The next day the gentlemen (twenty in number), all splendidly mounted on English hunters, rode off at eleven o'clock, masses of grooms and piqueurs, with lots of hunting-horns and the dogs. We ladies followed in the break. The masters of the hounds were already at the rendezvous on the hill. They soon started a fox, and then the dogs tore off yelping and barking, and the riders riding like mad; and we waited in the carriages, sorry not to be with them. The red coats looked well against the background; the dogs, all of the same pattern, were rushing about in groups with their tails in the air; but while our eyes were following them the fox ran right under our noses, within a hair's-breadth of our wheels. Of course the dogs lost the scent, and there was a general standstill until another fox was routed out, and off they flew again. Der alte Herr is very much thought of in these parts; he was the only one who dared oppose the House of Peers in Berlin in the question of war with Austria in 1866, and made such an astounding speech that he was obliged to retire from politics and take to fox-hunting. He gave the speech to me to read, and—I—well!—I didn't read it!
The Westphalians seem to go on the let-us-alone principle; they seem to be anti-everything—from Bismarck and Protestantism downward. I sang the last evening of our stay here. The piano belonging to this hunting-lodge is as old as the alte Herr, and must have been here for years, and even at that must be an heirloom. The keys were yellow with age and misuse, and if it had ever been in tune it had forgotten all about it now and was out of it altogether. I picked the notes out which were still good, and by singing Gounod's "Biondina" in a loud voice and playing its dashing accompaniment with gusto, I managed to keep myself awake. As for the tired hunters who had been in the saddle all day, they were so worn out that nothing short of a brass band could rouse them long enough for them to keep their eyes open.
The next day we bade our hosts good-by and, thanking them for our delightful visit, we departed. I wonder if the gentlemen liked being trespassed upon as much as we did who did the trespassing. However, they were polite enough to say that they had never enjoyed anything so much as our visit, and especially my singing. What humbugs! I was polite enough not to say that I had never enjoyed anything so little as singing for sleepy fox-hunters.
ROME, January, 1875.
DEAR MOTHER,—I am here in Rome, staying with my friends the Haseltines, who have a beautiful apartment that they have arranged in the most sumptuous and artistic manner in the Palazzo Altieri. Mr. Haseltine has two enormous rooms for his studio and has filled them with his faultless pictures, which are immensely admired and appreciated. His water-colors are perfection.
I have met many of your friends whom you will be glad to hear about; to begin with, the Richard Greenoughs, our cousins. We had much to talk about, as we had not seen each other since Paris, when he made that bust of me. They are the most delightful people, so talented in their different ways, and are full of interest in everything which concerns me. She has just published a book called Mary Magdalene, which I think is perfectly wonderful.
I have made the acquaintance of William Story (the sculptor). He spoke of you and Aunt Maria as his oldest and dearest friends, and therefore claimed the right to call me Lillie.
I have not only seen him, but I have been Mrs. Story, Miss Story, and the third story in the Palazzo Barberini, where they live, and I have already counted many times the tiresome one hundred and twenty-two steps which lead to their apartment, and have dined frequently with them in their chilly Roman dining-room. This room is only warmed by the little apparatus which in Rome passes for a stove. It has a thin leg that sticks out of a hole in the side of the house and could warm a flea at a pinch.
The hay on the stone floor made the thin carpet warmer to my cold toes, which, in their evening shoes, were away down below zero, but my cold and bare shoulders shivered in this Greenland icy-mountain temperature which belongs to Roman palaces. This was before I was an habituée; but after I had become one I wore, like the other jewel-bedecked dames, woolen stockings and fur-lined overshoes. The contrast must be funny, if one could see above board and under board at the same time.
The Storys generally have a lion for dinner and for their evening entertainments. My invitations to their dinners always read thus: "Dear Mrs. Moulton,—We are going to have (mentioning the lion) to dinner. Will you not join us, and if you would kindly bring a little music it would be such a," etc. No beating about the bush there! The other evening Miss Hosmer—female rival of Mr. Story in the sculpturing line—was the lion of the occasion, and was three-quarters of an hour late, her excuse being that she was studying the problem of perpetual motion. Mr. Story, who is a wit, said he wished the motion had been perpetuated in a botta (which is Italian for cab).