The Irish standard., 1899-06-10
SOME FAMOUS MEN OF The CENTURY
Impressions of Several Leading
British Statesmen.
BAD SPELLING ENRAGED Mr.. PARNELL
Matthew Arnold Ignorant in
Evolutionary Art.

In his "Reminiscences" just pub
lished Justin Mccarthy is especially hap
py in his descriptions of the famous men
and women whom he met during the
past half century. The following sketch
of George Meredith is well-drawn:
1T think the first impression which
George Meredith made on me was that
OF extraordinary and exuberant vitality.
When saw him for the first time, he
had left his younger days long way
behind him and yet he had the appear
ance and movements of one endowed
with youth that could not fade; energy
was in every movement; vital power
spoke in every gesture. He loved bodily
exercises of all kinds; he delighted to
take long brisk walks-8spins,' as he
called them-along the highways and
the byways OF the neighborhood, and he
loved to wander through the woods,
and to lie in the grass, and I have no
doubt he would have enjoyed climbing
the trees. He seemed to have in him
much of the temperament of the faun;
he seemed to have sprung from the very
bosom of nature herself. His talk was
wonderful, and, perhaps, not the least
wonderful thing about it was that it
seemed so very like his writing. Now
it was Richard Feverel who talked to
you, and now Harley Adrian and then
Beaucllamp-not that he ever repeated
any of the recorded sayings of these
men, but that he talked as anyone could
imagine any of them capable of talking
ON any suggested subject. Was his
meaning little difficult to follow some
times? Did the idea now and then ap-
pear to soar through clouds of his own
creation? Perhaps it was so sometimes,
but then the meaning was always SO
subtly and surprisingly helped out by
look, by gesture, by a sudden glance or
flash OF the deep eyes, that one felt quite
sure he would not be allowed to re-
main without the clearest comprehen-
sion Of what every sentence would have
him to understand"
How Thackeray was scored by Dis
raeli in "Endymion" was the subject of
talk when Lord Randolph Churchill was
present
AT dinner party several years ago
there was some talk about Lord Bea-
cons6cld's 'Endymion,' and the cruel
caricature of Thackeray which it con-
tanned. Lord Randolph professed to
justify it. But surely somebody said,
you would not yourself make such an
attack on man VINO was dead?' 'Of
course he replied, that is the very thing
l would do, for then he could not pos
sibly reply to me- He could afford to
say it, for we all knew that that was
the very thing he would not do"
Kingsley's deliberate manner, the fix
ity of his opinions, Mr.. Mccarthy brings
out admirably when the author OF
"Hereward" occupied the chair of the
professor of modern history at Cam
bridge. The topic was on the leaders
of the science of today.
"He made it perfectly clear very soon
that he did not even know what these
authors professed to teach. He fatty
denied that there is any such thing as
an inexorable law in nature. He proved
that even the supposed law of gravita-
ton is not by any means the rigid and
universal sort of thing that Newton and
such like persons have supposed. How,
it may be asked, did he prove this? In
the following words: If choose to
catch stone l can hold it in my hands;
it has not fallen to the ground, and it
will not till let it. So much for the
inevitable action of the laws of gravity.
This way of dealing with the question
may seem to many readers nothing bet
ter than downright buffoonery. But
Kingsley was as grave as a church and
as earnest as an owl. He felt quite GER
tain that he was refuting the pedants
who believe in the inevitable action OF
the law of gravitation when he talked
of holding stone in his hand. That
an impulsive, illogical man should on
the spur of the moment talk this kind
of nonsense, even from a professors S
chair, is not perhaps wonderful; but it
does seem little surprising that he
should see it in print, revise it and pub
lish it, without ever becoming aware OF
its absurdity."
Mr.. Parnell, it may be remembered,
was without any literary appreciation
4 . Ia a. f. N a.. II