should all go out for a walk, and as soon as we were in
the open air, the philosopher blew his nose in a pair of old woolen
gloves. I here saw at once an illustration of the chapter in _Sartor
Resartus_ in which the author denounced what he christened "The Sect of
the Dandies," as described and glorified by Bulwer Lytton in _Pelham_.
Illustration could go no farther.

[Illustration: THOMAS CARLYLE]

The very next famous man whom I met after this glimpse of Carlyle I met
a little later at Torquay. The famous man was Lord Lytton himself. He
was dining at Chelston Cross, and, owing to some lady's defection, I was
actually his nearest neighbor. I saw in him everything which the spirit
of Carlyle hated. I saw in him everything which was then in my opinion
admirable. All the arts of appearance, conversation, and demeanor which
in Carlyle were aggressively absent were in him exhibited in a manner
perhaps even too apparent. I was indeed, despite my reverence for him,
faintly conscious myself that his turquoise shirt stud, set with
diamonds, was too large, and that his coat would have been in better
taste had the cuffs not been of velvet. But it seemed to me that from
his eyes, keen, authoritative, and melancholy, all the passions, all the
intellect, and all the experiences of the world were peering. To have
sat by him was an adventure; to have been noticed by him was not far
from a sacrament.

Before very long, and likewise at Chelston Cross, I became acquainted
with his son, "Owen Meredith," afterward Viceroy of India. Having heard
that, like him, I was touched with the fever of the Muses, he at once
showed me signs of an amity which ended only with his life. Treating me
as though I were a man of the same age as himself, he would take my arm,
when wandering in the Froudes' shrubberies, and describe to me the poems
to the production of which his future years would be consecrated, or ask
me to confide to him my corresponding ambitions in return. Like most
poets, he was not without personal vanities; but never was a man more
free from anything like jealousy of a rival. To praise others was a
pleasure to him as natural as that of being praised himself.

To some of the celebrities associated with my youthful days I was
introduced, as I have said already, not at Torquay, but at Oxford. There
was one, however, whom, though essentially an Oxonian, I first met at
Torquay. This was Jowett, the renowned Master of Balliol, to whose
co