382 MORE POT-POURRI 



Beautiful, bright Geneva struck me as hard and ugly, 

 after the mellow softness of Florence. I had hoped to 

 have seen many interesting places in the neighbourhood, 

 the homes of those who are familiar to us as our own 

 relatives. Ferney I have never seen, nor Coppet, nor 

 the house on the south side of the lake where Byron 

 lived, close to the one taken by the Shelleys and Clair 

 that memorable summer after Byron's separation from 

 his wife and before the birth of AUegra. Is it not 

 all told in one of the best, most complete, and most 

 interesting biographies of our day, Dowden's 'Life of 

 Shelley ' ? George Eliot spent a happy time at Geneva as 

 a girl, and I would gladly have seen 18 Rue des 

 Chamoines, where she lived and rested and enjoyed her- 

 self with kind friends. And last of all, there is the quiet 

 corner where Amiel worked and lived and wrote. Some 

 time after his death a very interesting review (by Lucas 

 Malet) of Mrs. Humphry Ward's translation of Amiel's 

 'Journal Intime ' appeared in the ' Fortnightly Review ' 

 for May or June, 1896. She alludes several times to the 

 short biography of Professor Amiel by Mile. Berthe 

 Vadier, which was published in Paris, and thus describes 

 the place where he lived : ' His windows overlooked a 

 well -filled flower garden ; the walls of it were draped 

 with Ivy and Virginia Creeper, above which rises the 

 ancient college of Calvin, while through a side opening 

 he could see the trees on the Promenade Saint -Antoine, 

 and the Russian church, its gilded cupolas backed by the 

 purple hillside of the Grand Salfeve.' Amiel's biographer 

 says : ' II ^tait toujours beau.' Lucas Malet adds : ' The 

 dome of his head is very fine, reminding one in height 

 and purity of curve of the head of Shakespeare, or of 

 the modern writer who in looks so curiously resembles 

 him — Dante Rossetti. But with the brow all likeness to 

 the great or lesser poet ceases : the eyes and lower part 



