ver with talk, and a little more
serious. If I have thought anything at all, it simply is that he is getting
older."

"It may simply be that, of course," said Barthrop, looking relieved. "I
suppose he is about fifty-eight or so? But I'll tell you something else. I
went in to speak to him two or three days ago. Well you know how he always
seems to be doing something? He is never unoccupied indoors, though he has
certainly seen less of everyone's work of late--but that morning I found
him sitting in his chair, looking out of the window, doing nothing at all;
and I didn't like his look. How can I put it? He looked like a man who was
going off on a long journey--and he was tired and worn-looking--I have
never seen him looking _worn_ before--as if there was a strain of some
kind. There were lines about his face I hadn't noticed before, and his eyes
seemed larger and brighter. He said to me, half apologetically, 'Look here,
this won't do! I'm getting lazy,' Then he went on, 'I was thinking, you
know, about this place: it has been an experiment, and a good and happy
experiment. But it hasn't founded itself, as I hoped,' I asked him what
exactly he meant, and he laughed, and said: 'You know I don't believe in
founding things! A place like this has got to grow up of itself, and have a
life of its own. I don't think the place has got that. I put a seed or two
into the ground, but I'm not sure that they have quickened to life.' Then
he went on in a minute: 'You will know I don't say this conceitedly, but I
think it has all depended too much on me, and I know I'm only a tiller of
the ground. I don't believe I can give life to a society--I can keep it
lively, but that's not the same thing. Something has come of my plan, to be
sure, but it isn't going to spread like a tree--and I hoped it might! But
it's no good being disappointed--that's childish--you can't do what you
mean to do in this world, only what you are meant to do. I expect the
weakness has been that I meddle too much--I don't leave things alone
enough. I trust too much to myself, and not enough to God. It's been too
much a case of "See me do it!"--as the children say.'"

"What did you say?" I said.

"Nothing at all," said Barthrop; "that's where I fail. I can't rise to an
emergency. I murmured something about our all being very grateful to
him--it was awfully flat! If I could but have told him how I cared for him,
and how splendid he had always been! But those perfectly