'
"October 23. Another dinner-party at the observatory, consisting of the
Struves, General and Mrs. Sabine, Professor and Mrs. Powell, Mr. Main,
and ourselves; more guests coming to tea.
"Mrs. Airy told me that she should arrange the order of the guests at
table to please herself; that properly all of the married ladies should
precede me, but that I was really to go first, with Mr. Airy. To effect
this, however, she must explain it to Mrs. Sabine, the lady of highest
rank.
"So we went out, Professor Airy and myself, Professor Powell and Mrs.
Sabine, General Sabine and Mrs. Powell, Mr. Charles Struve and Miss S.,
Mr. Main, Mrs. Airy, and Professor Struve.
"General Sabine is a small man, gray haired and sharp featured, about
seventy years old. He smiles very readily, and is chatty and sociable at
once. He speaks with more quickness and ease than most of the Englishmen
I have met. Mrs. Sabine is very agreeable and not a bit of a
blue-stocking.
"The chat at table was general and very interesting. Mr. Airy says, 'The
best of a good dinner is the amount of talk.' He talked of the great
'Leviathan' which he and Struve had just visited, then anecdotes were
told by others, then they went on to comic poetry. Mr. Airy repeated
'The Lost Heir,' by Hood. General Sabine told droll anecdotes, and the
point was often lost upon me, because of the local allusions. One of his
anecdotes was this: 'Archbishop Whately did not like a professor named
Robert Daly; he said the Irish were a very contented people, they were
satisfied with one _bob daily_.
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