Page:The life and letters of Sir John Henniker Heaton bt. (IA lifelettersofsi00port).pdf/188

 For a man of independent opinions, very definite ideas, rather strong personal prepossessions, and even prejudices, he was amazingly amenable, and thus while it was particularly pleasant to agree with him one could disagree without a hint of disagreeableness. Perhaps it was because he was very human. I use the word with no patronizing concession of weakness in it. Mother wit was his, of a masculinity denying its name: and of a brand that had an agreeable novelty because it was Colonial. I know a sensitive speaker who says she found it easy to speak to an American audience because it is in the air that they actively want to like you, whereas in England you feel that your hearers are at the best passive. In the case of Heaton you felt he wanted to like you, and wanted you to like him, a very simple process in consequence it seemed. His outlook and yours might be totally at variance in literature, and therefore 'in life Temporal and Eternal,' and yet you felt for him from the first a friendship which soon became an affection.

"In a rather long life I never met anybody quite so hospitable. A request to give any recollections of him as Host and Guest brings home to me how often he served in the first capacity, how rarely in the latter. He seemed never to be really happy unless he was entertaining. This was an instinct with him—he must be the giver—more blest than the receiver. You cannot succeed in this capacity at random. It takes you all your born days to be anything worth having: and without the sincere effluence of consistent habits love itself degenerates into politeness.

So our meeting must be in London and you are to fix the day and the hour. The restaurant and the Host! Be entertained for once—you who are always entertaining in two senses.