A beautiful pink-rose motif china bowl on my window-sill was a gift to my late wife Valerie from an old woman who had been a friend of the woman who nursed its original owner, the Victorian novelist Rhoda Broughton, in her last illness, and had been given it by Broughton's faithful lady's maid Miss Pullein, who had left it in turn to my wife's informant Mrs Helsdon. My wife was researching a book on Broughton, and had advertised for anyone who might have known her. Mrs Helsdon, over 90, decided that Valerie would appreciate more than would her own children this bowl which had been frequently looked at, and possibly handled, by Henry James, who was a dear friend and constant visitor of Miss Broughton, who, as well as a successful Victorian novelist, was a well-known salonière.
In it I keep such small souvenirs from our travels during our ½-century together as a piece of marble from Mycænæ, of terracotta from Heraklion, lava from Vesuvius & Etna; + a bit of the Berlin Wall given to us by a friend whose son was serving with NATO in the RAF when it fell. Needless to say I treasure all these things greatly.
As for the many pictures of Valerie I possess and display ~~ one of the things I love most about my present wife Emma is that, when I offered to put them away after we were married last year, she wouldn't hear of it, declaring that she valued Valerie's memory as such a great part of my life.
I am, I think, fortunate in my touchstones, as in both my dear wives ~~ though tears fill my eyes at this moment...