miracles. I said "Yes and no". I did not believe that an actual
Curtius leaped into the gulf in the Forum and saved Rome, but I did
believe in the spiritual truth set forth in the legend. This reply
was allowed to pass, although my scepticism would have been more
satisfactory and more useful if it had been a little more thorough.

I was soon taken off the Westminster, and my occupation now was to
write Chapman's letters, to keep his accounts, and, most
disagreeable, to "subscribe" his publications, that is to say, to
call on booksellers and ask how many copies they would take. Of
George Eliot, who lodged at No. 142, I have often spoken, and have
nothing to add. It is a lasting sorrow to me that I allowed my
friendship with her to drop, and that after I left Chapman I never
called on her. She was then unknown, except to a few friends, but I
did know what she was worth. I knew that she was not only endowed
with extraordinary genius, but with human qualities even more
precious. She took the kindest notice of me, an awkward creature
not accustomed to society. It is sad that youth should be so
confident in its own resources that it will not close its hand upon
the treasure which is placed inside it. It was not only George
Eliot by whom I neglected to profit. I might have seen Rachel. I
recollect the evening, and I believe I was offered a ticket. It was
not worth while to walk a couple of hundred yards to enrich myself
for ever! I knew intimate friends of Caroline Fox, but I made no
effort to become acquainted with her. What a difference it would
make to me now, living so much in the past, if Penjerrick, with a
dream of its lawn sloping southward and seaward, and its society of
all the most interesting people in England, should be amongst my
possessions, thrusting out and replacing much that is ugly,
monotonous, and depressing. I would earnestly, so earnestly,