He was a delightful
companion to such as can bear bracing weather; not to the very
vain; not to the owlishly wise, who cannot have their dogmas
canvassed; not to the painfully refined, whose sentiments become
articles of faith. The spirit in which he could write that he was
'much revived by having an opportunity of abusing Whistler to a
knot of his special admirers,' is a spirit apt to be misconstrued.
He was not a dogmatist, even about Whistler. 'The house is full of
pretty things,' he wrote, when on a visit; 'but Mrs. -'s taste in
pretty things has one very bad fault: it is not my taste.' And
that was the true attitude of his mind; but these eternal
differences it was his joy to thresh out and wrangle over by the
hour. It was no wonder if he loved the Greeks; he was in many ways
a Greek himself; he should have been a sophist and met Socrates; he
would have loved Socrates, and done battle with him staunchly and
manfully owned his defeat; and the dialogue, arranged by Plato,
would have shown even in Plato's gallery. He seemed in talk
aggressive, petulant, full of a singular energy; as vain you would
have said as a peacock, until you trod on his toes, and then you
saw that he was at least clear of all the sicklier elements of
vanity.
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