ation--of which in their different
ways Tennyson and Thackeray, as universally known, Brookfield, W. B.
Donne, G. S. Venables, as less known, but noteworthy instances suggest
themselves as examples--FitzGerald was certainly not the least
remarkable. He had, as eccentrics usually and almost necessarily have,
not a few limitations, some of which possibly were, though others
certainly were not, deliberately assumed or accepted. He would not allow
that Tennyson had ever in his later work (not latest by any means) done
anything so good as his earlier. In that unlucky though quite blameless
observation on Mrs. Browning which was referred to above, he ignored or
showed himself unable to appreciate the fact that the poetess had never
done anything better than, if anything so good as, some of her very
latest work.[40] It cannot be considered an entirely adequate cause for
ceasing to live with your wife,[41] that her dresses rustle; and many
other instances of what may be called practical and literary
_non-sequiturs_ might be alleged against him. But all these
"queernesses" are evidence of a temperament and a mode of thinking which
are likely to produce very satisfactory letters. They are sure not to be
dull: and when the queerness is accompanied by such literary power as
"Fitz" possessed they are not likely to be merely silly, as some things
are which attempt not to be dull. As a matter of fact they are
delightful: and their variety is astonishing. Odd stories and odd
experiences seem, despite his almost claustral life, to have had a habit
of flying to FitzGerald like filings to a magnet--as for instance the
irresistible anecdote of the parish clerk who insisted on giving out for
singing casual remarks of the parson above him as if they were verses of
a hymn, and who was duly echoed by the congregation. Even when he does
not make you laugh he satisfies you: even when you do not agree with him
you are obliged to him for having expressed his heresy.

[Sidenote: FANNY KEMBLE]

One of FitzGerald's special correspondents was, for reasons then
imperative, not a member of the Cambridge group itself, but as closely
connected with it as possible: being the sister of one of its actual
members. John M. Kemble, one of our earliest and best Anglo-Saxon
scholars in modern times, was, like others of his famous family (so far
as is generally known) a person of varied talents, though he showed
these neither in letter writing nor in the directio