We had little in common.  I was still a young man, and the Cardinal was already old.  I was a staunch Anglican; he, the most devoted of Papalists.  I was strongly opposed both to his Ultramontane policy and to those dexterous methods by which he was commonly supposed to promote it; and, as far as the circumstances of my life had given me any insight into the interior of Romanism, I sympathized with the great Oratorian of Birmingham rather than with his brother-cardinal of Westminster.  But though I hope that my principles stood firm, all my prejudices melted away in that fascinating presence.  Though there was something like half a century’s difference in our ages, I felt at once and completely at home with him.

What made our perfect ease of intercourse more remarkable was that, as far as the Cardinal’s immediate object was concerned, my visit was a total failure.  I had no sympathy with his scheme for the endowment of denominational teaching, and, with all the will in the world to please him, I could not even meet him half way.  But this untoward circumstance did not import the least difficulty or restraint into our conversation.  He gently glided from business into general topics; knew all about my career, congratulated me on some recent success, remembered some of my belongings, inquired about my school and college, was interested to find that, like himself, I had been at Harrow and Oxford, and, after an hour’s pleasant chat, said, “Now you must stay and have some luncheon.”  From that day to the end of his life I was a frequent visitor at his house, and every year that I knew him I learned to regard and respect him increasingly.

Looking back over these fourteen years, and reviewing my impressions of his personality, I must put first the physical aspect of the man.  He seemed older than he was, and even more ascetic, for he looked as if, like the cardinal in Lothair, he lived on biscuits and soda-water; whereas he had a hearty appetite for his midday meal, and, in his own words, “enjoyed his tea.”  Still, he carried the irreducible minimum of flesh on his bones, and his hollow cheeks and shrunken jaws threw his massive forehead into striking prominence.  His line of features was absolutely faultless in its statuesque regularity, but his face was saved from the insipidity of too great perfection by the imperious—­rather ruthless—­lines of his mouth and the penetrating lustre of his deep-set eyes.  His dress—­a black cassock edged and buttoned with crimson, with a crimson skullcap and biretta, and a pectoral cross of gold—­enhanced the picturesqueness of his aspect, and as he entered the anteroom where one awaited his approach, the most Protestant knee instinctively bent.