The idea of the book was, briefly, to enable any one to see at a glance which parts of Italy he ought to visit in pursuit of his special studies. And I had three special chapters on the changes in Rome, which have made all the old books on Rome out of date.
When we reached London in the late autumn, I found a sad change in my father, who had reached the great age of eighty-six. He had lost much of his memory, and very often did not care to speak. He gradually failed, until one night between Christmas and the New Year he passed away quite peacefully, holding my hand.
I sold the house on Campden Hill—Phillimore Lodge—in which he had lived for nearly fifty years, to Sir Walter Phillimore. The estate was so burdened with legacies, made while he was a much richer man, that I should have lost by accepting my inheritance if I had not sold all the real estate.
I had no wish to live there. For years it had been my intention to leave London when I no longer had my father to consider. I wanted to go to some rural spot just outside London, where I could have pleasure in being at home in the summer months, because I like going abroad in the winter, and you must make use of your house some time during the year. At Addison Mansions we were only at home for a month or two in some years.
I set about looking for a new house almost immediately, and after nearly taking an old Queen Anne mansion in the Sheen Road, finally settled on the Avenue House, Richmond, which stands in the north-west corner of the old Green, with its front windows looking down the Avenue, and across the Green to the Old Palace, and its back windows looking over the old Deer Park and the Mid-Surrey Golf Club to the trees of Kew Gardens. In the winter we can see a mile or two of grass and trees from those windows, and the river when the tide is high. The house suited me perfectly; it had a charming old-fashioned garden, with ancient trees, a cedar of Lebanon, a mulberry, and an arbutus, which covers itself with flowers and fruit, among them, besides two great wistarias and many flowering laburnums, lilacs and hawthorns. I added rockeries in the Sicilian style, and various features of a Japanese garden.
The house had the further advantage of being only a few minutes’ walk from the railway stations, from golf at Mid-Surrey, and from one of the most beautiful reaches of the Thames.
Here I have written the present book, The Unholy Estate, The Curse of the Nile, and my parts of Adam Lindsay Gordon and His Friends in England and Australia, and Weeds; and I was here when How to see Italy was published.
I was sorry in a way to say good-bye to Addison Mansions, which had been my home during the most interesting years of my life. I liked the rooms; I should have liked to transport them to Richmond.