palaces were built by the landlords out of the
high rents which the war and war prices enabled them to exact.

Wished we knew more of Melbourne. He was in many ways a very fine fellow.
"In two of the most important of all the relations of a prime minister, he
was perfect; I mean first, his relations to the Queen, second to his
colleagues."

Somebody at dinner quoted a capital description of the perverse fashion of
talking that prevailed at Oxford soon after my time, and prevails there
now, I fancy--"hunting for epigrammatic ways of saying what you don't
think." ---- was the father of this pestilent mode.

Rather puzzled him by repeating a saying of mine that used to amuse
Fitzjames Stephen, that Love of Truth is more often than we think only a
fine name for Temper. I think Mr. G. has a thorough dislike for anything
that has a cynical or sardonic flavour about it. I wish I had thought, by
the way, of asking him what he had to say of that piece of Swift's, about
all objects being insipid that do not come by delusion, and everything
being shrunken as it appears in the glass of nature, so that if it were
not for artificial mediums, refracted angles, false lights, varnish and
tinsel, there would be pretty much of a level in the felicity of mortal
man.

Am always feeling how strong is his aversion to seeing more than he can
help of what is sordid, mean, ignoble. He has not been in public life all
these years without rubbing shoulders with plenty of baseness on every
scale, and plenty of pettiness in every hue, but he has always kept his
eyes well above it. Never was a man more wholly free of the starch of the
censor, more ready to make allowance, nor more indulgent even; he enters
into human nature in all its compass. But he won't linger a minute longer
than he must in the dingy places of life and character.

_Christmas Day, 1891._--A divine day, brilliant sunshine, and mild spring
air. Mr. G. heard what he called an admirable sermon from an English
preacher, "with a great command of his art." A quietish day, Mr. G. no
doubt engaged in {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH DASIA AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER