Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/51

 to my grandfather by the American artist whom he had rescued from a scrape, the tall pier glass, with the little vase of flowers on its marble base, and my grandfather in his large chair, his white waistcoat half unbuttoned and one side sagging with the weight of the heavy watch-chain that descended from its large hook, his white beard trimmed a little more closely, his white hair bristling as aggressively as ever—all the same, all as of old, like the reminders of the old life and all its traditions now to be broken and rendered forever and tragically different from all it had been and meant. He sat there looking at me, the blue eyes twinkling under their shaggy brows, and stretched forth his long white hand in the odd gesture with which he began his conversations. Conversations with him, it suddenly developed, were not easy to sustain; he pursued the Socratic method. If you disagreed with him, he lifted three fingers toward you, whether in menace or in benediction it was difficult at times to determine, and said:

"Let me instruct you."

For instance:

"Do you know why Napoleon III. lost the battle of Sedan?" he might abruptly inquire.

"No, sir," you were expected to say. (You always addressed him as "sir.")

"Let me instruct you."

Or:

"Do you know who was the greatest English poet?"

"No, sir," you would say, or, perhaps, in those