Needless to say, though it is perhaps the proper place to insist upon it here, that I cannot pretend to describe the persons I have known, otherwise than just as they appeared to me at the time itself, these reminiscences being but the faithful transcription of the impressions received at different periods of my life, starting from my earliest childhood. Not for one moment can I profess to have been competent at the early age that then was mine, to form a correct idea of Bunsen’s literary merits. Of his books, the “Signs of the Times” and others, the titles were all that was known to me, but my respect for the career of letters was innate and unbounded, and the fact that he was an author impressed me immensely. Sometimes I have vaguely wondered since, whether with him intellectual brilliancy in the best meaning of the word may not have outweighed depth of thought. But this is a mere conjecture, on which it would be unfair to base a judgment. One talent, that was indisputably his, and which since I have been able rightly to appreciate it I have often envied him, was Bunsen’s marvellous facility for skimming through a book, and acquiring by that rapid survey a sufficient knowledge of its contents, to be able to discuss it afterwards, most minutely in all particulars with the author, as if he had read every word of it! Another gift, which is sometimes denied to people of commanding intellect, but which invariably renders its possessor beloved, was also his in a supreme degree: the aptitude for drawing out all that was best and worthiest of notice in others, of making those around him feel, as if it were not merely _his_ wit alone, but theirs also that made the conversation brilliant. A rare gift indeed! For all will agree, that pleasant as it is to be in the society of clever people, pleasantest of all is to have to do with those, who make us feel cleverer ourselves while we talk to them! CHAPTER VIII PERTHES