As no one came near me, I presumed every one was out, so I
settled down peacefully among the books, prepared to wait. In a
little time I heard a shuffle of slippered feet and some one
pausing at the open door.
"Has he gone?" was the querulous question that came from behind
the screen.
And in a moment the thin, curious face of John Addington Symonds
was peering at me round the corner.
There was nothing for it but to answer:
"No I am afraid she is still here!"
Being the most courteous of men, he smiled and took my hand; and
we went up to his library together.
Symonds and I became very great friends.
After putting my sister to bed at 9.30, I climbed every night by
starlight up to Am Hof, where we talked and read out loud till one
and often two in the morning. I learnt more in those winter nights
at Davos than I had ever learnt in my life. We read The Republic
and all the Plato dialogues together; Swift, Voltaire, Browning,
Walt Whitman, Edgar Poe and Symonds' own Renaissance, besides
passages from every author and poet, which he would turn up
feverishly to illustrate what he wanted me to understand.
I shall always think Lord Morley [Footnote: Viscount Morley of
Blackburn.] the best talker I ever heard and after him I would say
Symonds, Birrell and Bergson. George Meredith was too much of a
prima donna and was very deaf and uninterruptable when I knew him,
but he was amazingly good even then. Alfred Austin was a friend of
his and had just been made Poet Laureate by Lord Salisbury, when
my beloved friend Admiral Maxse took me down to the country to see
Meredith for the first time.
Pages:
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224