But the estimate of university contemporaries was abundantly confirmed by the outer world.

While on a visit to Lord Lansdowne at Bowood, years after they had left Cambridge, Austin and Macaulay happened to get upon college topics one morning at breakfast.
When the meal was finished they drew their chairs to either end of the chimney-piece, and talked at each other across the hearth-rug as if they were in a first-floor room in the Old Court of Trinity.

The whole company, ladies, artists, politicians, and diners-out, formed a silent circle round the two Cantabs, and, with a short break for lunch, never stirred till the bell warned them that it was time to dress for dinner.
It has all irrevocably perished.

With life before them, and each intent on his own future, none among that troop of friends had the mind to play Boswell to the others.

One repartee survives, thrown off in the heat of discussion, but exquisitely perfect in all its parts.