the Roke--by Velasquez was being talked of, I went with him to see
the picture. We agreed that it was the kind of picture people
paint when mind is beginning to get languid. After we had seen the
picture I walked with him to his hotel (the Kenilworth Hotel,)
talking about Irish art, which he thought was the kind of art
people make when mind has been languid for a long time. I never
saw him angry. I never saw him vexed. I never heard him utter a
hasty or an unkind word. I saw him visibly moved once to sadness,
when some one told him how tourists had spoiled the country people
in a part of Ireland. The Irish country people are simple and
charming. Tourists make them servile, insolent, and base. "The
Irish are easily corrupted," he said, "because they are so simple.
When they're corrupted, they're hard, they're rude, they're
everything that's bad. But they're only that where the low-class
tourists go, from America, and Glasgow, and Liverpool and these
places." He seldom praised people, either for their work or for
their personality. When he spoke of acquaintances he generally
quoted a third person. When he uttered a personal judgment it was
always short, like "He's a great fellow," or "He's a grand
fellow," or "Nobody in Ireland understands how big he is."

On one occasion (I think in 1906) we lunched together (at the
Vienna Cafe.) He told me with huge delight about his adventures in
the wilds. He had lodged in a cabin far from the common roads.
There was no basin in his bed-room. He asked for one, so that he
might wash. The people brought him a wooden box, worn smooth with
much use. In the morning he was roused by his host with the cry,
"Have you washed yourself yet? Herself is wanting the box to make
up the bread in."