p. Benlian used to
say that a man went about spreading himself over everything he came in
contact with--diffusing some sort of influence (as far as I could make it
out); and the mistake was, he said, that we went through the world just
wasting it instead of directing it. And if Benlian didn't understand all
about those things, I should jolly well like to know who does! A chap
with a great abounding will and brain like him, it's only natural he
should be able to pass himself on, to a statue or anything else, when he
really tried--did without food and talk and sleep in order to save
himself up for it!

"A man can't both _do_ and _be_," I remember he said to me once. "He's so
much force, no more, and he can either make himself with it or something
else. If he tries to do both, he does both imperfectly. I'm going to do
_one_ perfect thing." Oh, he was a queer chap! Fancy, a fellow making a
thing like that statue, out of himself, and then wanting somebody to
adore him!

And I hadn't the faintest conception of how much I did adore him till
yet again, as he had done before, he seemed to--you know--to take
himself away from me again, leaving me all alone, and so wretched!... And
I was angry at the same time, for he'd promised me he wouldn't do it
again.... (This was one night, I don't remember when.)

I ran to my landing and shouted down into the yard.

"Benlian! Benlian!"

There was a light in his studio, and I heard a muffled shout come back.

"Keep away--keep away--keep away!"

He was struggling--I knew he was struggling as I stood there on my
landing--struggling to let me go. And I could only run and throw myself
on my bed and sob, while he tried to set me free, who didn't want to be
set free ... he was having a terrific struggle, all alone there....

(He told me afterwards that he _had_ to eat something now and then and to
sleep a little, and that weakened him--strengthened him--strengthened
his body and weakened the passing, you know.)

But the next day it was all right again. I was Benlian's again. And I
wondered, when I remembered his struggle, whether a dying man had ever
fought for life as hard as Benlian was fighting to get away from it and
pass himself.

The next time after that that he fetched me--called me--whatever you like
to name it--I burst into his studio like a bullet. He was sunk in a big
chair, gaunt as a mummy now, and all the life in him seemed to burn in
the bottom of his deep eye-sockets. A