Old Familiar Faces

Old Familiar Faces is a Biographical book. For some years before his death it was the intention of Theodore Watts Dunton to publish in volume form under the title of ‘Old Familiar Faces, ’ the recollections of his friends that he had from time to time contributed to The Athenæum. At his charmingly situated house at the foot of Putney Hill, he lived a life of as little seclusion as he would have lived in Fleet Street. Here he received his friends and acquaintances, and there was little happening in the world outside with which he was unacquainted. To outlive his generation is, perhaps, the worst fate that can befall a man; but this cannot truly be said of Theodore Watts Dunton, who seemed to be of no generation in particular. His interest in the life of the twentieth century, a life so different from that of his own youth and early manhood, was strangely keen and insistent. Sometimes in talking of his great contemporaries, Tennyson, Meredith, Swinburne, Rossetti, Morris, Matthew Arnold, Borrow, there would creep into his voice a note of reminiscent sadness; but it always seemed poetic rather than personal. It may be said that he never really grew up, that his spirit never tired. His laugh was as youthful as the hearty “My dear fellow, ” with which he would address his friends.