I recall how her voice trembled over the words:
And the burden laid upon me
Seemed greater than I could bear.
and how it swelled out in the concluding lines:
As the symbol of love in Heaven,
And its wavering image here.
It was dramatic and never to be forgotten. Then she added, 'I long to visit Boston that I may stand on the Bridge.'
"In the company was an English captain returning from the Zulu war. He was the son of that member of Parliament' who had been the chief supporter of the claimant in the famous Tichborne case, and who had poured out his money like water in behalf of the man whom he considered cruelly wronged. The captain was a typical British soldier, with every characteristic of his class. Joining our steamer at Genoa, he had so far talked only of the Zulus and, with bitter indignation, of the manner in which the Prince Imperial had been deserted by British soldiers to be slain by savages. As soon as the Russian lady had concluded he said: 'I can give you something better than that,' and began in a voice like a trumpet:
Tell me not in mournful numbers
Life is but an empty dream.
His recitation of the entire poem was marked by the common English upheaval and down-letting of the voice in each line; but it was evident that he loved what he was repeating.
"Then a tall, lank, gray-haired Scotchman, who knew no French, who had hardly mingled with the other passengers, and who seemed always communing with himself, suddenly commenced:
There is no flock, however watched and tended,
But one dead lamb is there.