In literary matters I seldom heard his equal.

Many and many is the book which I have been induced to read solely by hearing him sketch the purport in little sentences of extraordinary felicity.

"The birth and fatal effects of Impulse in a prosaic soul," was a sketch he gave of a celebrated novel.

On one subject he was always dumb--Economics.

"It is the one subject on which I have never hazarded a remark successfully," he said to me once.