of "All the Year Round;"
Charles Knight, who had done so much for good and cheap literature;
Madame Bodichon (formerly Barbara Smith), the great friend and
correspondent of George Eliot, who was interesting to me because by
introducing the Australian eucalyptus to Algeria she had made an
unhealthy marshy country quite salubrious. She had a salon, where I met
very clever men and women--English and French--and which made me wish
for such things in Adelaide. The kindness and hospitality that were
shown to me--an absolute stranger--by all sorts of people were
surprising. Mr. and Mrs. Westlake took me on Sunday to see Bishop
Colenso. He showed me the photo of the enquiring Zulu who made him
doubt the literal truth of the early books of the Bible, and presented
me with the people's edition of his work on the Pentateuch.

In all my travels and visits I saw little of the theatre or concert
room, and some of the candid confessions of Mrs. Oliphant might stand
for my own. I had read so many plays before I saw one that the
unreality of much of the acted drama impressed me unfavourably. The
asides in particular seemed impossible, and I think the more carefully
the pieces are put on the stage the more critical I become concerning
their probability; and when I hear the praise of the beautiful and
expensive theatrical wardrobes which, in the case of actresses seem to
set the fashion for the wealthy and well-born, I feel that it is a
costly means of making the story more unlikely. I seem to lose the
identity of the heroine who in two hours wears three or four different
toilettes complete. As Mrs. Oliphant did not identify the "nobody in
white tights" who rendered from "Twelfth Night" the lovely lines
beginning "That strain again; it had a dying fall" with the Orsino she
had imagined when reading the play, so I, who knew "She Stoops to
Conquer" almost by heart, was disappointed when I saw it on the stage.
I was taken to the opera once by Mr. and Mrs. Bakewell, and heard Patti
in "Don Giovanni," at Covent Garden, but opera of all kinds is wasted
on me. I liked some of the familiar airs and choruses, but all opera
needs far more make-believe than I am capable of. It is a pity that I
am so insensible to the youngest and the most progressive of the fine
arts. I am, however, in the good company of Mrs. Oliphant, who,
speaking of the musical parties in Eton, where she lived so long, for
the education of tier boys, writes in words that suit m