s tastes differed widely
from his own. Cuthbert was essentially a Londoner, and his friends would
have had difficulty in picturing him as engaged in country pursuits.
Indeed, Cuthbert Hartington, in a scarlet coat, or toiling through a
turnip field in heavy boots with a gun on his shoulder, would have been
to them an absurd anomaly.

It was not that he lacked strength; on the contrary, he was tall and
well, if loosely, built. Grace is not a common manly attribute, but he
possessed it to an eminent degree. There was a careless ease in his
manner, an unconscious picturesqueness in his poses, a turn, that would
have smacked of haughtiness had there been the slightest element of
pride in his disposition, in the curve of the neck, and well-poised
head.

His life was chiefly passed among artists, and like them as a class, he
affected loose and easy attire. He wore turn-down collars with a
carelessly-knotted necktie, and a velvet jacket. He was one of those men
whom his intimates declared to be capable of doing anything he chose,
and who chose to do nothing. He had never distinguished himself in any
way at Harrow. He had maintained a fair place in his forms as he moved
up in the school, but had done so rather from natural ability than from
study. He had never been in the eleven, although it was the general
opinion he would have certainly had a place in it had he chosen to play
regularly. As he sauntered through Harrow so he sauntered through
Cambridge; keeping just enough chapels and lectures to avoid getting
into trouble, passing the examinations without actual discredit, rowing
a little, playing cricket when the fit seized him, but preferring to
take life easily and to avoid toil, either mental or bodily.
Nevertheless he read a great deal, and on general subjects was one of
the best informed men of his college.

He spent a good deal of his time in sketching and painting, art being
his one passion. His sketches were the admiration of his friends, but
although he had had the best lessons he could obtain at the University
he lacked the application and industry to convert the sketches into
finished paintings. His vacations were spent chiefly on the Continent,
for his life at home bored him immensely, and to him a week among the
Swiss lakes, or in the galleries of Munich or Dresden, was worth more
than all the pleasures that country life could give him.

He went home for a short time after leaving the University, but his stay