“It is my ambition to shake hands with you, sir.”
“Oh! very well,” was the response, as Swinburne half-heartedly extended his hand, “I’m not accustomed to this sort of thing.”
Meal times at “The Pines” were occasions when there was much talk and laughter; for in both Swinburne and Watts-Dunton the mischievous spirit of boyhood had not been entirely disciplined by life, and in the other members of the household the same unconquerable spirit of youth was manifest.
Sometimes there were great discussions and arguments. Watts-Dunton had more than a passing interest in science, whereas, to Swinburne it was anathema, although his father was strongly scientific in his learning. The libraries of the two men clearly showed how different were their tastes; for that of Watts-Dunton was all-embracing, Swinburne’s was as exclusive as his circle of personal friends. The one was the library of a critic, the other that of a poet.
Swinburne enjoyed nothing better than a discussion, and he was a foe who wielded a stout blade. He fought, however, with scrupulous fairness, never interrupting an adversary; but listening to him with a deliberate patience that was almost disconcerting. Then when his turn came he would overwhelm his opponent and destroy his most weighty arguments in what a friend once described as “a lava torrent of burning words.” He possessed many of the qualities necessary to debate: concentration, the power of pouncing upon the weak spot in his adversary’s argument, and above all a wonderful memory. What he lacked was that calm and calculating frigidity so necessary to the successful debater. Instead of freezing his opponent to silence with deliberate logic, he would strive rather by the tempestuous quality of his rhetoric to hurl him into the next parish.
There were times when he would work himself up into a passion of denunciation, when, trembling and quivering in every limb, he would in a fine frenzy of scorn annihilate those whom he conceived to be his enemies, and in scathing periods pour ridicule upon their works. But if he were merciless in his onslaughts upon his foes, he was correspondingly loyal in the defence of his friends. He seemed as incapable of seeing the weakness of a friend as of appreciating the strength of an enemy.
The things and the people who did not interest him he had the fortunate capacity of entirely forgetting. A friend [15] tells of how on one occasion he happened to mention in the course of conversation a book by a certain author whom he knew had been a visitor at “The Pines” on several occasions, and as such was personally known to Swinburne.
“Oh! really,” Swinburne remarked, “Yes, now that you mention it, I believe someone of that name has been so good as to come and see us. I seem to recall him, and I seem to remember hearing someone say that he had written something, though I don’t remember exactly what. So he has published a book upon the subject of which we are talking. Really? I did not know.”
All this was said with perfect courtesy and
without the least intention of administering a snub or belittling the writer in question. Swinburne had merely forgotten because there was nothing in that author’s personality that had impressed itself upon him. On the other hand, he would remember the minutest details of conversations in which he had been interested.