Macdonell was a typical journalist, of very fine character. He was an enthusiast, more than commonly perfervid, even for a Scot. Whatever he believed, he believed with all his heart and soul. He was always in earnest, and always striving to give effect to his opinions. His leaders were really polished essays, of remarkable point and brilliancy. His conversation was as striking and epigrammatic as his writing. He was inspired by generous impulses, and his soul was clean. One of his colleagues on the _Telegraph_ declared that Macdonell evidently believed that his chief business in life was to frame syllogisms and apply them. He had a good deal of the temperament of the French man of letters, and to the enthusiasm of the Gaul he added a fine taste for style. In those early days in London he was full of the possibilities that lay before the penny Press, and predicted that the day was not far distant when the _Daily Telegraph_ would supersede the _Times_ as the chief organ of English opinion. He greatly admired the shrewdness of the proprietors of the paper, who, having no knowledge of literary quality themselves, had yet an unerring instinct for what was good in journalism. He delighted in one story which I have heard him relate more than once. He had been telling Alexander Russel, of the _Scotsman_, of the shrewd manner in which Mr. Levy, the principal owner of the _Telegraph_, had been criticising an article of which he did not quite approve. The writer had pleaded that the reasoning of the article was perfectly sound. "We don't want sound reason; we want sound writing," was Mr. Levy's response. When Macdonell repeated this to Russel, the great Edinburgh editor slapped his thigh, and cried, with an oath, "The Lord knew what He was about when He chose that people for His own!"