extraordinarily methodical use of his time. He rises early, disposes of
his correspondence, never failing to answer a letter as briefly as
possible the same day that he receives it; reads the paper; lectures
and coaches all the morning; attends meetings in the afternoon; coaches
again till dinner; and after dinner reads in his rooms till midnight.
He seems to have perfect bodily health and vigour, and he has never
been known to neglect or to defer anything that he undertakes. In fact,
he is a perfectly useful, competent, admirable man.

His behaviour to every one is exactly the same; he treats everybody,
his young men, his colleagues, his academical superiors, with the same
dry politeness and respect. He is never shy or flustered; he found one
day here, staying with me, a somewhat rare species of visitor, a man of
high political distinction, who came down to get a quiet Sunday to talk
over an important article which I happened to be entrusted with.
Meyrick's behaviour was unexceptionable: he was neither abrupt nor
deferential; he was simply his unaffected, self-confident self.

I like seeing Meyrick at intervals, because, though he is not really a
typical Don at all, he is exactly the sort of figure which would be
selected as typical nowadays. The days of the absent-minded, unkempt,
slatternly, spectacled, owlish Don are over, and one has instead a
brisk professional man, fond of business and ordered knowledge, who is
not in the least a man of the world, but a curious variety of it, a man
of a small and definite society who, on the strength of knowing a
certain class, and of possessing a certain _savoir faire_, credits
himself with a mundane position and enjoys his own self-respect.

But I should be very melancholy if I had to spend a long time in
Meyrick's company. In the first place, his views on literature are
directly opposed to mine. He has a kind of scheme in his head, and
classifies writers into accurate groups. He seems to have no
predilection and no admirations except for what he calls important
writers. He has no personal interest in writers whatever. He can assign
them their exact places in the development of English, but he never
approaches an author with the reverential sense of drawing near to a
mysterious and divine secret, but rather with a respect for technical
accomplishment. In fact, his pleasure in dealing with an author is the
pleasure of mastering him and classifying him. He puts a new book
thro