Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, vol 2 | Page 2

in the best editions of his
works may be considered, I suppose, a fair representation of how he
looks, when he sits to have his picture taken, which is generally very
different from the way any body looks at any other time. People seem
to forget, in taking likenesses, that the features of the face are nothing
but an alphabet, and that a dry, dead map of a person's face gives no
more idea how one looks than the simple presentation of an alphabet
shows what there is in a poem.
Macaulay's whole physique gives you the impression of great strength
and stamina of constitution. He has the kind of frame which we usually
imagine as peculiarly English; short, stout, and firmly knit. There is
something hearty in all his demonstrations. He speaks in that full,
round, rolling voice, deep from the chest, which we also conceive of as
being more common in England than America. As to his conversation,
it is just like his writing; that is to say, it shows very strongly the same
qualities of mind.
I was informed that he is famous for a most uncommon memory; one
of those men to whom it seems impossible to forget any thing once
read; and he has read all sorts of things that can be thought of, in all
languages. A gentleman told me that he could repeat all the old
Newgate literature, hanging ballads, last speeches, and dying
confessions; while his knowledge of Milton is so accurate, that, if his
poems were blotted out of existence, they might be restored simply
from his memory. This same accurate knowledge extends to the Latin
and Greek classics, and to much of the literature of modern Europe.
Had nature been required to make a man to order, for a perfect historian,
nothing better could have been put together, especially since there is
enough of the poetic fire included in the composition, to fuse all these
multiplied materials together, and color the historical crystallization
with them.
Macaulay is about fifty. He has never married; yet there are
unmistakable evidences in the breathings and aspects of the family
circle by whom he was surrounded, that the social part is not wanting in
his conformation. Some very charming young lady relatives seemed to
think quite as much of their gifted uncle as you might have done had he
been yours.

Macaulay is celebrated as a conversationalist; and, like Coleridge,
Carlyle, and almost every one who enjoys this reputation, he has
sometimes been accused of not allowing people their fair share in
conversation. This might prove an objection, possibly, to those who
wish to talk; but as I greatly prefer to hear, it would prove none to me. I
must say, however, that on this occasion the matter was quite equitably
managed. There were, I should think, some twenty or thirty at the
breakfast table, and the conversation formed itself into little eddies of
two or three around the table, now and then welling out into a great bay
of general discourse. I was seated between Macaulay and Milman, and
must confess I was a little embarrassed at times, because I wanted to
hear what they were both saying at the same time. However, by the use
of the faculty by which you play a piano with both hands, I got on very
comfortably.
Milman's appearance is quite striking; tall, stooping, with a keen black
eye and perfectly white hair--a singular and poetic contrast. He began
upon architecture and Westminster Abbey--a subject to which I am
always awake. I told him I had not yet seen Westminster; for I was now
busy in seeing life and the present, and by and by I meant to go there
and see death and the past.
Milman was for many years dean of Westminster, and kindly offered
me his services, to indoctrinate me into its antiquities.
Macaulay made some suggestive remarks on cathedrals generally. I
said that I thought it singular that we so seldom knew who were the
architects that designed these great buildings; that they appeared to me
the most sublime efforts of human genius.
He said that all the cathedrals of Europe were undoubtedly the result of
one or two minds; that they rose into existence very nearly
contemporaneously, and were built by travelling companies of masons,
under the direction of some systematic organization. Perhaps you knew
all this before, but I did not; and so it struck me as a glorious idea. And
if it is not the true account of the origin of cathedrals, it certainly ought
to be; and, as our old grandmother used to say, "I'm going to believe it."
Looking around the table, and seeing how every body seemed to be
enjoying themselves, I said to Macaulay, that these breakfast