![]() 公的生活においては,彼はしばしば冷酷だと非難されたが,家庭では暖かく,愛情に富み,これ以上ないほど親切であった。彼は子供好きで,私に音をたてるなとか,老人たちが子供に言いたがるような何か威圧的なことを言ったことを一度も思い出さない。彼は語学に堪能で,フランス語,スペイン語,イタリア語で演説するのにまったく苦労しなかった。原文(スペイン語)でドン・キホーテを椅子に座って読みながら,よく体をゆすって笑った。当時のすべての自由主義者と同じく,彼はイタリアに対しロマンチックな愛情を抱いており,イタリア政府は,イタリア統一の大義のために奉仕した彼に感謝の意を表わすために,イタリアを象徴する彫像(立像)を彼に贈った(注:ミケランジェロのダビデ像のようなものであろうか?)。この彫像はいつも彼の居間に置いてあり,私は大変興味を持った。 |
As my parents were dead, I lived in my grandfather's house during the last two years of his life. Even at the beginning of this time his physical powers were much impaired. I remember him out of doors being wheeled in a Bath chair, and I remember him sitting reading in his sitting room. My recollection, which is of course unreliable, is that he was always reading Parliamentary Reports of which bound volumes covered all the walls of the large hall. At the time to which this recollection refers, he was contemplating action connected with the Russo-Turkish War of 1876, but ill health made that impossible. In public life he was often accused of coldness, but at home he was warm and affectionate and kindly in the highest degree. He liked children, and I do not remember any single occasion when he told me not to make a noise or said any of the other repressive things that old people are apt to say to the very young. He was a good linguist and had no difficulty in making speeches in French or Spanish or Italian. He used to sit shaking with laughter over Don Quixote in the original. Like all Liberals of his time he had a romantic love of Italy, and the Italian Government gave him a large statue representing Italy, to express their gratitude for his services in the cause of Italian unity. This statue always stood in his sitting room and greatly interested me. |