204. MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN 



acted : so we may hear every day the inexpres- 

 sive language of a poorly-written drama assume 

 character and colour in the hands of a good player. 

 No man had more of the vis comica in private life ; 

 he played no character on the stage as he could 

 play himself among his friends. It was one of 

 his special charms ; now when the voice is silent 

 and the face still, it makes it impossible to do 

 justice to his power in conversation. He was a 

 delightful companion to such as can bear bracing 

 weather ; not to the very vain ; not to the owlishly 

 wise, who cannot have their dogmas canvassed ; 

 not to the painfully refined, whose sentiments 

 become articles of faith. The spirit in which he 

 could write that he was ' much revived by having 

 an opportunity of abusing Whistler to a knot 

 of his special admirers,' is a spirit apt to be mis- 

 construed. He was not a dogmatist, even about 

 Whistler. * The house is full of pretty things,' 



he wrote, when on a visit ; * but Mrs. 's taste 



in pretty things has one very bad fault : it is not 

 my taste.' And that was the true attitude of his 

 mind ; but these eternal differences it was his 

 joy to thresh out and wrangle over by the hour. 

 It was no wonder if he loved the Greeks ; he 

 was in many ways a Greek himself ; he should 

 have been a sophist and met Socrates ; he would 

 have loved Socrates, and done battle with him 

 staunchly and manfully owned his defeat ; and 



