VIII


Cataclysmic adventures--On the trail of dazzling fortunes--"Lovely,
but reprehensible Madham"--The throne saves the artist--English robin
redbreast--A sad and weary old man--"Most indelicate woman I've ever
known"--Perfectly chaste--Something human stirred dimly--"She loves
me; she loves me!"--The Prince of Wales and half-a-crown--Portentous
and thundering title--Honest English simplicity--"The spirit
lacking"--Abelard, Isaac Newton, and Ruskin--A famous and charming
woman of genius--Deep and wide well of human sympathy--The
whooping-cough.

In the spring of 1854 we were visited by John O'Sullivan, his wife and
mother, and a young relative of theirs, Miss Ella Rogers. O'Sullivan
had been appointed Minister to the Court of Portugal, and was on his
way thither. He was a Democrat of old standing; had edited the
Democratic Review in 1837, and had made my father's acquaintance at
that time through soliciting contributions from him; later they became
close friends, and when my sister Una was born, he sent her a silver
cup, and was ever after called "Uncle John" in the family, and, also,
occasionally, "the Count"--a title which, I believe, had some warrant
in his ancestry. For, although an American, Uncle John was born at sea
off the coast of Spain, of an Irish father and a mother of
aristocratic connections or extraction (I am a little uncertain, I
find, on this point); I think her parents were Italian. Uncle John had
all the charming qualities of the nations mentioned, and none of their
objectionable ones; though this is not to say that he was devoid of
tender faults, which were, if anything, more lovable than his virtues.