e's more of the mole than the
pioneer about my work, such as it is!"

Gladwin drifted about the next day like a tired fairy.

He had a long conference with Father Payne, and at dinner he seemed aloof,
and hardly spoke at all. He vanished the next day with an air of relief.
"Well, what did you think of our guest?" said Father Payne to me, meeting
me in the garden before dinner.

"Well," I said, "he seemed to me an unhappy, heavily-burdened man--but he
was evidently extraordinarily able."

"Yes," said Father Payne, "that's about it. His mind is too big for him to
carry. He sees everything, understands everything, and passes judgment on
everything. But he hasn't enough vitality. It must be an awful curse to
have no illusions--to see the inferiority of everything so clearly. He's
awfully lonely, and I must try to see more of him. But it is very
difficult. I used to amuse him, and he appointed me, in a way he has, a
sort of State Jester--Royal Letters Patent, you know. But then he began to
detect the commonness of my mind and taste, and, one by one, all the
avenues of communication became closed. If I liked a book which he
disliked, and praised it to him, he became inflicted with a kind of mental
nausea: and it's impossible to see much of a man, with any real comfort,
when you realise that you are constantly turning him faint and sick. I had
a dreary time with him yesterday. He produced some critical essays of his
own, which he was thinking of making into a book. They were awfully dry,
like figs which have been kept too long--not a drop of juice in them. They
were hideously acute, I saw that. But there wasn't any reason why they
should have been written. They were mere dissections: I suggested that he
should call them 'Depreciations,' and he shivered, and I felt a brute. But
that didn't last long, because he has a way of putting you in your place. I
felt like something in a nightmare he was having. He annexes you, and he
disapproves of you at the same time. I am awfully sorry for him, but I
can't help him. The moment I try, I run up against his disapproval, and my
vulgar spirit revolts. He's an aristocrat, through and through. He comes
and hoists his flag over a place. I felt all yesterday as if I were a
rather unwelcome guest in his house, you know. It's a stifling atmosphere.
I can't breathe or speak, because I instantly feel myself suspected of
crudity! The truth is that Gladwin thinks you can live upon light, and
fo