I PERSONAL AND PARTICULAR


'Perhaps there is something in old age that likes to have a young mind
clinging to it.' Sir George Grey was speaking of the famous people he had
known in his youth long, long before. He struck an inner note of nature
which is surely equally valid the other way? Whenever I think of the
remark, I am inclined to discover one reason why I came to know Sir
George so well.

I met him, as I have met other characters of English story in our own
day. You go into these great waters, seeking that all who care may know.
You cry across them, answer comes back or it does not, and there endeth
the lesson, until the next time.

It was different with Sir George Grey. He hauled me straight in-board,
saying, 'Now, call upon me often, and we'll talk mankind over. Going by
myself, no two people can meet without being a means of instruction to
each other, to say nothing else. You are where the swing of events must
be felt, and I am in the back-water of retirement. It may entertain us
both, to study new subjects under old lights.'

Thus flew many an hour, and many an evening, and the memory of them is
green and grateful to me. Here was an incident, there a reflection, and
always it was Sir George Grey intimate, whether in a frame large or
small. It is the rivulets, babbling to the big stream, that really tell
its tale, for without them it would not be; and so with the river of
life. Beside me, a scarred veteran looked back upon himself, hailing some
venture from the mist of years. Again, it might be an event on the wing;
or the future, and him bending eagerly forward into its sunshine.