off my wig when there is a man under thirty in the
room." He had endured and was to endure again, a life of tragic penury,
which was made much harder by the conviction that the world was against
him, that he was refused for some reason his rightful position. Ellis
thought that he pined even for social success, and I that his Scots
jealousy kept him provincial and but half articulate.

During the quarrel over Parnell's grave a quotation from Goethe ran
through the papers, describing our Irish jealousy: "The Irish seem to me
like a pack of hounds, always dragging down some noble stag." But I do not
think we object to distinction for its own sake; if we kill the stag, it
is that we may carry off his head and antlers. "The Irish people," O'Leary
used to say, "do not know good from bad in any art, but they do not hate
the good once it is pointed out to them because it is good." An infallible
Church, with its Mass in Latin, and its mediaeval philosophy, and our
Protestant social prejudice, have kept our ablest men from levelling
passions; but Davidson with a jealousy, which may be Scottish, seeing that
Carlyle had it, was quick to discover sour grapes. He saw in delicate,
laborious, discriminating taste, an effeminate pedantry, and would, when
that mood was on him, delight in all that seemed healthy, popular, and
bustling. Once when I had praised Herbert Horne for his knowledge and his
taste, he burst out, "If a man must be a connoisseur, let him be a
connoisseur in women." He, indeed, was accustomed, in the most
characteristic phrase of his type, to describe the Rhymers as lacking in
"blood and guts," and very nearly brought us to an end by attempting to
supply the deficiency by the addition of four Scotsmen. He brought all
four upon the same evening, and one read out a poem upon the Life Boat,
evidently intended for a recitation; another described how, when
gold-digging in Australia, he had fought and knocked down another miner
for doubting the rotundity of the earth; while of the remainder I can
remember nothing except that they excelled in argument. He insisted upon
their immediate election, and the Rhymers, through that complacency of
good manners whereby educated Englishmen so often surprise me, obeyed,
though secretly resolved never to meet again; and it cost me seven hours'
work to get another meeting, and vote the Scotsmen out. A few days later I
chanced upon Davidson at some restaurant; he was full of amiability, and