FRIENDSHIPS   AND    HOME   LIFE  91

Though  the  date  and  certain  other  details  of  the  following
anecdote  are  lacking,  the  story  is  perhaps  the  most  charming  of  the
many  rescued  from  oblivion  by  Sir  William  Hardman,  to  whose
memory  all  Meredithians  owe  a  kindly  thought  for  what  his  diligence
has  preserved  of  the  personal  portraiture  of  the  master  :

The  widow  of  Andrew  Crosse,  the  celebrated  electrician,  was
there,  a  very  lively  and  talkative  lady,  who  chaffed  Meredith
immensely  about  a  passage  in  '  Richard  Feverel '  which  had  pre-
judiced her  against  our  friend. M. A. overheard  this  conversation,
but  did  not  catch  the  words  of  the  offending  passage,  so,  when  the
ladies  retired  to  the  drawing-room,  she  boldly  asked  Mrs. Crosse
what  it  was. She  was  somewhat  surprised  at  the  reply. It  was,
'  Kissing  won't  last,  but  cookery  will,'  as  a  piece  of  advice  to
'  persons  about  to  marry. '  On  the  drive  home  we  discussed  it  with
Mrs. Meredith  (George  riding  outside^  smoking  a  cigar),  and  she
said  that  when  she  was  going  to  be  married,  an  old  aunt  wrote  her
a  letter  of  discouragement  and  encouragement,  saying  inter  alia
that  she  had  read  somewhere,  years  ago,  in  a  book  whose  title  she
had  forgotten,  that  'kissing  won't  last,  but  cookery  will.'  Was
not  this  singular,  when  she  was  going  to  be  married  to  the  very
man  who  had  written  it?

We  may  venture  to  date  Hardman's  next  sketch  of  a  visit  to
Copsham  Cottage  in  the  early  spring  of  1862,  as  the  poem,  '  Grand-
father Bridgman,'  which  he  mentions,  is  one  appearing  in  the
collection  of  1862,  published  in  the  month  of  May  :

We  have  just  returned  from  a  charming  little  country  run  of  two
days  and  one  night. Yesterday  morning  we  left  the  Waterloo
Station  at  9.15  for  Esher. All  our  mutual  requirements  were
condensed  into  a  little  black  bag,  which  I  carried,  and  we  started
from  the  station  at  Esher  triumphantly,  regardless  of  vehicles,  for
a  walk  of  two  and  a  half  miles  to  Copsham  Cottage. We  were  going
to  stay  all  night  with  our  good  friend  George  Meredith. The
heartiest  of  welcomes  awaited  us  at  the  really  humble  cottage —
for  it  makes  no  pretensions  to  anything,  but  performs  a  vast  deal
more  than  many  great  houses  that  promise  so  much. 