o see
and to be seen. He was not only an old, but a ripe and mellow man.
There was no subject on which one could touch which was not familiar
to the autocrat of the breakfast table. His thoughts and his words
were ready, and one felt that it was not for the first time that the
subject had been carefully thought out and talked out by him. That he
should have been able to stand all the fatigue of the journey and the
constant claims on his ready wit seemed to me marvelous. I had the
pleasure of showing him the old buildings of Oxford. He seemed to know
them all, and had something to ask and say about every one. When we
came to Magdalen College, he wanted to see and to measure the elms. He
was very proud of some elms in America, and he had actually brought
some string with which he had measured the largest tree he knew in his
own country. He proceeded to measure one of our finest elms in
Magdalen College, and when he found that it was larger than his
American giant, he stood before it admiring it, without a single word
of envy or disappointment.

I had, however, a great fright while he was staying at our house. He
had evidently done too much, and after our first dinner party he had
feverish shivering fits, and the doctor whom I sent for declared at
once that he must keep perfectly quiet in bed, and attend no more
parties of any kind. This was a great disappointment to myself and to
a great many of my friends. But at his time of life the doctor's
warning could not be disregarded, and I had, at all events, the
satisfaction of sending him off to Cambridge safe and sound. I had
him several days quite to myself, and there were few subjects which we
did not discuss. We mostly agreed, but even where we did not, it was a
real pleasure to differ from him. We discussed the greatest and the
smallest questions, and on every one he had some wise and telling
remarks to pour out. I remember one conversation while we were sitting
at an old wainscoted room at All Souls', ornamented with the arms of
former fellows. It had been at first the library of the college, then
one of the fellows' rooms, and lastly a lecture room. We were deep in
the old question of the true relation between the divine and human in
man, and here again, as on all other questions, everything seemed to
be clear and evident to his mind. Perhaps I ought not to repeat what
he said to me when we parted: "I have had much talk with people in
England; with you I have had a rea