Indeed subsequent circumstances allowed a greater degree of intimacy to grow up between them than had been possible in the case of my Bice's mother, restricted as her intercourse with the latter had been by failing health, and the comparative fewness of the hours they had passed together.

Neither she nor Lewes had ever passed a night under my roof until I received them in the villa at Ricorboli, where I lived with my second wife.
What was the subject of the "antagonism" to which the above letter alludes, I have entirely forgotten.

In all probability we differed on some subject of politics,[1] by reason of the then rapidly maturing Conservatism which my outlook ahead forced upon me.

Nevertheless it would seem from some words in a letter written to me by Lewes in the November of 1869, that my political heresies were not deemed deeply damning.

There was a question of my undertaking the foreign correspondence of a London paper, which came to nothing till some four years later, under other circumstances; and with reference to that project he writes:-- [Footnote 1: My wife, on reading this passage, tells me that according to her recollection the differences in question had no reference to politics at all, but to matters of higher interest relating to man's ultimate destinies.] * * * * * "Polly and I were immensely pleased at the prospect for you.