CHAPTER XIII 

 SOCIAL LIFE 



Interesting visits Explorers of those days Other notabilities 



and friends 



ENTRIES in old diaries recall many pleasant 

 social meetings at home, whether dinners, 

 breakfasts, or simple gatherings of friends, where 

 there was generally some traveller or other lion of 

 the day whom people were glad to meet. I made 

 occasional excursions to visit Charles Darwin at 

 Down, usually at luncheon-time, always with a sense 

 of the utmost veneration as well as of the warmest 

 affection, which his invariably hearty greeting greatly 

 encouraged. I think his intellectual characteristic 

 that struck me most forcibly was the aptness of his 

 questionings ; he got thereby very quickly to the 

 bottom of what was in the mind of the person he 

 conversed with, and to the value of it. 



I enjoyed two interesting visits to Lord Ashburton 

 at the Grange, under the presidency of the first and 

 second Lady Ashburton respectively. Carlyle was a 

 guest on both occasions. On my first meeting him 

 he surprised me by his unexpectedly courteous and 

 even polished manner, but he became more like 

 his ordinary self later on. On the second occasion 



he seemed to me the greatest bore that a house 



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