82 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, vi 



Fanny Allen, in answer, wrote this dignified expression 

 of her feeling for Mr Clifford. She was thirty-four years 

 old, and it was the romance of her life. It must be remem- 

 bered that her sister Bessy was almost like a mother to her, 



GENEVA, Dec. 31, 1815. 



. . . We have received a little note from W. Clifford a 

 few hours before he left Paris, telling us of his immediate 

 journey to England and begging to hear from us how we 

 go on. I have left myself too little room to dilate on any- 

 thing, but my inmost heart is yours at command. I think 

 all my friends were out in their opinion respecting his 

 sentiments. He feels a very tender friendship for me, but 

 I do not think it is love. If he had given me his heart he 

 should have had mine; there is no man out of my own 

 family I love so much. He still talks of meeting us in 

 Switzerland or Italy in the summer, but I do not think he 

 has health or spirits for the journey. This is only for you, 

 Jos, and the two girls one is loath to acknowledge the 

 readiness to give one's affection where it has not been asked. 



William Clifford, owner of a small but beautiful property 

 in Herefordshire, Perristone by name, was a very dear 

 friend of the Allen family. He died in 1850 aged about 70. 

 He must have been strikingly handsome, judging from a 

 portrait of him in his old age by Watts, 1 of which my mother 

 had an engraving. It shews him with sad-looking dark 

 eyes, thick, waved white hair, and clear-cut, strongly- 

 marked features. He never married, though he was much 

 attracted by other members of the family in later days. 



A little packet of his letters exists in the Maer collection. 

 They are to Jessie and Bessy, with but one to Fanny Allen. 

 As I read these letters, a certain flavour in his character 

 reminded me curiously of Edward Fitzgerald; the thought 

 kept constantly recurring. Mr Clifford's life, too, was in 

 some respects similar a hermit-like existence, great power 

 of winning and keeping friends, the same sense of failure, 

 incurable hesitation, deep melancholy and a playful charm 

 and sense of humour. He once said he had never taken 

 any step he had not regretted, and this hesitation seems to 



1 General Clive, the present owner of Perristone, found this picture 

 in an old curiosity shop and at once bought it ; thus it now again 

 hangs in William Clifford's house: 



