lf efficiently in the
world, the problem of how to take hold of things that occupied my
thoughts, and she was sketching out careers for my consideration, very
much as an architect on his first visit sketches houses, considers
requirements, and puts before you this example and that of the more or
less similar thing already done....

4

It is easy to see how much in common there was between the Baileys and
me, and how natural it was that I should become a constant visitor at
their house and an ally of theirs in many enterprises. It is not nearly
so easy to define the profound antagonism of spirit that also held
between us. There was a difference in texture, a difference in quality.
How can I express it? The shapes of our thoughts were the same, but the
substance quite different. It was as if they had made in china or cast
iron what I had made in transparent living matter. (The comparison is
manifestly from my point of view.) Certain things never seemed to show
through their ideas that were visible, refracted perhaps and distorted,
but visible always through mine.

I thought for a time the essential difference lay in our relation to
beauty. With me beauty is quite primary in life; I like truth, order
and goodness, wholly because they are beautiful or lead straight to
beautiful consequences. The Baileys either hadn't got that or they
didn't see it. They seemed at times to prefer things harsh and ugly.
That puzzled me extremely. The esthetic quality of many of their
proposals, the "manners" of their work, so to speak, were at times as
dreadful as--well, War Office barrack architecture. A caricature by
its exaggerated statements will sometimes serve to point a truth by
antagonising falsity and falsity. I remember talking to a prominent
museum official in need of more public funds for the work he had in
hand. I mentioned the possibility of enlisting Bailey's influence.

"Oh, we don't want Philistines like that infernal Bottle-Imp running
us," he said hastily, and would hear of no concerted action for the end
he had in view. "I'd rather not have the extension.

"You see," he went on to explain, "Bailey's wanting in the essentials."

"What essentials?" said I.

"Oh! he'd be like a nasty oily efficient little machine for some merely
subordinate necessity among all my delicate stuff. He'd do all we wanted
no doubt in the way of money and powers--and he'd do it wrong and mess
the place for ever. Hands all black, you k