how they must have behaved to produce their
present conditions, or how they would be likely to act under different
conditions. Musgrave's one object is to discover what he calls the
truth; Herries thrives and battens upon illusions. Musgrave is fond
of the details of life, loves food and drink, conviviality and social
engagements, new people and unfamiliar places--Herries is quite
indifferent to the garniture of life, lives in great personal
discomfort, dislikes mixed assemblies and chatter, and has a fastidious
dislike of the present, whatever it is, from a sense that possibilities
are so much richer than performances. Musgrave admits that he has been
more successful as a writer than he deserves; Herries is likely, I
think, to disappoint the hopes of his friends, and will not do justice
to his extraordinary gifts, from a certain dreaminess and lack of
vitality. Musgrave loves the act of writing, and is always full to the
brim of matter. Herries dislikes composition, and is yet drawn to it by
a sense of fearful responsibility. Neither have, fortunately, the least
artistic jealousy. Herries regards a man like Musgrave with a sort of
incredulous stupefaction, as a stream of inexplicable volume. Herries
has to Musgrave all the interest of a very delicate and beautiful type,
whose fastidiousness he can almost envy. As a rule, literary men will
not discuss their art among themselves; they have generally arrived at
a sort of method of their own, which may not be ideal, but which is the
best practical solution for themselves, and they would rather not be
disquieted about it; literary talk, too, tends to partake of the
nature of shop, and busy men, as a rule, like to talk the shop of their
recreations rather than the shop of their employment. But Musgrave will
discuss anything; and as for Herries, writing is not an occupation, so
much as a divine vocation which he regards with a holy awe.

The discussion began at dinner, and I was amused to see how it affected
the two men. Musgrave, by an incredible mental agility, contrived to
continue to take a critical interest in the meal and the argument at
the same time; Herries thrust away an unfinished plate, refused what
was offered to him, pushed his glasses about as if they were
chessmen, filled the nearest with water at intervals--he is a rigid
teetotaller--and drank out of them alternately with an abstracted air.

The point was the question of literary finish, and the degree to wh