Page:The house of Cecil.djvu/346

 304 THE CECILS

painfully shy, and at a club or in a large party undergoes the torments of the lost, yet no one can listen, even casually, to his conversation, without appreciating the fine manner, full both of dignity and of courtesy : the utter freedom from pomposity, formality, or self-assertion, and the agreeable dash of genuine cynicism which modifies, though it does not mask, the flavour of his fun."

As a public speaker, he was impressive and weighty, and was capable of fine flights of eloquence. But, in spite of the literary perfection of his style, he did not rise to the first rank as an orator, despising the tricks of rhetoric, and refusing to practise the arts which win popular applause.

He had an immense power of sustained work, and is said to have sat at his desk for thirteen hours out of twenty-four. All his vast corre- spondence was written by his own hand, and as he was extremely neat and methodical in his ways, his papers the bulk of which is enormous were kept in immaculate order. He was a most considerate landlord, but he left the management of his estates chiefly to his wife. Unlike his father, he confessed that he was " entirely ignorant of practical agriculture, and was hardly able to distinguish a turnip from a cow." His only form of sport was rabbit shooting with ferrets, at which he was proficient. His great hobby, however, was science, and much of his leisure was spent in his laboratory at Hatfield.

�� �