92 REMINISCENCES. [ch. iv. 



stance makes me feel how he cared for what we cared for. 

 He had no special taste for cats, but yet he knew and re- 

 membered the individualities of my many cats, and would 

 talk about the habits and characters of the more remarkable 

 ones years after they had died. 



" Another characteristic of his treatment of his children 

 was his respect for their liberty, and for their personality. 

 Even as quite a little girl, I remember rejoicing in this sense 

 of freedom. Our father and mother would not even wish 

 to know what we were doing or thinking unless we wished 

 to tell. He always made us feel that we were each of us 

 creatures whose oj}inions and thoughts were valuable to 

 him, so that whatever there was best in us came out in the 

 sunshine of his presence. 



" I do not think his exaggerated sense of our good quali- 

 ties, intellectual or moral, made us conceited, as might per- 

 haps have been expected, but rather more humble and 

 grateful to him. The reason being, no doubt, that the in- 

 fluence of his character, of his sincerity and greatness of 

 nature, had a much deeper and more lasting effect than any 

 small exaltation which his praises or admiration may have 

 caused to our vanity."* 



As head of a household he was much loved and respect- 

 ed ; he always spoke to servants with politeness, using the 

 expression, " would you be so good," in asking for anything. 

 He was hardly ever angry with his servants ; it shows how 

 seldom this occurred, that when, as a small boy, I overheard 

 a servant being scolded, and my father speaking angrily, it 

 impressed me as an appalling circumstance, and I remem- 

 ber running up stairs out of a general sense of awe. He 

 did not trouble himself about the management of the gar- 

 den, cows, &c. He considered the horses so little his con- 

 cern, that he used to ask doubtfully whether he might have 

 a horse and cart to send to Keston for Sundew, or to the 

 Westerham nurseries for plants, or the like. 



As a host my father had a peculiar charm : the presence 

 of visitors excited him, and made him appear to his best 

 advantage. At Shrewsbury, he used to say, it was his 

 father's wish that the guests should be attended to constant- 

 ly, and in one of the letters to Fox he speaks of the impos- 



* Some pleasant recollections of my father's life at Down, written by our 

 friend and former neighbour, Mrs. Wallis Nash, have been published in the 

 Overland Monthly (San Francisco), October 18U0. 



