One could hardly call him a crimson macaw among owls, and yet no
ordinary contrast availed. Milnes introduced him as Mr. Algernon
Swinburne. The name suggested nothing. Milnes was always
unearthing new coins and trying to give them currency. He had
unearthed Henry Adams who knew himself to be worthless and not
current. When Milnes lingered a moment in Adams's room to add
that Swinburne had written some poetry, not yet published, of
really extraordinary merit, Adams only wondered what more Milnes
would discover, and whether by chance he could discover merit in
a private secretary. He was capable of it.
In due course this party of five men sat down to dinner with
the usual club manners of ladyless dinner-tables, easy and formal
at the same time. Conversation ran first to Oliphant who told his
dramatic story simply, and from him the talk drifted off into
other channels, until Milnes thought it time to bring Swinburne
out. Then, at last, if never before, Adams acquired education.
What he had sought so long, he found; but he was none the wiser;
only the more astonished. For once, too, he felt at ease, for the
others were no less astonished than himself, and their
astonishment grew apace. For the rest of the evening Swinburne
figured alone; the end of dinner made the monologue only freer,
for in 1862, even when ladies were not in the house, smoking was
forbidden, and guests usually smoked in the stables or the
kitchen; but Monckton Milnes was a licensed libertine who let his
guests smoke in Adams's bedroom, since Adams was an
American-German barbarian ignorant of manners; and there after
dinner all sat -- or lay -- till far into the night, listening to
the rush of Swinburne's talk.
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