Ch. IV.] REMINISCENCES. 87 



opinions 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 qualities, 

 intellectual or moral, made us conceited, as might perhaps 

 have been expected, but rather more humble and grateful to 

 him. The reason being no doubt that the influence of his 

 character, of his sincerity and greatness of nature, had a 

 much deeper and more lasting effect than any small exalta- 

 tion which his praises or admiration may have caused to our 

 vanity."* 



As head of a household he was much loved and respected ; 

 he always spoke to servants with politeness, using the expres- 

 sion, " 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 remember running up 

 stairs out of a general sense of awe. He did not trouble 

 himself about the management of the garden, cows, &c. He 

 considered the horses so little his concern, 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 advan- 

 tage. At Shrewsbury, he used to say, it was his father's wish 

 that the guests should be attended to constantly, and in one of 

 the letters to Fox ho speaks of the impossibility of writing a 

 letter while the house was full of company. I think he always 

 felt uneasy at not doing more for the entertainment of his 

 guests, but the result was successful ; and, to make up for any 

 loss, there was the gain that the guests felt perfectly free to do 

 as they liked. The most usual visitors were those who stayed 

 from Saturday till Monday ; those who remained longer were 

 generally relatives, and were considered to be rather more my 

 mother's affair than his. 



Besides these visitors, there were foreigners and other 

 strangers, who came down for luncheon and went away in the 

 afternoon. He used conscientiously to represent to them the 

 enormous distance of Down from London, and the labour it 

 would be to come there, unconsciously taking for granted that 

 they would find the journey as toilsome as he did himself. If, 



* 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 1890. 



