He was in his ninetieth year, and he had climbed the
stairs to the first floor to ask me to one of his breakfast
parties.
To say nothing of Rogers' fame, his wealth, his
position in society, those who know what his cynicism and his
worldliness were, will understand what such an effort,
physical and moral, must have cost him. He always looked
like a death's head, but his ghastly pallor, after that
Alpine ascent, made me feel as if he had come - to stay.
These breakfasts were entertainments of no ordinary
distinction. The host himself was of greater interest than
the most eminent of his guests. All but he, were more or
less one's contemporaries: Rogers, if not quite as dead as
he looked, was ancient history. He was old enough to have
been the father of Byron, of Shelley, of Keats, and of Moore.
He was several years older than Scott, or Wordsworth, or
Coleridge, and only four years younger than Pitt. He had
known all these men, and could, and did, talk as no other
could talk, of all of them. Amongst those whom I met at
these breakfasts were Cornewall Lewis, Delane, the Grotes,
Macaulay, Mrs. Norton, Monckton Milnes, William Harcourt (the
only one younger than myself), but just beginning to be
known, and others of scarcely less note.
During the breakfast itself, Rogers, though seated at table
in an armchair, took no part either in the repast or in the
conversation; he seemed to sleep until the meal was over.
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