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 one another daily and of visiting together the haunts in Rome which are best loved by art-loving strangers; but here in this drawing-room we were sure to come together, and here before the end of November Mrs.
Talboys might always be found, not in any accustomed seat, but moving about the room as the different male mental attractions of our society might chance to move themselves. She was at first greatly taken by Mackinnon, who also was, I think, a little stirred by her admiration, though he stoutly denied the charge. She became, however, very dear to us all before she left us, and certainly we owed to her our love, for she added infinitely to the joys of our winter.
"I have come here to refresh myself," she said to Mackinnon one evening--to Mackinnon and myself, for we were standing together.
"Shall I get you tea?" said I.
"And will you have something to eat?" Mackinnon asked.
"No, no, no," she answered. "Tea, yes; but for heaven's sake let nothing solid dispel the associations of such a meeting as this!""I thought you might have dined early," said Mackinnon. Now Mackinnon was a man whose own dinner was very dear to him. I have seen him become hasty and unpleasant, even under the pillars of the Forum, when he thought that the party were placing his fish in jeopardy by their desire to linger there too long.
"Early! Yes--no; I know not when it was. One dines and sleeps in obedience to that dull clay which weighs down so generally the particle of our spirit; but the clay may sometimes be forgotten; here I can always forget it.""I thought you asked for refreshment," I said. She only looked at me, whose small attempts at prose composition had up to that time been altogether unsuccessful, and then addressed herself to reply to Mackinnon. "It is the air which we breathe that fills our lungs and gives us life and light; it is that which refreshes us if pure or sinks us into stagnation if it be foul. Let me for a while inhale the breath of an invigorating literature. Sit down, Mr. Mackinnon; I have a question that I must put to you." And then she succeeded in carrying him off into a corner. As far as I could see he went willingly enough at that time, though he soon became averse to anylong retirement in company with Mrs. Talboys.
We none of us quite understood what were her exact ideas on the subject of revealed religion. Somebody, I think, had told her that therewere among us one or two whose opinions were not exactly orthodox according to the doctrines of the established English church. If so she was determined to show us that she also was advanced beyond the prejudices of an old and dry school of theology. "I have thrown down all the barriers of religion," she said to poor Mrs. Mackinnon, "and am looking for the sentiments of a pure Christianity.""Thrown down all the barriers of religion!" said Mrs. Mackinnon, in a tone of horror which was not appreciated.
"Indeed, yes," said Mrs. Talboys, with an exulting voice. "Are not the days for such trammels gone by?""But yet you hold by Christianity?"
