is not monopolised with the almost incessant cigarette. There is a
faint suggestion of a hair-brained sentimental trace on his
countenance, but controlled, after all, by good Scotch sense and
shrewdness. In conversation he is very animated, and likes to ask
questions. A favourite and characteristic attitude with him was to
put his foot on a chair or stool and rest his elbow on his knee,
with his chin on his hand; or to sit, or rather to half sit, half
lean, on the corner of a table or desk, one of his legs swinging
freely, and when anything that tickled him was said he would laugh
in the heartiest manner, even at the risk of bringing on his cough,
which at that time was troublesome. Often when he got animated he
rose and walked about as he spoke, as if movement aided thought and
expression. Though he loved Edinburgh, which was full of
associations for him, he had no good word for its east winds, which
to him were as death. Yet he passed one winter as a "Silverado
squatter," the story of which he has inimitably told in the volume
titled THE SILVERADO SQUATTERS; and he afterwards spent several
winters at Davos Platz, where, as he said to me, he not only
breathed good air, but learned to know with closest intimacy John
Addington Symonds, who "though his books were good, was far finer
and more interesting than any of his books." He needed a good deal
of nursery attentions, but his invalidism was never obtrusively
brought before one in any sympathy-seeking way by himself; on the
contrary, a very manly, self-sustaining spirit was evident; and the
amount of work which he managed to turn out even when at his worst
was truly surprising.

His wife, an American lady, is highly cultured, and is herself an
author. In her speech there is just the slightest suggestion of
the American accent, which only made it the more pleasing to my