Of course, he had his own way of putting things, which was not that of other people, and this brings me to the part in life as to which both friends and foes are agreed that he achieved complete success. Whatever else he was or was not, everybody is agreed that he was the greatest English wit since Sheridan. His gently modulated voice had a good deal to do with his conversational success, and the bland quiet manner with which the most startling remarks would be accompanied gave them weight, if not point. Still, even in cold print many of his sayings and appreciations will live as long as men laugh from intellectual motives. "I do not mind Mr. Gladstone always having an ace up his sleeve, but I do object to his always saying that Providence put it there," is a dictum which will not soon be forgotten. That observation, gently drawled out one evening in the lobby of the House of Commons, is a specimen of hundreds. I am persuaded that originally he had no intention of being witty, but supposed his quips and paradoxes to represent the bare facts expressed with the greatest economy of language. It is certain that no one was more surprised than he at the entertainment people found in the _Letters of a Besieged Resident_. He soon discovered his reputation for wit and deliberately made use of it, both as a shield and as a weapon of defence. It also served another purpose. There was a strong tendency to indolence in him that was gratified by his success in turning off awkward or puzzling questions with some witty or irrelevant remark. If this analysis is correct, it throws light on the nature of his wit, which consisted largely in a naïve and shameless revelation of the _Secret de Polichinelle_. For he said what every one thought but didn't {xi} dare say. The originality of his mind really consisted in the complete absence in his case of those conventional superstructures which imprison most of us. When he replied to some one who asked him if he liked Mme. X----, "Oh yes, I like her well enough, but I shouldn't mind if she dropped down dead in front of me on the carpet," he was only saying what many of us think but would never dream of saying even to ourselves of some of our friends.