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He maintained a good deal of
correspondence, however, in different parts of the world, and the wiser
of those who were favoured with his epistles preserved them as literary
curiosities, under lock and key, by reason of the writer's rare faculty
of expressing the most atrocious things in correct and even admirable
English. Chaster than snow as a conversationalist, he prostituted his
mother-tongue, in letter-writing, to the vilest of uses. Friends of
long standing called him an obscene old man. When taxed with this
failing--by Mr. Eames, for instance, who shivered at what he called
PRAETEXTATA VERBA--he would hint that he could afford to pay for his
little whims, meaning, presumably, that a rich man is not to be judged
by common standards of propriety. Such language was particularly
galling to Mr. Eames, who held that the possession of wealth entails
not only privileges but obligations, and that the rich man should set
the example of purity in words and deeds, etc., etc., etc.
They were always disagreeing, anyhow.


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