the
mournful answer, as from a man baffled at all points: 'No, my lord; I
should find it impossible!' The Judge grunted a ready, almost a
cheerful, assent.

Properly to describe Mr. Locker, you ought to be able to explain both
to judge and jury what you mean by taste. He sometimes seemed to me to
be _all_ taste. Whatever subject he approached--was it the mystery of
religion, or the moralities of life, a poem or a print, a bit of old
china or a human being--whatever it might be, it was along the avenue
of taste that he gently made his way up to it. His favourite word of
commendation was _pleasing_, and if he ever brought himself to say
(and he was not a man who scattered his judgments, rather was he
extremely reticent of them) of a man, and still more of a woman, that
he or she was _unpleasing_, you almost shuddered at the fierceness of
the condemnation, knowing, as all Locker's intimate friends could not
help doing, what the word meant to him. 'Attractive' was another of
his critical instruments. He meets Lord Palmerston, and does not find
him 'attractive' (_My Confidences_, p. 155).

This is a temperament which when cultivated, as it was in Mr. Locker's
case, by a life-long familiarity with beautiful things in all the arts
and crafts, is apt to make its owner very susceptible to what some
stirring folk may not unjustly consider the trifles of life. Sometimes
Locker might seem to overlook the dominant features, the main object
of the existence, either of a man or of some piece of man's work, in
his sensitively keen perception of the beauty, or the lapse from
beauty, of some trait of character or bit of workmanship. This may
have been so. Mr. Locker was more at home, more entirely his own
delightful self, when he was calling your attention to some humorous
touch in one of Bewick's tail-pieces, or to some plump figure in a
group by his favourite Stothard than when handling a Michael Angelo
drawing or an amazing Blake. Yet, had it been his humour, he could
have played the showman to Michael Angelo and Blake at least as well
as to Bewick, Stothard, or Chodowiecki. But a modesty, marvellously
mingled with irony, was of the very essence of his nature. No man
expatiated less. He never expounded anything in his born days; he very
soon wearied of those he called 'strong' talkers. His critical method
was in a conversational manner to direct your attention to something
in a poem or a picture, to make a brief suggestion or two, p