Here is a social instance of what it means to become “quite a little man,” as Stevenson used to say.  Some county people near here, good-natured, pushing persons, who have always been quite civil but nothing more, invited themselves to luncheon here a day or two ago, bringing with them a distinguished visitor.  They throw in some nauseous compliments to my book, and say that Lord Wilburton wishes to make my acquaintance.  I do not particularly want to make his, though he is a man of some not.  But there was no pretext for declining.  Such an incursion is a distinct bore; it clouds the morning—­one cannot settle down with a tranquil mind to one’s work; it fills the afternoon.  They came, and it proved not uninteresting.  They are pleasant people enough, and Lord Wilburton is a man who has been everywhere and seen everybody.  The fact that he wished to make my acquaintance shows, no doubt, that I have sailed into his ken, and that he wishes to add me to his collection.  I felt myself singularly unrewarding.  I am not a talker at the best of times, and to feel that I am expected to be witty and suggestive is the last straw.  Lord Wilburton discoursed fluently and agreeably.  Lady Harriet said that she envied me my powers of writing, and asked how I came to think of my last brilliant book, which she had so enjoyed.  I did not know what to say, and could not invent anything.  They made a great deal of the children.  They walked round the garden.  They praised everything ingeniously.  They could not say the house was big, and so they called in convenient.  They could not say that the garden was ample, but Lord Wilburton said that he had never seen so much ground go to the acre.  That was neat enough.  They made a great point of visiting my library, and carried away my autograph, written with the very same pen with which I wrote my great book.  This they called a privilege.  They made us promise to go over to the Castle, which I have no great purpose of doing.  We parted with mutual goodwill, and with that increase of geniality on my own part which comes on me at the end of a visit.  Altogether I did not dislike it, though it did not seem to me particularly worth while.  To-day my wife tells me that they told the Fitzpatricks that it was a great pleasure seeing me, because I was so modest and unaffected.  That is a courteous way of concealing their disappointment that I was not more brilliant.  But, good heavens, what did they expect?  I suppose, indeed I have no doubt, that if I had talked mysteriously about my book, and had described the genesis of it, and my method of working, they would have preferred that.  Just as in reminiscences of the Duke of Wellington, the people who saw him in later life seem to have been struck dumb by a sort of tearful admiration at the sight of the Duke condescending to eat his dinner, or to light a guest’s bedroom candle.  Perhaps if I had been more simple-minded I should have talked frankly about myself.  I don’t know; it seems to me all rather vulgar.