n of the _Sorrows of
Werther_, "that is a novel I picked up some time ago. It has afforded me
great pleasure, though immoral."

"O, immoral!" cried I, indignant as usual at any complication of art and
ethics.

"Surely you cannot deny that, sir--if you know the book," he said. "The
passion is illicit, although certainly drawn with a good deal of pathos.
It is not a work one could possibly put into the hands of a lady; which
is to be regretted on all accounts, for I do not know how it may strike
you; but it seems to me--as a depiction, if I make myself clear--to rise
high above its compeers--even famous compeers. Even in Scott, Dickens,
Thackeray, or Hawthorne, the sentiment of love appears to me to be
frequently done less justice to."

"You are expressing a very general opinion," said I.

"Is that so, indeed, sir?" he exclaimed, with unmistakable excitement.
"Is the book well known? and who was GO-EATH? I am interested in that,
because upon the title-page the usual initials are omitted, and it runs
simply 'by GO-EATH.' Was he an author of distinction? Has he written
other works?"

Such was our first interview, the first of many; and in all he showed
the same attractive qualities and defects. His taste for literature
was native and unaffected; his sentimentality, although extreme and a
thought ridiculous, was plainly genuine. I wondered at my own innocent
wonder. I knew that Homer nodded, that Caesar had compiled a jest-book,
that Turner lived by preference the life of Puggy Booth, that Shelley
made paper boats, and Wordsworth wore green spectacles! and with all
this mass of evidence before me, I had expected Bellairs to be entirely
of one piece, subdued to what he worked in, a spy all through. As I
abominated the man's trade, so I had expected to detest the man himself;
and behold, I liked him. Poor devil! he was essentially a man on wires,
all sensibility and tremor, brimful of a cheap poetry, not without
parts, quite without courage. His boldness was despair; the gulf behind
him thrust him on; he was one of those who might commit a murder rather
than confess the theft of a postage-stamp. I was sure that his coming
interview with Carthew rode his imagination like a nightmare; when the
thought crossed his mind, I used to think I knew of it, and that the
qualm appeared in his face visibly. Yet he would never flinch: necessity
stalking at his back, famine (his old pursuer) talking in his ear; and I
used to wonder w