Recollections of George John Cayley 



Dean's Yard, Westminster, and we were sometimes asked 

 to dine there. I do not know who was actually dwelling 

 in the house besides George and his elder brother ; I have an 

 impression that Lord Strangford, then Mr. Smythe, lived 

 there too. I remember the hall with half a dozen hats 

 hanging up ; there was a little snug back room with a 

 bright fire and invitations stuck all over the chimney-piece ; 

 a drawing-room upstairs also looking very comfortable, 

 with its bookcases and its plaster casts, and armchairs 

 round the fire, and a table with books and a reading- 

 desk. Mr. Cayley pere was standing at the door to 

 receive us, a tall, thin, hook-nosed gentleman with very 

 white hair, very dignified and polite. Lady Charlotte 

 Locker was sitting on the sofa. 



I remember Mr. Cayley the elder welcoming my father 

 with great courtesy and saying : " I leave everything to 

 George ; he mvites my guests and arranges everything ; he 

 arranged the dinner table, as you will see ; it is all his doing." 



That little dinner party begins again, as I think of it. 

 Lady Charlotte Locker sits by Mr. Cayley — it is all rather 

 dull and supremely delightful — George Cayley does not 

 hold forth in his father's presence, it is the others who 

 talk. He becomes somewhat absorbed and preoccupied with 

 details, like Martha ; for the moment the A'lary in him is 

 absent. When we left it was the father who insisted on 

 seeing us to the carriage : " Don't you come out, George," 

 he said to his son. 



I kept a diary in those days, where all these minute 

 details were noted, and among other things I see that after 

 dinner Lady Charlotte Locker told me that Mr. Edward 

 Cayley's father and mother had both been born deaf and 

 dumb. 



In that same old house under the Abbey towers, where 



17 B 



