ng. The sounds were unmeaning to me; not infrequently they
were absolutely discordant. But I had confidence enough in the
superiority of their intellects over mine not to condemn, still less to
scoff. At these times I held my tongue. Genius is not improved by
irreverent criticism.

I spoke with Cospatric one day about keeping all these creative gifts
to himself. Why did he not share them with the outside world?

He gave a bit of a shudder. "Don't suggest such an idea," he said.
"It's my one sensitive place. All the rest have been hammered dull in
my roamings. I must keep that as it is."

And then at another time: "You know I can't conceive of a sensitive
man, be he musician or painter, or even writer of romance, who would
put out his very best for an indiscriminate public to browse upon or
trample over. He knows and feels the thing he has created to be a
beautiful thing and an original thing, and he has been at much pains to
arrive at it, although there were special items in his own constitution
which helped him. And he can be sure that there are a large percentage
of pigs in the public by whom his pearl will not be appreciated. Its
shape and its colour are new to them; and not having come within the
range of their limited vision before, therefore its building must be
altogether wrong. But that is not the worst. Spoken babblings one might
be deaf to; written stuff is sure to be cut out by a friend and posted
for you to enjoy with your morning's coffee. Those infernal newspapers
get hold of the thing you have made, and their verdict depends upon the
individual taste of some anonymous 'we.' He may not like your sardines,
and accordingly, though it does not therefore follow that sardines are
unfit for human food, he proceeds to slate sardines with all his tricks
of satire and argument, and to cover the maker and even the eater of
sardines with ridicule."

He stopped then, and I asked if he had been catching it somewhere.

He laughed, "No, I've never had my name once in a paper that I know of;
not even under the heading of Police Intelligence. I'm singularly
uneager for fame. I'm only talking from what I've seen occasionally.
That's been warning enough for me. It must sour a man to be jeered at
in that sort of way, and, thanks, I prefer not to be soured. I've no
superfluous sweetness."

* * * * *

All this may seem rather absurd, but I give it just to show what manner
of a man C