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TABLE-TALK 401 



good, though " there must be some hostility — except 

 in the very greatest writers — between the dramatic 

 and the literary faculties. I noticed many points I 

 objected to, but felt sure they met with applause. 

 Indeed in the theatre I have noticed that what I 

 thought the worst blots on a piece invariably brought 

 down the house." 



He remarked how the French, in dramatic just as 

 in artistic matters, are so much better than the English 

 in composition, in avoiding anything slipshod in the 

 details, though the English artists draw just as well 

 and colour perhaps better. 



The following sketch of human character is not 

 actually a fragment of conversation, though it might 

 almost pass for such ; it comes from a letter to Mrs. 

 W. K. Clifford, of February 10, 1895 :— 



Men, my dear, are very queer animals, a mixture of 

 horse-nervousness, ass-stubbornness and camel-malice — 

 with an angel bobbing about unexpectedly like the apple 

 in the posset, and when they can do exactly as they please, 

 they are very hard to drive. 



Whatever he talked of, his talk never failed to 

 impress those who conversed with him. One or two 

 such impressions have been recorded. Mr. Wilfrid 

 Ward, whose interests lie chiefly in philosophy and 

 theology, was his neighbour at Eastbourne, and in the 

 Nineteenth Century for August 1896 has given various 

 reminiscences of their friendly intercourse. 



His conversation (he writes) was singularly finished, and 

 (if I may so express it) clean cut ; never long-winded ox 

 VOL. Ill 2 D 



