ABSTRACT
Among these earliest memories are the meetings of the Nineteenth Century Club. Leaning over the banisters from the author's third storey vantage ground, they three red-heads, all carefully dressed for the occasion, used to watch the grand ladies coming up to his mother's sitting-room, and the gentlemen to his father's bedroom, to leave their coats. Edging down a little on the stairs they would sometimes greet the people they knew; and then, when all were seated in the drawing-room and the library, they would slip down as far as the lower landing on the stairs to hear their father's voice; and afterwards the speaker of the evening; then the opponent of the speaker; then rebuttals from each; and finally an open discussion. Their father made it his life-work to see to it that the most distinguished representatives of opposite sides of various questions meet, and that they listen to each other in a spirit of courtesy.
