h Robertson Smith the effect seemed
to be exactly the opposite. Because he knew so much, he was interested
in everything, and threw himself with a joyous freshness and keenness
into talk alike upon the most serious and the lightest topics. He was
combative, apt to traverse a proposition when first advanced, even
though he might come round to it afterwards; and a discussion with him
taxed the defensive acumen of his companions. Having once spent five
weeks alone with him in a villa at Alassio on the Riviera, I observed
to him when we parted that we had had (as the Americans say) "a lovely
time" together, and that there was not an observation I had made
during those weeks which he had not contested. He laughed and did not
contest that observation. Yet this tendency, while it made his society
more stimulating, did not make it less agreeable, because he never
seemed to seek to overthrow an adversary, but only to get at the truth
of the case, and his manner, though positive, had about it nothing
either acrid or conceited. One could imagine no keener intellectual
pleasure than his company afforded, for there was, along with an
exuberant wealth of thought and knowledge, an intensity and ardour
which lit up every subject which it touched. I once invited him and
John Richard Green (the historian) to meet at dinner. They took to one
another at once, nor was it easy to say which lamp burned the
brighter. Smith had wider and more accurate learning, and stronger
logical power, but Green was just as swift, just as fertile, just as
ingenious. In stature Smith, like Green, was small, almost diminutive;
his dark brown eyes bright and keen; his speech rapid; his laugh ready
and merry, for he had a quick sense of humour and a power of enjoying
things as they came. The type of intellect suggested a Teutonic Scot
of the Lowlands, but in appearance and temperament he was rather a
Scottish Celt of the Highlands, with a fire and a gaiety, an abounding
vivacity and vitality, which made him a conspicuous figure wherever he
lived, in Aberdeen, in Edinburgh, in Cambridge. Even by his walk, with
its quick, irregular roll, one could single him out at a distance in
the street.

When a man is attractive personally, he is all the more attractive for
being unlike other men, and he often becomes the centre of a group.
This was the case with Smith. His numerous friends were so much
interested by him that when they met their talk was largely of him,
and m