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

20 The Marquess of Crewehis usual smile, to Sir Wemyss Reid, who was visitinghim at Fryston, * I am going over to the majority, and,you know, I have always preferred the minority'. InMonsieur Henri de Regnier's little book of reminiscencesand reflections he tells of a man-servant who, speakingof his employer's last illness, said: 'Monsieur le Due aattendu la mort, comme sa voiture quand il l'avait commandee'.My father, showing the same placid spirit, hadnot to wait long before the carriage was announced. Hewent to Vichy with his sister in August, 1885, and havinggone late to his room, after a day of pleasant conversationswith French friends, he sank into a chair, and neverrecovered consciousness.It is not at all easy for those who never knew him, andhave not even read some of his familiar letters, to realisethe sort of charm which he exercised on a vast number ofpeople of the most varying degrees of culture and knowledge.To quote Venables once more, 'he was a fanfaron—not of vices, but of paradoxical fallacies which seldomdeceived himself. Like other genuine humorists he hadsome mannerisms which irritated and misled strangersand dull observers. Dull humours took his off-handutterances for his real opinions, and resented the intellectualvivacity which found it impossible to rest incommonplaces and truisms'. His friend Stirling Maxwellcalled him 'a bird of paradox', and it is impossible todelineate him in a few sentences without appearing to beparadoxical. To say that he was superficial, with the greatmass of his knowledge of many subjects, would be ridiculous,yet, on the other hand, there was no subject ofwhich his knowledge could be precisely called profound.He was fond of pleasure in various forms, and had nocontempt for luxury, but he was quite happy to live verysimply for long together, if there were compensation tobe got in the way of interesting travel or intellectual con-