he case of Crashaw.

V

Challis came back in early September, and it was he who first coaxed,
and then goaded me into rebellion.

Challis did not come too soon.

At the end of August I was seeing visions, not pleasant, inspiriting
visions, but the indefinite, perplexing shapes of delirium.

I think it must have been in August that I stood on Deane Hill, through
an afternoon of fine, driving rain, and had a vision of myself playing
tricks with the sands of life.

I had begun to lose my hold on reality. Silence, contemplation, a
long-continued wrestle with the profound problems of life, were
combining to break up the intimacy of life and matter, and my brain was
not of the calibre to endure the strain.

Challis saw at once what ailed me.

He came up to the farm one morning at twelve o'clock. The date was, I
believe, the twelfth of September. It was a brooding, heavy morning,
with half a gale of wind blowing from the south-west, but it had not
rained, and I was out with the Wonder when Challis arrived.

He waited for me and talked to the flattered Mrs. Berridge, remonstrated
kindly with her husband for his neglect of the farm, and incidentally
gave him a rebate on the rent.

When I came in, he insisted that I should come to lunch with him at
Challis Court.

I consented, but stipulated that I must be back at Pym by three o'clock
to accompany the Wonder for his afternoon walk.

Challis looked at me curiously, but allowed the stipulation.

We hardly spoke as we walked down the hill--the habit of silence had
grown upon me, but after lunch Challis spoke out his mind.

On that occasion I hardly listened to him, but he came up to the farm
again after tea and marched me off to dinner at the Court. I was
strangely plastic when commanded, but when he suggested that I should
give up my walks with the Wonder, go away ... I smiled and said
"Impossible," as though that ended the matter.

Challis, however, persisted, and I suppose I was not too far gone to
listen to him. I remember his saying: "That problem is not for you or me
or any man living to solve by introspection. Our work is to add
knowledge little by little, data here and there, for future evidence."

The phrase struck me, because the Wonder had once said "There are no
data," when in the early days I had asked him whether he could say
definitely if there was any future existence possible for us?

Now Challis put it to me that our work was to find data, th