an
attempt at reviving a kind of entertainment to which no such
difficulties would attach themselves. During the months of the coming
winter she proposed to send out cards to all her more intimate
acquaintances; announcing that she would always be at home after dinner
on a certain day each week, and begging them to give her their company
whenever, and as often as, they pleased. A certain number of people--all
of them agreeable and distinguished--responded to this appeal; but
their number rarely exceeded fifteen or twenty, and Lady Marian was at
length bound to admit that the competitive attractions developed by the
enlargement of social life were such as to render a revival of the
_salon_ impossible, even among acquaintances so carefully chosen as her
own.

I may, however, advert to another lady who in a certain sense succeeded
where Lady Marian failed; but she succeeded by basing her _salon_ on a
noticeably different principle--namely, that of inclusion, whereas that
of Lady Marian was selection. The passport to her drawing-rooms was
fame--even fame of the most momentary kinds--and as fame is the meed of
very various activities, not all her own charm was sufficient on some
occasions to prevent her company from being a clash of illustrious
rivals rather than a _reunion_ of friends.

Of a clash of this kind I was once myself a witness, though nobody at
the moment divined that there was a clash at all. The scene was not in
London, but at the lady's house in the country, where a few guests were
staying with her for the inside of a week. Two of these guests were
poets; we may call them Sir E. and Sir L. The visit coincided with the
time of Tennyson's last illness, the reports of which became daily more
alarming. The two poets evinced much becoming anxiety, though this did
not interfere with the zeal with which one day at luncheon they consumed
a memorable plum tart. Next morning neither of them appeared at
breakfast; and when both of them remained in their bedrooms for the
larger part of the day I came to the prosaic conclusion that the plum
tart had been too much for them. Next morning came the news of
Tennyson's death. The two bards remained in their cells till noon, after
which they both reappeared like men who had got rid of a burden. The
true secret of their retirement revealed itself the morning after, when
each of two great newspapers, with which they were severally connected,
was found to contain long columns of