On another wall is a portrait of Newton, and on a third the sweet face
of a young girl, Dr. Whewell's niece, of whom I heard him speak as
'Kate.'
"Dr. Whewell received us in this room, standing on a rug before an open
fireplace; a wood fire was burning cheerily. Mrs. Airy's daughter, a
young girl, was with us.
"Dr. Whewell shook hands with us, and we stood. I was very tired, but we
continued to stand. In an American gentleman's house I should have asked
if I might sit, and should have dropped upon a chair; here, of course, I
continued to stand. After, perhaps, fifteen minutes, Dr. Whewell said,
'Will you sit?' and the four of us dropped upon chairs as if shot!
"The master is a man to be noted, even physically. He is much above
ordinary size, and, though now gray-haired, would be extraordinarily
handsome if it were not for an expression of ill-temper about the mouth.
"An Englishmen is proud; a Cambridge man is the proudest of Englishmen;
and Dr. Whewell, the proudest of Cambridge men.
"In the opinion of a Cambridge man, to be master of Trinity is to be
master of the world!
"At lunch, to which we stayed, Dr. Whewell talked about American
writers, and was very severe upon them; some of them were friends of
mine, and it was not pleasant. But I was especially hurt by a remark
which he made afterwards. Americans are noted in England for their use
of slang. The English suppose that the language of Sam Slick or of Nasby
is the language used in cultivated society.
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