r pour her serene, unearthly radiance; while
we, footsore, hungry, thirsty, and quite absurdly elated at our
success, would press on towards some twinkle of light in the distance,
which told us of refreshment, and possibly a welcome railroad journey
home.

It was only natural that, on those rambles which we took after Mr.
Carville had begun his story and while he himself was rambling more
extensively about the Western Ocean, my friend and I would discuss him
and the highly stimulating outlook upon life which his original mind
working in a novel medium had engendered. Indeed, it would not be too
much to say that he monopolized our interest to the exclusion of Art. Or
rather he, as a living and concrete example, became a kind of test, to
which we brought a great deal we had thought and seen and read. To me he
became significant of even more, for he contravened, in his own life and
philosophy, so much that is generally taken for granted in fiction, that
I grew doubtful both of him and the conventions he flouted. It had been
obvious to me for some years that any advance in imaginative work seemed
impossible inasmuch as the most advanced men had found nothing ahead but
a stone wall, against which they advanced in vain. The theory that there
was a hole in this wall somewhere, through which we could get into a
freer air and less trammelled conditions, was attractive enough. We were
all looking for this hole, but somehow it had eluded us. I, in my humble
way, had groped and analyzed and plotted to find it, but without
success, when suddenly it seemed to me I heard a voice from the other
side, Mr. Carville's voice, telling us not only what the world looked
like out there, but also how he got there. This is no doubt a fanciful
picture; but one of Mr. Carville's salient points was the way he, the
least fanciful of men, appealed to the fancy of others and painted
pictures without the use of violent colours and futile superlatives. And
the impersonal note which he maintained did really give to his story the
effect of a voice coming over a wall.

So I looked at the matter, and so I explained it on our long walks
through Pompton and on to Greenwood Lake. But my friend, though he
accepted much of my theorizing as interesting, was struck most
powerfully by Mr. Carville's strange attitude towards his native land.
It was all very well, Mac urged, to get through a hole in the wall and
show the way to freedom from conventions in art, thoug