Recollections of George John Cayley 



Mr. Cayley had a wide knowledge of literature, and was 

 apt at quotation, and yet his neighbours do not associate 

 him very specially with books. He had seen many places, 

 known many people in many lands. Most of the dis- 

 tinguished people of his day had been his friends. But he 

 did not dwell in reminiscence, and of the dead the names 

 with which his neighbours chiefly associate him are those 

 of Mrs. Norton, Thackeray, Stirling-Maxwell, Monckton 

 Milnes. Nor do the neighbours remember that he dealt 

 much in anecdote — they recall one : out in the Crimea a 

 wounded soldier dying close to him in the trenches and 

 bidding farewell to a comrade : — " It's all cold cawfee with 

 me, Jim," and no other word spoken. It was as a corre- 

 spondent that George Cayley was in the Crimea, for what 

 paper his neighbours know not. On the Conservative 

 side he had fought and lost an election at Scarborough ; 

 he had travelled far ; he had lived in a tomb by the 

 Nile. He was man of the world, citizen of the world ; he 

 was part Bohemian, part conventional. He had pride of 

 birth, the prejudices of an aristocrat ; these were tempered 

 by contempt for the fool wherever placed, by immense 

 appreciation of genius, talent, capacity wherever found. 

 For humanity in the mass he had scant respect ; he was, 

 on the other hand, tender towards the individual gifted by 

 Nature upon whom Fortune frowned. From George Cayley 

 such an one would get sympathy and advice, intelligent 

 and practical. A younger son who had pursued no career 

 of money, all his life, he had very little. With what he had 

 he was open-handed. 



He was witty, he was bitter ; he was keen and sometimes 

 cruel in his judgments. He was never in a hurry and he 

 was never idle. If he did not like you he was not very 

 kind ; if he liked you he had always time to give you ; if 



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