absence of any species of inertia in Hugh's temperament
reacted in a way unfavourably on his books. I do not think they simmered
in his mind, but were projected, hot and smoking, from the fiery
crucible of thought. There seems to me a breathless quality about them.
Moreover I do not think that there is much trace of the subtle chemistry
of mutual relations about his characters. In life, people undergo
gradual modifications, and other people exert psychological effects upon
them. But in Hugh's books the characters are all fiercely occupied in
being themselves from start to finish; they have exhausted moods, but
they have not dull or vacant moods; they are always typical and
emphatic. This is really to me the most interesting thing about his
books, that they are all projections of his own personality into his
characters. He is behind them all; and writing with Hugh was, like so
many things that he did, a game which he played with all his might. I
have spoken about this elsewhere, because it accounted for much in his
life; and when he was engaged in writing, there was always the delicious
sense of the child, furiously and absorbingly at play, about him.

It is said that no artist is ever really interested in another artist's
work. My brothers, Fred and Hugh, my sister and myself would sometimes
be at home together, and all writing books. Hugh was, I think, always
the first inclined to produce his work for inspection; but we had a
tacit convention which was not in the least unsympathetic, not to feel
bound to be particularly interested in each other's books. My books, I
felt, bored Hugh more than his bored me; but there was this advantage,
that when we read each other's books, as we often did, any critical
praise that we could offer was much more appreciated than if we had
felt bound to proffer conventional admiration. Hugh once told me that he
envied my _sostenuto_; but on another occasion, when I said I had
nothing to write about, and feared I had written too many books, Hugh
said: "Why not write a book about having nothing to write about?" It was
good advice and I took it. I can remember his real and obvious pleasure
when I once praised _Richard Raynal_ to him with all my might. But
though he enjoyed praise, it was always rather because it confirmed his
own belief that his work was worth doing. He did not depend in the
smallest degree either upon applause or sympathy. Indeed, by the time
that a book was out, he had genera