change since first I can remember him, save that
perhaps the brindled hair is a trifle whiter, and the
huge shoulders a little more bowed. He is a very
tall man, though he loses a couple of inches from his
stoop. That big back of his has curved itself over
sick beds until it has set in that shape. His face
is of a walnut brown, and tells of long winter drives
over bleak country roads, with the wind and the rain
in his teeth. It looks smooth at a little distance,
but as you approach him you see that it is shot with
innumerable fine wrinkles like a last year's apple.
They are hardly to be seen when he is in repose; but
when he laughs his face breaks like a starred glass,
and you realise then that though he looks old, he
must be older than he looks.


How old that is I could never discover. I have
often tried to find out, and have struck his stream
as high up as George IV and even the Regency, but
without ever getting quite to the source. His mind
must have been open to impressions very early, but it
must also have closed early, for the politics of the
day have little interest for him, while he is
fiercely excited about questions which are entirely
prehistoric. He shakes his head when he speaks of
the first Reform Bill and expresses grave doubts as
to its wisdom, and I have heard him, when he was
warmed by a glass of wine, say bitter things about
Robert Peel and his abandoning of the Corn Laws. The