“He never ceased, I don’t say for an hour, but an instant, to have a book open before him; and though he sometimes could not fix his eyes for two minutes at a time on its contents, he nevertheless understood it, and could afterwards talk of the work in a manner which proved, that while his mental powers were awake, they were as strong as ever—more especially his memory; but the state he was in, caused much confusion in his ideas of time and distance, of which he was aware, and complained of.”
The first Lord Lytton wrote of Gell: “I never knew so popular or so petted a man as Sir William Gell; every one seems to love him.”
Gell was a capital letter-writer, as the following example will suffice to show. In April 1824, he writes to Lady Blessington:
“I did really arrive at Rome … having experienced in the way every possible misfortune, except being overturned or carried into the mountains. In short, I know nothing to equal my journey, except the ninety-nine misfortunes of Pulicinella in a Neapolitan puppet-show. I set out without my cloak in an open carriage; my only hope of getting warmer at St Agatha was destroyed by an English family, who had got possession of the only chimney. I had a dreadful headache, which, by-the-bye, recollecting to have lost at your house by eating an orange, I tried again with almost immediate effect. Next morning one grey horse fell ill at the moment of being put to the carriage, and has continued so ever since, so that I have had to buy another, which is so very (what they call) good, that it is nearly as useless as the other, so that I never go out without risking my neck. When, at length, I got to Rome in a storm of sleet, I found a bill of an hundred and fifty dollars against me for protecting useless lemon-trees against the frost of the winter, which, added to the expense of the new horse and the old one have ever since caused the horrors of a gaol to interpose themselves between me and every enjoyment, and so much for the ugly side of the question.”
Through Loretto, Ancona, Ravenna, Ferrara, Padua, the Blessingtons and company made their way to Venice, where they halted for several weeks, and where once again they forgathered with Landor. Then by Verona and Milan to Genoa, and in June 1828 they arrived in Paris.
IX
PARIS
Back again in Paris, which lay blistering under the hot summer sun. Rooms were secured at the Hôtel de Terrace in the Rue de Rivoli; noisy quarters, and Lady Blessington was not fond of noise.
“On entering Paris,” says Lady Blessington, “I felt my impatience to see our dear friends then redouble; and, before we had despatched the dinner awaiting our arrival, the Duc and Duchesse de Guiche came to us. How warm was our greeting; how many questions to be asked and answered; how many congratulations and pleasant plans for the future to be formed.…” Doubtless D’Orsay was again congratulated on having married a fortune.… “The Duchesse was in radiant health and beauty, and the Duc looking, as he always does, more distingué than anyone else—the perfect beau-idéal of a nobleman. We soon quitted the salle à manger; for who could eat during the joy of a first meeting with those so valued?”