““Sir Magnus himself did not talk much, save intermittently to express some general opinion, which, when during a comparative silence his words were wafted to the farther end of the table, on the lips of a lesser man would have suggested processes of thought of a banality so painful—of such profound and arid depths, in which neither humour, nor imagination, nor, indeed, any form of human understanding could be thought to play the smallest part—that I almost supposed him to be speaking ironically, or teasing his guests by acting the part of a bore in a drawing-room comedy.””
