Lord Houghton is a good, gray, old man, full of vivacity and with opinions of his own. He has renown in Italy, for he has been a great friend in the country’s struggle for liberty, and his life of literature has had great reward.
Shakespeare Wood knows more about Rome and Italy than half the Italians themselves, and is besides an artist and an antiquarian.
Last evening I was invited to dine at the home of the celebrated Professor Moleschott. He is a distinguished author and a Roman Senator, though a born German. My invitation came as a result of a letter to him from my friend Johannes Scherr, the German author. Moleschott had once lived in Zurich.
This was an “evening” for certain delegates to a World’s Congress of scientific and medical men. Dr. Sternberg, of Washington, was there. Few of the guests understood Italian. Moleschott seemed able to speak with each in his own tongue. Scherr’s letter caused him to pay me no little attention, and he chatted with me considerably. He is the most remarkable looking man I ever saw. Has a head like a lion. He is short, stout, broad faced, and has big eyes, and low side whiskers. I asked him how on earth he could learn so many languages in addition to his enormous duties as a scientific writer, a constant lecturer, and an Italian Senator. “I don’t learn them,” he said; “I must absorb them. I have no time to learn them.” “But you must have studied English,” I replied. “You are too much of a master there, to be merely an absorber.” “Well, yes, a little bit,” he answered. “That is, I laid your English grammar on my dressing case mornings for a few weeks, and while I walked up and down the room putting on my clothes I got hold of your language.”
He was one of the rare men we meet who seem to know everything. Observation great, memory powerful. What would the world be, if all men had Moleschott’s intellect. Like Goethe, he has universal knowledge.
He passes our door daily in an open cab, and is always sitting with an open volume in his lap, and yet he sees and greets people and goes on with his reading.
House of Gold, Venice.
May 1, 1885.--I have this entry in my diary: “This day I resigned my post as Consul General of Italy and will soon leave the service, after many years of constant and faithful duty. These last weeks I have also had charge of the diplomatic affairs of our country here, and it is gratifying to receive, by the same mail that brings a letter asking my resignation, another letter expressing appreciation of some of my recent services.”
On my arrival home in America, I found the following letter waiting me from General Sherman: