power. "The sentimentalist," he says, "goes on accumulating images
and hiving sensations, till such time as (if the stuff be in him) they
assume a form of vitality, and hurry him headlong. This is not passion,
though it amazes men, and does the madder thing."

In fine, it is Hippogriff. And right loath am I to continue my
partnership with a fellow who will not see things on the surface, and
is, as a necessary consequence, blind to the fact that the public detest
him. I mean, this garrulous, super-subtle, so-called Philosopher, who
first set me upon the building of 'The Three Volumes,' it is true, but
whose stipulation that he should occupy so large a portion of them
has made them rock top-heavy, to the forfeit of their stability. He
maintains that a story should not always flow, or, at least, not to
a given measure. When we are knapsack on back, he says, we come
to eminences where a survey of our journey past and in advance is
desireable, as is a distinct pause in any business, here and there.
He points proudly to the fact that our people in this comedy move
themselves,--are moved from their own impulsion,--and that no arbitrary
hand has posted them to bring about any event and heap the catastrophe.
In vain I tell him that he is meantime making tatters of the puppets'
golden robe illusion: that he is sucking the blood of their warm
humanity out of them. He promises that when Emilia is in Italy he
will retire altogether; for there is a field of action, of battles and
conspiracies, nerve and muscle, where life fights for plain issues, and
he can but sum results. Let us, he entreats, be true to time and place.
In our fat England, the gardener Time is playing all sorts of delicate
freaks in the lines and traceries of the flower of life, and shall
we not note them? If we are to understand our species, and mark the
progress of civilization at all, we must. Thus the Philosopher. Our
partner is our master, and I submit, hopefully looking for release with
my Emilia, in the day when Italy reddens the sky with the banners of a
land revived.

I hear Wilfrid singing out that he is aloft, burning to rush ahead,
while his beast capers in one spot, abominably ludicrous. This trick of
Hippogriff is peculiar, viz., that when he loses all faith in himself,
he sinks--in other words, goes to excesses of absurd humility to regain
it. Passion has likewise its panting intervals, but does nothing so
preposterous. The wreath of black briony, s