216 MEMORIES OF MY LIFE 



prevail. So the duty of a General Secretary in those 

 days was to consult a few of the more eminent 

 persons at first, and again at the close, with the 

 almost complete assurance that whatever names were 

 suggested with their approval, whether as President, 

 Presidents of Sections, or Lecturers, would be accepted 

 by the Council. These consultations with many able 

 men were very instructive. They showed the striking 

 differences between the points of view from which 

 original minds may regard the same topic. Uncon- 

 ventionality seems to be a marked characteristic of 

 such minds ; I have noticed it elsewhere and very 

 often. 



Among the features of the Association meetings 

 was the " Red Lion " Club, in which clever buffoonery 

 was freely indulged. It was instituted by Edward 

 Forbes (who was rather before my time, and whom I 

 never had the pleasure of knowing). The governing 

 idea was that its members were really lions, acquainted 

 with one another, who had met by chance, during 

 their prowls, in a town where strange proceedings were 

 in progress. The speakers described what they had 

 witnessed, speaking as it were from a superior and 

 leonine pedestal. 



I have only attended two of these meetings ; in 

 one the buffoonery of Monckton Milnes (afterwards 

 Lord Houghton) was of a first-class order. So also 

 was the humorous sarcasm of Professor W. K. Clifford 

 (1845-1879), the mathematician, also the mimicry of 

 Mr., afterwards Sir, W. Chandler Roberts Austen, 

 an accomplishment that it amazed me to find he 

 possessed. Subsequently, on talking about it, he 

 made the shrewd remark that a useful way of under- 



