e enamoured
couldn't be conceived, and Mrs. Highmore, honest woman, who had moreover
a professional sense for a love-story, was eager to take them under her
wing. What was wanted was a decent opening for Limbert, which it had
occurred to her I might assist her to find, though indeed I had not yet
found any such matter for myself. But it was well known that I was too
particular, whereas poor Ralph, with the easy manners of genius, was
ready to accept almost anything to which a salary, even a small one, was
attached. If he could only for instance get a place on a newspaper the
rest of his maintenance would come freely enough. It was true that his
two novels, one of which she had brought to leave with me, had passed
unperceived and that to her, Mrs. Highmore personally, they didn't
irresistibly appeal; but she could all the same assure me that I should
have only to spend ten minutes with him (and our encounter must speedily
take place) to receive an impression of latent power.

Our encounter took place soon after I had read the volumes Mrs. Highmore
had left with me, in which I recognised an intention of a sort that
I had then pretty well given up the hope of meeting. I daresay that
without knowing it I had been looking out rather hungrily for an altar
of sacrifice: however that may be I submitted when I came across Ralph
Limbert to one of the rarest emotions of my literary life, the sense
of an activity in which I could critically rest. The rest was deep and
salutary, and it has not been disturbed to this hour. It has been
a long, large surrender, the luxury of dropped discriminations. He
couldn't trouble me, whatever he did, for I practically enjoyed him as
much when he was worse as when he was better. It was a case, I suppose,
of natural prearrangement, in which, I hasten to add, I keep excellent
company. We are a numerous band, partakers of the same repose, who sit
together in the shade of the tree, by the plash of the fountain, with
the glare of the desert around us and no great vice that I know of but
the habit perhaps of estimating people a little too much by what they
think of a certain style. If it had been laid upon these few pages,
none the less, to be the history of an enthusiasm, I should not have
undertaken them: they are concerned with Ralph Limbert in relations to
which I was a stranger or in which I participated only by sympathy. I
used to talk about his work, but I seldom talk now: the brotherhood of
the