We had as neighbours at Ricorboli, although on the opposite bank of the Arno, our old and very highly-valued friends, Mr. G.P.  Marsh, the United States Minister, and his charming wife, to whom for the sake of both parties we were desirous of introducing our distinguished guests.  We thought it right to explain to Mrs. Marsh fully all that was not strictly normal in the relationship of George Eliot and G.H.  Lewes before bringing them together, and were assured both by her and by her husband that they saw nothing in the circumstances which need deprive them of the pleasure of making the acquaintance of persons whom it would be so agreeable to them to know.  The Marsh’s were at that time giving rather large weekly receptions in the fine rooms of their villa, and our friends accompanied us to one of these.  It was very easy to see that both ladies appreciated each other.  There was a large gathering, mostly of Americans, and Lewes exerted himself to be agreeable and amusing—­which he always was, when he wished to be, to a degree rarely surpassed.

He and I used to walk about the country together when “Polly” was indisposed for walking; and I found him an incomparable companion, whether a gay or a grave mood were uppermost.  He was the best raconteur I ever knew, full of anecdote, and with a delicious perception of humour.  She also, as I have said—­very needlessly to those who have read her books—­had an exquisite feeling and appreciation of the humorous, abundantly sufficient if unsupported by other examples, to put Thackeray’s dicta on the subject of woman’s capacity for humour out of court.  But George Eliot’s sense of humour was different in quality rather than in degree from that which Lewes so abundantly possessed.  And it was a curious and interesting study to observe the manifestation of the quality in both of them.  It was not that the humour, which he felt and expressed, was less delicate in quality or less informed by deep human insight and the true nihil-humanum-a-me-alienum-puto spirit than hers, but it was less wide and far-reaching in its purview of human feelings and passions and interests; more often individual in its applicability, and less drawn from the depths of human nature as exhibited by types and classes.  And often they would cap each other with a mutual relationship similar to that between a rule of syntax and its example, sometimes the one coming first and sometimes the other.

I remember that during the happy days of this visit I was writing a novel, afterwards published under the title of A Siren, and Lewes asked me to show him the manuscript, then nearly completed.  Of course I was only too glad to have the advantage of his criticism.  He was much struck by the story, but urged me to invert the order in which it was told.  The main incident of the plot is a murder caused by jealousy, and I had begun by narrating the circumstances which led up to it in their natural sequence.  He advised me to begin by bringing before the reader the murdered body of the victim, and then unfold the causes which had led to the crime.  And I followed his advice.