. The magazine of American history with notes and queries. conversation held with him a few weeks before his death, duringwhich he sketched for me the strong and weak points of that extra-ordinary epoch. He had a decided, incisive manner of speaking, andhis ardent yet steadfast character was evinced in the way in which heplunged into conversation, always keeping clearly in view the maintheme, while illustrating it by apt reflections or anecdotes. He had animmense will lodged in a small frame ; but although he was filled withnervous energy and almost electrical power, and was capable of bearing
. The magazine of American history with notes and queries. conversation held with him a few weeks before his death, duringwhich he sketched for me the strong and weak points of that extra-ordinary epoch. He had a decided, incisive manner of speaking, andhis ardent yet steadfast character was evinced in the way in which heplunged into conversation, always keeping clearly in view the maintheme, while illustrating it by apt reflections or anecdotes. He had animmense will lodged in a small frame ; but although he was filled withnervous energy and almost electrical power, and was capable of bearing THE SPARTANS OF PARIS 171 great fatigue, the fall of the empire and the changes which followed soaffected him that he died prematurely, three days after he had completedhis sixty-fourth year—for he was so constituted that he would have liveda hundred years in ordinary times. In those last days he seemed to beconsumed by a continual fever which did not prevent his moving about,but, nevertheless, insiduously sapped his vital force. The last time that I. LORD LYTTON (OWEN MEREDITH). saw him was at the house of a mutual friend, where, after dinner, he drewme aside and conversed nearly two hours. Another agreeable memberwas the Duke dAcquaviva, who also died prematurely many years ago. It was in 1873 that I proposed Lord Lytton (Owen Meredith). Up tothat time Count Nigra, the Italian ambassador, and myself were the onlyforeign members, and there have never been any others, with the excep-tion of General Tiirr, who married the Princess Bon aparte-Wyse. Lord 172 THE SPARTANS OF PARIS Lytton is now our president, upon the suggestion of our only survivingfounder, M. Arsene Houssaye. Lord Lytton, without the smallest affec-tation or pretense, listens intently while those about him are speaking,and suddenly awakens their enthusiasm by a brilliant mot and sends theball of conversation forward by a profound suggestion. My earliestmemory of the present Lord Lytton goes back to the summer
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