IN LONDON AND THE SUBURBS 121 



odious to him, the streets an abomination,' is an un- 

 recognizable statement of the facts. Only ' After 

 London ' supports this view ; there he makes London 

 survive only as the cause of a miasma and a stench. As 

 a rule, he accepts it as inevitable, and enjoys it pro- 

 foundly. 



Having no literary friends, he was seldom the subject 

 or victim of reminiscences. Of human society he asked 

 for little but what was homely, and he got no more. 

 Strangers found him the loneliest of men in appearance, 

 and quite impossible to converse with. That he liked 

 this standing aloof ' in villa-seclusion, close by and yet 

 divided for a life-time,' is unlikely, though it gave him 

 greater freedom for his solitary daily walks — an hour 

 and a half between the end of his morning's work and his 

 one o'clock dinner, and the same following on his after- 

 dinner sleep of an hour. His habits were regular. Break- 

 fast was at eight, often ' nothing but dry toast and tea '; 

 then work. After tea he worked again until half-past 

 eight, when he had a light supper, ' with a glass of claret,' 

 and then read or talked until bedtime, at eleven. He 

 smoked ' very rarely,' which probably means that his 

 smoking was not a habit. He demanded silence in the 

 house. He was not a talker, but talked with ease and 

 vigour on his own subjects, most eagerly on the Labour 

 Question. His speech had retained none of the Wilt- 

 shire accent. He is said to have been slightly but dis- 

 tinctly marked as of yeoman birth by acknowledging, 

 without any loss to his independence, merely social 

 superiority, though when younger he was regarded as 

 having ' no proper ' [i.e., no low) sense of his own position, 

 and could not fawn or flatter or coax. One of his ac- 

 quaintances thought his avoiding of company so decided 

 as to be a conscious device to preserve ' his native sensi- 

 bilities.' He was certainly not to be taken captive by 

 any of the usual attractions of a town life ; solitude, the 

 spectacle of humanity, and home-life were his deepest 

 joys. ' A shy, proud recluse,' one calls him. In appear- 



