's worldly shrewdness. For
Cooper was unendowed with worldly shrewdness, and, like all dreamers,
was attracted by a mind which controlled while he might only attempt
to understand. Cooper's aspirations towards an ideal tickled Silk's
mind as it prepared its snares. Cooper often invited Silk to dine
with him at the National Liberal Club; Silk sometimes asked Cooper to
dine with him at the Union. Silk and Cooper were considered alike,
and there were many points in which their appearances coincided.
Cooper was the shorter man of the two, but both were tall, thin,
narrow, and sallow complexioned; both were essentially clean,
respectable, and middle-class.

Cooper was the son of a Low Church bishop who had gained his mitre by
temperance oratory, and what his Lordship was in the cathedral,
Cooper was in the suburban drawing-rooms where radical politics and
the woman's cause were discussed. When he had a brief he brought it
to the library to show it; he almost lived in the library. He arrived
the moment it was opened, and brought a packet of sandwiches so as
not to waste time going out to lunch. His chambers were furnished
without taste, but the works of Comte and Spencer showed that he had
attempted to think; and the works of several socialistic writers
showed that he had striven to solve the problem of human misery. On
the table were several novels by Balzac, which conversation with
Harding had led him to purchase and to read. He likewise possessed a
few volumes of modern poetry, but he freely confessed that he
preferred Pope, Dryden, and Johnson; and it was impossible to bring
him to understand that De Quincey was more subtle and suggestive than
the author of London.

Generally our souls are made of one conspicuous modern mental aspect;
but below this aspect we are woven and coloured by the spirit of some
preceding century, our chance inheritance, and Cooper was a sort of
product of the pedantry of Johnson and the utilitarian mysticism of
Comte. Perhaps the idea nearest to Cooper's heart was "the woman's
cause." The misery and ignominy of human life had affected him, and
he dreamed of the world's regeneration through women; and though well
aware that Comte and Spencer advocate the application of experience
in all our many mental embarrassments, he failed to reconsider
his beliefs in female virtue, although frequently pressed to do
so by Mike. Some personal animosity had grown out of their desire
to convince each other. C