Category: Biographies

Fragments of an Autobiography

I well remember the terrors of a certain night when the wind was howling and the rain was beating down in torrents over the arid plains of the Lüneburger Haide; between them they had blown or blotted out the flickering lights of a heavy, lumbering travelling carriage such as o...

Chapters

1. CHAPTER XI

2. CHAPTER I

I well remember the terrors of a certain night when the wind was howling and the rain was beating down in torrents over the arid plains of the Lüneburger Haide; between them the...

3. CHAPTER II

I well remember, and I shall ever remember with gratitude, the man who in my German school-days helped me along the thorny paths of the Latin and Greek grammar, Herr Magister Dr...

4. CHAPTER III

At all times I was proud of my godfather, inordinately so, perhaps, when conversation turned on the great kindness which Goethe had lavished on his young friend Felix. To know a...

5. CHAPTER IV

I was down by the Quais of old Paris, close to the Pont des Aveugles, drawing the Parisian workman as he took his midday rest. The Quais had not yet got as strait-laced as they...

6. CHAPTER V

On this occasion our party consisted of my parents, three sisters, myself, and an English nurse, who, from first to last, was unutterably shocked by what she called the outrageo...

7. CHAPTER VI

I had never given a trip to America a serious thought; a consultation at Cook's office and subsequent trunk-packing usually meant a flight to the sunny South or the glorious Eas...

8. CHAPTER VII

I well remember the Governor, as I made my way up into his bedroom, paint-box in hand, and said: "Well, we must make the best of it, and turn this into a studio. May I move the...

9. CHAPTER VIII

I well remember some great and good men whom it has been my privilege and my good fortune to know, but none do I see so plainly before me as Giuseppe Mazzini. His features, his...

10. CHAPTER IX

I well remember my first introduction to Madame Rossini in April 1854. I was sitting with the Maestro in his study one morning whilst he was finishing his toilet; his valet had...

11. CHAPTER X

I well remember Paris emerging from her trials. It is difficult to-day to realise the magnitude of the disaster which laid low the beautiful capital of France. When I arrived wi...

12. CHAPTER XI

I well remember, and it is often a source of infinite enjoyment to me to recall, many a trifling incident connected with the name of Robert Browning. He was the kindest and most...