'In later days,--for my intimacy with him lasted many
years,--he became the feeder of my intellect. He delighted to
ransack the history of a nation, of an art or a science, and
bring to me all the particulars. Telling them fixed them in
his own memory, which was the most tenacious and ready I
have ever known; he enjoyed my clear perception as to their
relative value, and I classified them in my own way. As he was
omnivorous, and of great mental activity, while my mind was
intense, though rapid in its movements, and could only give
itself to a few things of its own accord, I traversed on the
wings of his effort large demesnes that would otherwise have
remained quite unknown to me. They were not, indeed, seen to
the same profit as my own province, whose tillage I knew, and
whose fruits were the answer to my desire; but the fact of
seeing them at all gave a largeness to my view, and a candor
to my judgment. I could not be ignorant how much there was I
did not know, nor leave out of sight the many sides to every
question, while, by the law of affinity, I chose my own.
'Lytton was not loved by any one. He was not positively hated,
or disliked; for there was nothing which the general mind
could take firm hold of enough for such feelings.
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