Page:Tex; a chapter in the life of Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (IA texchapterinlife00mcke).pdf/47

 ent of mind that may justify the description of him as the son of Edward Lear and the grandson of Charles Lamb.

Underlying the whimsical humour of his letters and peeping through the mock solemnity of his speech was a young child's concern for the welfare of his friends: himself never growing up, he never outgrew his generous delight in any success that came to them; their ill-health and sorrow were harder to bear than his own; and he shewed a child's impulsive generosity in offering all he had in comfort. Sympathy, help, experience and advice were at hand for whosoever would take them: he had too long lived precariously to forget the tragedy of those who failed and failed again; he knew life too well to grow impatient with those who failed through no one's fault but their own.

Love of life, enduring to the end, knowledge of life, increasing every day, combined to join this heart of a child to the experience of an old man. As a connoisseur of food and wine, as of style and manner, he belonged to a generation that ranked life as the greatest