as it is in Russia to-day, and, Mrs. Asquith," he added, "why should
this be? We have men of ideas, and are young and keen; why must what is
fine be inarticulate? You won't believe me, but in this very hotel I
heard one man say to another:

"'I never read a line that is not going to profit me in commerce.'

"Imagine, after these five years of anguish all over the world, that
such a thing could be said! I'm a poor man, never likely to arrive, but
I would rather starve than say a thing like that."

"Have you read 'If Winter Comes'?" I asked.

He answered that he had, and told me he had been deeply moved over it;
but did I believe that such a man as Mark Sabre could ever exist; did I
not think he had emanated from a sensitive and creative power, but was
not quite a real being. I replied that it was just because Mark Sabre
was so human, and made by God as well as Hutchinson, that the book was
great.

"If we cared enough, we all have it in us to develop some of Sabre's
qualities, but we must be equally independent of public opinion, equally
tolerant and, above all, equally selfless and loving," I said.

"You may be right, but what good, after all, did it do him?"

"Of course," I replied, "if every time we do or say the right thing we
expect to succeed, matters would be very simple. It is because we are
always meeting with rebuffs that life is so complicated. We must peg
away doing what we can; fundamentally humble and despising popular
opinion. Believe me, you are not the only country exposed to the
temptations you speak of. We can only overcome these eternal
inequalities by pity and self-sacrifice, and of this we have been given
an immortal example."

He got up, and, shaking me firmly by the hand, said:

"It was just as well that Christ was crucified when He was, for He would
not long have survived the hate and antagonism that His ideas provoked
among the conventional, the successful, and the governing classes."

In the afternoon I was taken over the Carnegie Buildings. By the
kindness of Mr. Church I was rolled about in a chair, and enjoyed the
most wonderful institution of its sort that exists. Dr. Holland, who
informed me that he was not only acquainted with all my literary friends
in England, but with most of the crowned heads of Europe, accompanied
us. Stuffed animals in huge glass cases do not usually attract me, but
at the Carnegie Institute they are presented with such life-like skill
that I begged to be