only breakfasted with him; we spent the whole day together; we went out for a long walk, talking of Art, of Religion, of all manner of things. Immediately and immensely I was attracted by him, attracted by his width of view, his serious feeling, his quick humour, which was abounding, attracted perhaps above all by his generous acceptance of me: but I little guessed that on that day had begun one of the most valuable, and the closest, and the dearest friendships, that I shall ever know.

"After I had left Oxford we came gradually to see one another very often as the years went by our intimate relationship increased. We entered into one another's lives, if I may so say, absolutely. There was not a care, an expectation, a work, an interest of any kind of importance, which we did not share. We trusted one another so thoroughly, that I am sure there was nothing about myself that I cared to hide from him; and I believe that there was little about him, that he hid from me. And therefore, when I am speaking of him, now that he is gone, I feel that I am speaking from as sure a knowledge as ever one man can have of another. I do not wish, as he would not have wished me, to write a panegyric over him. He had great weaknesses, and great faults: he had powers so rare, and virtues so fine, that I am afraid it would sound merely exaggeration, if I said all the good that I knew of him. But some of the good I must say out. No man, I believe, ever breathed, whose spiritual and moral instincts were more delicate; whose devotion to his friends was more thorough and chivalrous; who more readily and on every occasion held his keen intelligence patiently and unreservedly at their service. He did foolish things, and, it may be, unworthy things: why should I hesitate to say what nobody was so ready to acknowledge as he was himself? But I will say this also without fear and without any