Stirling Maxwell, when in Scotland, sending
hampers of pheasants to the company. "Hurried to the Athenaeum for
dinner," says Ticknor in 1857, "and there found Kinglake and Sir
Henry Rawlinson, to whom were soon added Hayward and Stirling. We
pushed our tables together and had a jolly dinner. . . . To the
Athenaeum; and having dined pleasantly with Merivale, Kinglake, and
Stirling, I hurried off to the House." In later years, when his
voice grew low and his hearing difficult, he preferred that the
diners should resolve themselves into little groups, assigning to
himself a tete-a-tete, with whom at his ease he could unfold
himself.
No man ever fought more gallantly the encroachments of old age--on
sut etre jeune jusque dans ses vieux jours. At seventy-four years
old, staying with a friend at Brighton, he insisted on riding over
to Rottingdean, where Sir Frederick Pollock was staying. "I
mastered," he said, in answer to remonstrances, "I mastered the
peculiarities of the Brighton screw before you were born, and have
never forgotten them." Vaulting into his saddle he rode off,
returning with a schoolboy's delight at the brisk trot he had found
practicable when once clear of the King's Road.
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