e loathed. We were both Roberts; and as we took our places at
table, he addressed me with a twinkle: "We are just what you would call
two bob." He offered me port, I remember, as the proper milk of youth;
spoke of "twenty-shilling notes"; and throughout the meal was full of
old-world pleasantry and quaintness, like an ancient boy on a holiday.
But what I recall chiefly was his confession that he had never read
_Othello_ to an end. Shakespeare was his continual study. He loved
nothing better than to display his knowledge and memory by adducing
parallel passages from Shakespeare, passages where the same word was
employed, or the same idea differently treated. But _Othello_ had beaten
him. "That noble gentleman and that noble lady--h'm--too painful for
me." The same night the hoardings were covered with posters, "Burlesque
of _Othello_," and the contrast blazed up in my mind like a bonfire. An
unforgettable look it gave me into that kind man's soul. His
acquaintance was indeed a liberal and pious education. All the
humanities were taught in that bare dining-room beside his gouty
footstool. He was a piece of good advice; he was himself the instance
that pointed and adorned his various talk. Nor could a young man have
found elsewhere a place so set apart from envy, fear, discontent, or any
of the passions that debase; a life so honest and composed; a soul like
an ancient violin, so subdued to harmony, responding to a touch in
music--as in that dining-room, with Mr. Hunter chatting at the eleventh
hour, under the shadow of eternity, fearless and gentle.

The second class of old people are not anecdotic; they are rather
hearers than talkers, listening to the young with an amused and critical
attention. To have this sort of intercourse to perfection, I think we
must go to old ladies. Women are better hearers than men, to begin with;
they learn, I fear in anguish, to bear with the tedious and infantile
vanity of the other sex; and we will take more from a woman than even
from the oldest man in the way of biting comment. Biting comment is the
chief part, whether for profit or amusement, in this business. The old
lady that I have in my eye is a very caustic speaker, her tongue, after
years of practice, in absolute command, whether for silence or attack.
If she chance to dislike you, you will be tempted to curse the malignity
of age. But if you chance to please even slightly, you will be listened
to with a particular laughing grace