rate it has so many affinities with Modernism, that _now_--the French
public would be interested.

The length of the book, however, could not be got over, and the plan
fell through. But I came away from my talk with a remarkable man, not a
little stirred. For it had seemed to show that with all its many
faults--and who knew them better than I?--my book had yet possessed a
certain representative and pioneering force; and that, to some extent,
at least, the generation in which it appeared had spoken through it.



CHAPTER IV


FIRST VISITS TO ITALY


I have already mentioned in these papers that I was one of the examiners
for the Spanish Taylorian scholarship at Oxford in 1883, and again in
1888. But perhaps before I go farther in these _Recollections_ I may put
down here--somewhat out of its place--a reminiscence connected with the
first of these examinations, which seems to me worth recording. My
Spanish colleague in 1883 was, as I have said, Don Pascual Gayangos,
well known among students for his _History of Mohammedan Dynasties in
Spain_, for his edition of the Correspondence of Cardinal Cisneros, and
other historical work. _A propos_ of the examination, he came to see me
in Russell Square, and his talk about Spain revived in me, for the time,
a fading passion. Senor Gayangos was born in 1809, so that in 1883 he
was already an old man, though full of vigor and work. He told me the