distinguished people whom I have met under their roof. It is worth noting of Mr. Laing's daughters, that Mary, now Mrs. Kennard, is at the head of the sporting-novel writers; that the beautiful Cecilia, now Mrs.

MacRae, was p.r.o.nounced by G. H. Lewes, who was no mean judge, to be the first amateur pianiste in England; while the charming "Floy," or Mrs.

Kennedy, is a very able painter. With their two very pretty sisters, they formed in 1870 as brilliant, beautiful, and accomplished a quintette as England could have produced.

One day Mr. Laing organised an excursion with a special train to Arundel Castle. By myself at other times I found my way to Lewes and other places rich in legendary lore. Of this latter I recall something worth telling. Harold, the conquered Saxon king, had a son, and the conqueror William had a daughter, Gundrada. The former became a Viking pirate, and in his old age a monk, and was buried in a church, now a Presbyterian chapel. There his epitaph may be read in fine bold lettering, still distinct. That man is dear to me.

Gundrada married, died, and was buried in a church with a fine Norman tombstone over her remains. The church was levelled with the ground, but the slab was preserved here and there about Lewes as a relic. When the railway was built, about 1849, there was discovered, where the church had been, the bones of Gundrada and her husband in leaden coffins distinctly inscribed with their names. A very beautiful Norman chapel was then built to receive the coffins, and over them is placed the original memorial in black marble. There is also in Lewes an archaeological museum appropriately bestowed in an old Gothic tower. All of which things did greatly solace me. As did also the Norman or Gothic churches of Sh.o.r.eham, Newport, the old manor of Rottingdean, and the marvellous Devil's d.y.k.e, which was probably a Roman fort, and from which it is said that fifty towns or villages may be seen "far in the blue."

One day I went with my wife and two ladies to visit the latter. The living curiosity of the place was a famous old gypsy woman named Gentilla Cooper, a pure blood or real _Kalorat_ Romany. I had already in America studied Pott's "Thesaurus of Gypsy Dialects," and picked up many phrases of the tongue from the works of Borrow, Simson, and others. The old dame tackled us at once. As soon as I could, I whispered in her ear an improvised rhyme:--

"The bashno and kani, The rye and the rani, Hav'd akai 'pre o boro lon pani."

Which means that the c.o.c.k and the hen, the gentleman and the lady, came hither across the great salt water. The effect on the gypsy was startling; she fairly turned pale. Hustling the ladies away to one side to see a beautiful view, she got me alone and hurriedly exclaimed, "_Rya_--master! _be_ you one of our people?" with much more. We became very good friends, and this little incident had in time for me great results, and many strange experiences of gypsy life.

There live in Brighton two ladies, Miss Horace Smith and her sister Rosa, who were and are well known in the cultured world. They are daughters of Horace Smith, who, with his brother James, wrote the "Rejected Addresses." Their reminiscences of distinguished men are extremely varied and interesting. The elder sister possesses an alb.u.m to which Thackeray contributed many verses and pen-sketches. Their weekly receptions were very pleasant; at them might be seen most of the literary or social celebrities who came to Brighton. A visit there was like living a chapter in a book of memoirs and reminiscences. I have had, if it be only a quiet, and not very eventful or remarkable, at least a somewhat varied life, and the Laings and Smiths, with their surroundings, form two of its most interesting varieties. I believe they never missed an opportunity to do us or any one a kindly act, to aid us to make congenial friends, or the like. How many good people there really are in the world!

Of these ladies the author of "Gossip of the Century" writes:--

"Horace Smith's two daughters are still living, and in Brighton. Their very pleasant house is frequented by the best and most interesting kind of society, affording what may be called a _salon_, that rare relic of ancient literary taste and cementer of literary intimacies--a salon which the cultivated consider it a privilege to frequent, and where these ladies receive with a grace and geniality which their friends know how to appreciate. It is much to be regretted that gatherings of this description seem to be becoming rarer every year, for as death disturbs them society seems to lack the spirit or the good taste, or the ability, to replace them."

Brighton is a very pleasant place, because it combines the advantages of a seaside resort with those of a clean and cheerful city. Walking along the front, you have a brave outlook to the blue sea on one hand, and elegant shop-windows and fine hotels on the other. A little back in the town on a hill is the fine old fifteenth-century church of St. Nicholas, in which there is perhaps the most curious carved Norman font in England; but all this is known to so few visitors, that I feel as if I were telling a great secret in letting it out. Smith's book-store on the Western Road, and Bohn's near the station, are kept by very well-informed and very courteous men. I have been much indebted to the former in many ways, and found by his aid many a greatly needed and rare work.

When I first went to Brighton there was one evening a brilliant aurora borealis. As I looked at it, I heard an Englishman say, to my great amazement, it was the first time he had ever seen one in his life! I once saw one in America of such extraordinary brilliancy and duration, that it prolonged the daylight for half an hour or more, till I became amazed, and then found it was a Northern Light. It lasted till sunrise in all its splendour. I have taken down from Algonkin Indians several beautiful legends relating to them. In one, the Milky Way is the girdle of a stupendous deity, and the Northern Lights the splendid gleams emitted by his ball when playing. In another, the narrator describes him as clad in an ineffable glory of light, and in colours unknown on earth!

And this reminds me further that I have just read in the newspapers of the death of Edwin Booth, who was born during the famous star shower of 1833, which phenomenon I witnessed from beginning to end, and remember as if it were only yesterday. Now, I was actually dreaming that I was in a room in which _cigars_ were flying about in every direction, when my father came and woke me and my brother Henry, to come and see an exceeding great marvel. There were for a long time many thousands of stars at once in the sky, all shooting, as it were, or converging towards a centre. They were not half so long as the meteors which we see; one or two had a crook or bend in the middle, _e.g._

{The meteor pattern: p409.jpg}

The next day I was almost alone at school in the glory of having seen it, for so few people were awake in sober Philadelphia at three in the morning that one of the newspapers ridiculed the whole story.

I can distinctly recall that the next day, at Mr. Alcott's, I read through a very favourite work of mine, a translation of the German _Das Mahrchen ohne Ende_--"The Story without an End."

All kinds of odd fish came to Brighton, floating here and there; but two of the very oddest were encountered by me in it on my last visit. I was looking into a chemist's window, when two well-dressed and decidedly jolly feminines, one perhaps of thirty years, and the other much younger and quite pretty, paused by me, while the elder asked--

"Are you looking for a hair-restorer?"