Arthur Robertses and Fred Leslies and Dan Lenos of our day,
although he developed in quite another direction!

Then of a sudden he would sing some little twopenny love-ballad or
sentimental nigger melody so touchingly that one had the lump in the
throat; poor Snowdrop would weep by spoonfuls!

By-the-way, it suddenly occurs to me that I'm mixing things
up--confusing Sundays and week-days; of course our Sunday evenings
were quiet and respectable, and I much preferred them when he and I
were alone; he was then another person altogether--a thoughtful and
intelligent young Frenchman, who loved reading poetry aloud or being
read to; especially English poetry--Byron! He was faithful to his
"Don Juan," his Hebrew melodies--his "O'er the glad waters of the
deep blue sea." We knew them all by heart, or nearly so, and yet we
read them still; and Victor Hugo and Lamartine, and dear Alfred de
Musset....

And one day I discovered another Alfred who wrote verses--Alfred the
Great, as we called him--one Alfred Tennyson, who had written a
certain poem, among others, called "In Memoriam"--which I carried
off to Barty's and read out aloud one wet Sunday evening, and the
Sunday evening after, and other Sunday evenings; and other poems by
the same hand: "Locksley Hall," "Ulysses," "The Lotos-Eaters," "The
Lady of Shalott"--and the chord of Byron passed in music out of
sight.

Then Shelley dawned upon us, and John Keats, and Wordsworth--and our
Sunday evenings were of a happiness to be remembered forever; at
least they were so to me!

If Barty Josselin were on duty on the Sabbath, it was a blank day
for Robert Maurice. For it was not very lively at home--especially
when my father was there. He was the best and kindest man that ever
lived, but his businesslike seriousness about this world, and his
anxiety about the next, and his Scotch Sabbatarianism, were deadly
depressing; combined with the aspect of London on the Lord's
day--London east of Russell Square! Oh, Paris ... Paris ... and the
yellow omnibus that took us both there together, Barty and me, at
eight on a Sunday morning in May or June, and didn't bring us back
to school till fourteen hours later!

I shall never forget one gloomy wintry Sunday--somewhere in 1854 or
5, if I'm not mistaken, towards the end of Barty's career as a
Guardsman.

Twice after lunch I had called at Barty's, who was to have been on
duty in barracks or at the Tower that morning; he had not come back;