I do not think that she would have quite subscribed to the opinion of Garibaldi on the subject of the priesthood, which I mentioned in a former chapter—­that they ought all to be forthwith put to death.  But all her feelings and opinions were bitterly antagonistic to them.  She was so deeply convinced of the magnitude of the evil inflicted by them and their Church on the character of the Italians, for whom she ever felt a great affection, that she was bitter on the subject.  And it is the only subject on which I ever knew her to feel in any degree bitterly.  Many of her verses written during her latter years are fiercely denunciatory or humorously satirical of the Italian priesthood, and especially of the Pontifical Government.  I wish that my space permitted me to give further specimens of them here.  But I must content myself with giving one line, which haunts my memory, and appears to me excessively happy In the accurate truthfulness of its simile.  She is writing of the journey which Pius the Ninth made, and describing his equipment, says that he started “with strings of cheap blessings, like glass beads for savages.”

With the exception of this strong sentiment my wife was one of the most tolerant people I ever knew.  What she most avoided in those with whom she associated was, not so much ignorance, or even vulgarity of manner, as pure native stupidity.  But even of that, when the need arose, she was tolerant.  I never knew her in the selection of an acquaintance, or even of a friend, to be influenced to the extent of even a hair’s-breadth, by station, rank, wealth, fashion, or any consideration whatever, save personal liking and sympathy, which was, in her case, perfectly compatible with the widest divergence of views and opinions on nearly any of the great subjects which most divide mankind, and even with divergence of rules of conduct.  Her own opinions were the honest results of original thinking, and her conduct the outcome of the dictates of her own heart—­of her heart rather than of her reasoning powers, or of any code of law—­a condition of mind which might be dangerous to individuals with less native purity of heart than hers.

As a wife, as a daughter, as a daughter-in-law, as a mother, she was absolutely irreproachable.  In the first relationship she was all in all to me for seventeen years.  She brought sweetness and light into my life and into my dwelling.  She was the angel in the house, if ever human being was.

Her father became an inmate of our house after the death of his wife at a great age at Torquay, whither they had returned after the death of my wife’s half-sister, Harriet Fisher.  He was a jealously affectionate, but very exacting father; and few daughters, I think, could have been more admirable in her affection for him, her attention to him, her care of him.  And I may very safely say that very few mothers of sons have the fortune of finding such a daughter-in-law.  My mother had been very fond of her before our marriage,