ts as a whole
the dignified utilitarianism of the Yorkshire country gentleman as he
was from a hundred to two hundred years ago. Sir John himself, familiar
with political office, accomplished as a classical scholar, and endowed
with one of the most charming of voices, was of all country gentlemen
the most perfect whom it has ever been my lot to know. He was cradled in
the traditions of Whiggism, and to me one of his most delightful
attributes was inability to assimilate the spirit of modern Liberalism,
whether in the sphere of politics or of social or religious thought.

With Byram my memory associated two neighboring houses--Fryston, then
the home of Lord Houghton, and Kippax, that of the Blands. Fryston was
filled with books, and it was in my early days constantly filled with
celebrities, generally of a miscellaneous, sometimes of an incongruous,
kind. Sir John Ramsden told me that once, when he had been asked to dine
there for the purpose of meeting some bishop whose name he could not
read (for Lord Houghton wrote a very illegible hand), the most reverent
of the assembled guests could hardly forbear from smiling when their
host, having left them for a moment, came back bringing the bishop with
him. The bishop was a negro, with a face as black as his own silk apron.

Kippax, which is close to Fryston, was, in the eighteenth century, a
fairly large, but not notably large, building, but when Lord Rockingham
began the construction of Wentworth the late Mr. Bland's ancestor
declared that, whatever happened, he would not be outbuilt by anybody,
and that Kippax, in spite of Wentworth, should be the longest house in
Yorkshire. He accordingly extended its frontage by the addition of two
wings, which really were for the most part a succession of narrow
outbuildings masked by classical walls of imposing and balanced outline,
the result being that a dwelling which is practically of very moderate
dimensions confronts the world with a facade of more than seven hundred
feet.

A house differing in character from any of those just mentioned is
Stanway, where I have stayed as the guest of the then Lady Elcho. It
variegates with its pointed gables the impending slopes and foliage of
the outlying Cotswold Hills. It is a beautiful building in itself--but
the key to its special charm was for me to be found in certain pictures,
void of all technical merit, and relegated to twilight
passages--pictures representing, with an obvious and min