Archbishop, obviously surprised, pursued the subject. Then with absolute unconsciousness, Mr. Scott on the one hand and the Archbishop on the other entered into the most extraordinary discussion I have ever heard. It began about nine o'clock and did not end u'ntil near midnight. Hardly another man than the host and Mr. Scott spoke a word. Indeed, it was practically a monologue on the part of Mr Scott, but in perfect taste and surprisingly eloquent. Such a flood of knowledge, such a wealth of reflection, such freshness and earnestness of mind I have never seen matched in connection with a subject so outside the sphere of ordinary interests. For months after, if I chanced to meet anybody who was present at that dinner there was sure to be reference to the extraordinary talk. The powers of the man and his familiarity with theological matters, surprised all of us. We could but marvel that such a man could be a product of a pioneer country, living all his life remote from the centers of scholarship and of abstract thought."
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It was no doubt due to the conditions of Mr. Scott's early life as they have already been outlined that he had, or always assumed to have, little sympathy with personal incapacity or its consequences. I often thought him too much disposed to see the individual deficiencies which lay behind personal distress rather than the distress itself. If self-indulgence or wasted energies had brought a man to want, Mr. Scott's impulse was less to relieve the need than to define the cause of it. He despised inefficiency with the whole brood of its causes. Yet he was much kinder in deed than in sentiment. More than once when applied to for help in the name of charity he would declaim with tremendous emphasis against the vices of incompetence and end by yielding a donation. But broadly speaking, his attitude towards grown-up men and women who had neglected or dissipated their opportunities in life was severely critical. "He has thrown away his chances, laughed in the face of counsel, sneered at the lessons of experience—let him take the consequences." Something like this was not infrequently heard from Mr. Scott. But he had the tenderest
