worshipful at a
distance than at close quarters, and I was determined not to dispel
illusion by a too near approach to the shrine. J. A. Froude was a man of
letters whom from time to time one encountered in society. No one could
doubt his cleverness; but it was a cleverness which rather repelled than
attracted. With his thin lips, his cold smile, and his remorseless,
deliberate, way of speaking, he always seemed to be secretly gloating
over the hideous scene in the hall of Fotheringay, or the last agonies
of a disembowelled Papist. Lord Acton was, or seemed to be, a man of the
world first and foremost; a politician and a lover of society; a gossip,
and, as his "Letters" show, not always a friendly gossip.[52] His
demeanour was profoundly sphinx-like, and he seemed to enjoy the sense
that his hearers were anxious to learn what he was able but unwilling to
impart. His knowledge and accomplishments it would, at this time of day,
be ridiculous to question; and on the main concerns of human
life--Religion and Freedom--I was entirely at one with him. All the more
do I regret that in society he so effectually concealed his higher
enthusiasms, and that, having lived on the vague fame of his "History of
Liberty," he died leaving it unwritten.

I am writing of the years when I first knew London socially, and I may
extend them from 1876 to 1886. All through those years, as through many
before and since, the best representative of culture in society was Mr.,
now Sir, George Trevelyan--a poet, a scholar to his finger-tips, an
enthusiast for all that is best in literature, ancient or modern, and
author of one of the six great Biographies in the English language.
There is no need to recapitulate Sir George's services to the State, or
to criticize his performances in literature. It is enough to record my
lively and lasting gratitude for the unbroken kindness which began when
I was a boy at Harrow, and continues to the present hour.

I have spoken, so far, of literary men who played a more or less
conspicuous part in society; but, as this chapter is dedicated to
Literature, I ought to say a word about one or two men of Letters who
always avoided society, but who, when one sought them out in their own
surroundings, were delightful company. Foremost among these I should
place James Payn.

Payn was a man who lived in, for, and by Literature. He detested
exercise. He never travelled. He scarcely ever left London. He took no
holidays. If