R,CHARD MONCKTON MILNES was born in the year - OUDL Home

92 George Saintsburyone at least temporarily single man and four or five ladies,married and unmarried. The coupled male having someappointment or other left his wife and went forth, bestowinga quite amiable, but not theatrically enthusiasticnod-bow on the other man, whom he did not know veryintimately. When he met his wife at home later she said(I fear, laughing), 'Ah! you don't know what a state ofmind you put Mr Dash in this afternoon. As soon as youhad shut the door he got up and began to walk furiouslyup and down, saying, "Why won't that fellow shakehands with me?"' Now it happened that 'that fellow'had very recently left Oxford where, a thousand yearsago or a little less, hand-shaking was, whatever may bethe case now, quite out of fashion. With men of your ownCollege you hardly did it at all. With outcollege men, asa civility, you probably did it if you met them at the endof term just before they were going down, and perhapsat the beginning of it when you met them for the firsttime. At casual meetings, unless there were formal introductions,never.Now this not quite unamusing story came to my knowledgebefore I ever knew Lang: and as I have already saidhe had nothing personally to do with it. But not verylong after I did know him I began to think of him inconnection with it, and recent things have brought theremembrance and resemblance freshly home. Severalpeople seem to have interpreted Lang's manner as thatof one not thinking them worth shaking hands with,when, as a matter of fact, he was probably not thinkingabout them at all except as coincidences of existence. Isuppose he could not be called invariably affable; butyour invariably affable person requires a certain extratouch from Providence to prevent him from beingfrequently intolerable. Now in all those years—many ofthem thickly frequented years, of which I have spoken—