Mrs General Talboys | Page 5

we
used to fancy that she had no repugnance to impropriety in other
women,--to what the world generally calls impropriety. Invincibly
attached herself to the marriage tie, she would constantly speak of it as
by no means necessarily binding on others; and, virtuous herself as any
griffin of propriety, she constantly patronised, at any rate, the theory of
infidelity in her neighbours. She was very eager in denouncing the
prejudices of the English world, declaring that she had found existence
among them to be no longer possible for herself. She was hot against
the stern unforgiveness of British matrons, and equally eager in
reprobating the stiff conventionalities of a religion in which she said

that none of its votaries had faith, though they all allowed themselves
to be enslaved.
We had at that time a small set at Rome, consisting chiefly of English
and Americans, who habitually met at each other's rooms, and spent
many of our evening hours in discussing Italian politics. We were, most
of us, painters, poets, novelists, or sculptors;--perhaps I should say
would-be painters, poets, novelists, and sculptors,-- aspirants hoping to
become some day recognised; and among us Mrs. Talboys took her
place, naturally enough, on account of a very pretty taste she had for
painting.
I do not know that she ever originated anything that was grand; but she
made some nice copies, and was fond, at any rate, of art conversation.
She wrote essays, too, which she showed in confidence to various
gentlemen, and had some idea of taking lessons in modelling.
In all our circle Conrad Mackinnon, an American, was, perhaps, the
person most qualified to be styled its leader. He was one who
absolutely did gain his living, and an ample living too, by his pen, and
was regarded on all sides as a literary lion, justified by success in
roaring at any tone he might please. His usual roar was not exactly that
of a sucking-dove or a nightingale; but it was a good-humoured roar,
not very offensive to any man, and apparently acceptable enough to
some ladies. He was a big burly man, near to fifty as I suppose,
somewhat awkward in his gait, and somewhat loud in his laugh. But
though nigh to fifty, and thus ungainly, he liked to be smiled on by
pretty women, and liked, as some said, to be flattered by them also. If
so, he should have been happy, for the ladies at Rome at that time made
much of Conrad Mackinnon.
Of Mrs. Mackinnon no one did make very much, and yet she was one
of the sweetest, dearest, quietest, little creatures that ever made glad a
man's fireside. She was exquisitely pretty, always in good humour,
never stupid, self-denying to a fault, and yet she was generally in the
background. She would seldom come forward of her own will, but was
contented to sit behind her teapot and hear Mackinnon do his roaring.
He was certainly much given to what the world at Rome called flirting,
but this did not in the least annoy her. She was twenty years his junior,
and yet she never flirted with any one. Women would tell
her--good-natured friends--how Mackinnon went on; but she received

such tidings as an excellent joke, observing that he had always done the
same, and no doubt always would until he was ninety. I do believe that
she was a happy woman; and yet I used to think that she should have
been happier. There is, however, no knowing the inside of another
man's house, or reading the riddles of another man's joy and sorrow.
We had also there another lion,--a lion cub,--entitled to roar a little, and
of him also I must say something. Charles O'Brien was a young man,
about twenty-five years of age, who had sent out from his studio in the
preceding year a certain bust, supposed by his admirers to be
unsurpassed by any effort of ancient or modern genius. I am no judge
of sculpture, and will not, therefore, pronounce an opinion; but many
who considered themselves to be judges, declared that it was a
"goodish head and shoulders," and nothing more. I merely mention the
fact, as it was on the strength of that head and shoulders that O'Brien
separated himself from a throng of others such as himself in Rome,
walked solitary during the days, and threw himself at the feet of various
ladies when the days were over. He had ridden on the shoulders of his
bust into a prominent place in our circle, and there encountered much
feminine admiration--from Mrs. General Talboys and others.
Some eighteen or twenty of us used to meet every Sunday evening in
Mrs. Mackinnon's drawing-room. Many of us, indeed, were in the habit
of seeing each other daily, and