I was practically _driven_ back by those who
meant to be kind--Tom Taylor, my father and mother, and others. _They_
looked ahead and saw clearly it was for my good.
It _was_ a good thing, but at the time I hated it. And I hated going
back to live at home. Mother furnished a room for me, and I thought the
furniture hideous. Poor mother!
For years Beethoven always reminded me of mending stockings, because I
used to struggle with the large holes in my brothers' stockings upstairs
in that ugly room, while downstairs Kate played the "Moonlight Sonata."
I caught up the stitches in time to the notes! This was the period when,
though every one was kind, I hated my life, hated every one and
everything in the world more than at any time before or since.
III
ROSSETTI, BERNHARDT, IRVING
1865-1867
Most people know that Tom Taylor was one of the leading playwrights of
the 'sixties as well as the dramatic critic of _The Times_, editor of
_Punch_, and a distinguished Civil Servant, but to us he was more than
this--he was an institution! I simply cannot remember when I did not
know him. It is the Tom Taylors of the world who give children on the
stage their splendid education. We never had any education in the strict
sense of the word, yet, through the Taylors and others, we _were_
educated.
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