Among my brother's contemporaries, his school and college mates who
frequented my father's house at this time, were Arthur Hallam, Alfred
Tennyson and his brothers, Frederick Maurice, John Sterling, Richard
Trench, William Donne, the Romillys, the Malkins, Edward Fitzgerald,
James Spedding, William Thackeray, and Richard Monckton Milnes.
These names were those of "promising young men," our friends and
companions, whose various remarkable abilities we learned to estimate
through my brother's enthusiastic appreciation of them. How bright has
been, in many instances, the full performance of that early promise,
England has gratefully acknowledged; they have been among the jewels of
their time, and some of their names will be famous and blessed for
generations to come. It is not for me to praise those whom all
English-speaking folk delight to honor; but in thinking of that bright
band of very noble young spirits, of my brother's love and admiration
for them, of their affection for him, of our pleasant intercourse in
those far-off early days,--in spite of the faithful, life-long regard
which still subsists between myself and the few survivors of that goodly
company, my heart sinks with a heavy sense of loss, and the world from
which so much light has departed seems dark and dismal enough.
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