Dawnay had a very quick brain, and held his views most positively. It was sometimes said of him that he did not suffer fools gladly, and this was true up to a point. He was singularly intolerant of presumptuous fools, who laid down the law about matters of which they were wholly ignorant, or who--having acquired a smattering of second-hand knowledge--proceeded to put their ingenious and sophistical theories into practice. But for people of much slower wits than himself--if they were trying honestly to arrive at the truth--he was usually full of sympathy. His tact and patience upon great occasions were two of his noblest qualities. {xxix} In some ways he used to remind me, not a little, of Colonel Henry Esmond of Castlewood, Virginia. In both there was the same hard core of resistance against anything, which appeared to challenge certain adamantine principles concerning conduct befitting a gentleman. On such matters he was exceedingly stiff and unyielding. And he resembled the friend of Lord Bolingbroke, and General Webb, and Dick Steele also in this, that he was addicted to the figure of irony when crossed in discussion. One imagines, however, that Colonel Esmond must have kept his countenance better, and remained imperturbably grave until his shafts had all gone home. In Dawnay's case the sight of his opponent's lengthening face was, as a rule, too much for his sense of humour, and the attack was apt to lose some of its force--certainly all its fierceness--in a smile which reminded one of Carlyle's description--'sunlight on the sea.' The following extract from a letter written by one of his friends who had attended the War Service at St. Paul's gives a true picture: "A sudden vision arose in my imagination of Hugh Dawnay striding down the choir, in full armour, like St. Michael--with his head thrown back, and that extraordinary expression of resolution which he always seemed to me to possess more than any one I have ever seen. His wide-apart eyes had more of the spirit of truth in them than almost any--also an intolerance of falsehood--or rather perhaps a disbelief in its existence...." This is true. He was one of {xxx} that race of men whose recumbent figures are seen in our old churches and cathedrals, with hands clasping crusaders' swords against their breasts, their hounds couching at their feet.