Why Mrs. General Talboys first made up her mind to pass the winter of 1859 at Rome I never clearly understood. To myself she explained her purposes soon after her arrival at the Eternal City, by declaring, in her own enthusiastic manner, that she was inspired by a burning desire to drink fresh at the still living fountains of classical poetry and sentiment. But I always thought that there was something more than this in it. Classical poetry and sentiment were doubtless very dear to her, but so also, I imagine, were the substantial comforts of Hardover Lodge, the general's house in Berkshire; and I do not think that she would have emigrated for the winter had there not been some slight domestic misunderstanding. Let this, however, be fully made clear-- that such misunderstanding, if it existed, must have been simply an affair of temper. No impropriety of conduct has, I am very sure, ever been imputed to the lady. The general, as all the world knows, is hot; and Mrs. Talboys, when the sweet rivers of her enthusiasm are unfed by congenial waters, can, I believe, make herself disagreeable.
But be this as it may, in November, 1859, Mrs. Talboys came among us English at Rome, and soon succeeded in obtaining for herself a comfortable footing in our society. We all thought her more remarkable for her mental attributes than for physical perfection, but nevertheless she was in her own way a sightly woman. She had no special brilliance, either of eye or complexion, such as would produce sudden flames in susceptible hearts, nor did she seem to demand instant homage by the form and step of a goddess; but we found her to be a good-looking woman of some thirty or thirty-three years of age, with soft, peach-like cheeks,--rather too like those of a cherub,-- with sparkling eyes which were hardly large enough, with good teeth, a white forehead, a dimpled chin, and a full bust. Such outwardly was Mrs. General Talboys. The deion of the inward woman is the purport to which these few pages will be devoted.
There are two qualities to which the best of mankind are much subject, which are nearly related to each other, and as to which the world has notyet decided whether they are to be classed among the good or evil attributes of our nature. Men and women are under the influence of them both, but men oftenest undergo the former, and women the latter. They are ambition and enthusiasm. Now Mrs. Talboys was an enthusiastic woman.
As to ambition, generally as the world agrees with Mark Antony in stigmatising it as a grievous fault, I am myself clear that it is a virtue; but with ambition at present we have no concern. Enthusiasm also, as I think, leans to virtue's side, or, at least, if it be a fault, of all faults it is the prettiest. But then, to partake at all of virtue or even to be in any degree pretty, the enthusiasm must be true.
Bad coin is known from good by the ring of it, and so is bad enthusiasm. Let the coiner be ever so clever at his art, in the coining of enthusiasm the sound of true gold can never be imparted to the false metal; and I doubt whether the cleverest she in the world can make false enthusiasm palatable to the taste of man; to the taste of any woman the enthusiasm of another woman is never very palatable.
We understood at Rome that Mrs. Talboys had a considerable family,-- four or five children, we were told,--but she brought with her only one daughter, a little girl about twelve years of age. She had torn herself asunder, as she told me, from the younger nurslings of her heart, and had left them to the care of a devoted female attendant, whose love was all but maternal. And then she said a word or two about the general in terms which made me almost think that this quasi- maternal love extended itself beyond the children. The idea, however, was a mistaken one, arising from the strength of her language, to which I was then unaccustomed. I have since become aware that nothing can be more decorous than old Mrs. Upton, the excellent head nurse at Hardover Lodge; and no gentleman more discreet in his conduct than General Talboys.
And I may as well here declare also that there could be no more virtuous woman than the general's wife. Her marriage vow was to her paramount to all other vows and bonds whatever. The general's honour was quite safe when he sent her off to Rome by herself, and he no doubt knew that it was so. /Illi robur et oes triplex/, of which I believe no weapons of any assailant could get the better. But nevertheless we used tofancy that she had no repugnance to impropriety in other women--to what the world generally calls impropriety. Invincibly attached herself to the marriage tie, she would constantly speak of it as by no means necessarily binding on others; and virtuous herself as any griffin of propriety, she constantly patronised, at any rate, the theory of infidelity in her neighbours. She was very eager in denouncing the prejudices of the English world, declaring that she found existence among them to be no longer possible for herself. She was hot against the stern unforgiveness of British matrons, and equally eager in reprobating the stiff conventionalities of a religion in which she said that none of its votaries had faith, though they all allowed themselves to be enslaved.
We had at that time a small set at Rome consisting chiefly of English and Americans, who habitually met at one another's rooms, and spent many of our evening hours in discussing Italian politics. We were, most of us, painters, poets, novelists, or sculptors--perhaps I should say would-be painters, poets, novelists, and sculptors, aspirants hoping to become some day recognised; and among us Mrs. Talboys took her place naturally enough on account of a very pretty taste she had for painting. I do not know that she ever originated anything that was grand, but she made some nice copies and was fond, at any rate, of art conversation. She wrote essays too, which she showed in confidence to various gentlemen, and had some idea of taking lessons in modelling.
