warm in me is the whole fused memory of the two dear old men that
lived there. I wish I had Watts-Dunton's sure faith in meetings beyond
the grave. I am glad I do not disbelieve that people may so meet. I
like to think that some day in Elysium I shall--not without
diffidence--approach those two and reintroduce myself. I can see just
how courteously Swinburne will bow over my hand, not at all
remembering who I am. Watts-Dunton will remember me after a moment:
`Oh, to be sure, yes indeed! I've a great deal of work on hand just
now--a great deal of work, but' we shall sit down together on the
asphodel, and I cannot but think we shall have whisky-toddy even
there. He will not have changed. He will still be shaggy and old and
chubby, and will wear the same frock-coat, with the same creases in
it. Swinburne, on the other hand, will be quite, quite young, with a
full mane of flaming auburn locks, and no clothes to hinder him from
plunging back at any moment into the shining Elysian waters from which
he will have just emerged. I see him skim lightly away into that
element. On the strand is sitting a man of noble and furrowed brow. It
is Mazzini, still thinking of Liberty. And anon the tiny young English
amphibian comes ashore to fling himself dripping at the feet of the
patriot and to carol the Republican ode he has composed in the course
of his swim. `He's wonderfully active--active in mind and body,'
Watts-Dunton says to me. `I come to the shore now and then, just to
see how he's getting on. But I spend most of my time inland. I find
I've so much to talk over with Gabriel. Not that he's quite the fellow
he was. He always had rather a cult for Dante, you know, and now he's
more than ever under the Florentine influence. He lives in a sort of
monastery that Dante has here; and there he sits painting imaginary
portraits of Beatrice, and giving them all to Dante. But he still has
his great moments, and there's no one quite like him--no one. Algernon
won't ever come and see him, because that fellow Mazzini's as Anti-