f his
limbs was denied him, he took a keener delight than any man I have
ever known in the compensations that his mind, through books, and his
senses, through contact with the outer world, brought him. Beauty of
color and form, beauty in nature, beauty in people, was an exquisite
pleasure to him, and music an intense--I had almost said a sacred
passion. He drank in lovely sights and sweet sounds with an almost
painful appreciation, and I remember well his telling me in his
whimsical way--it was during one of the last conversations I had with
him before my departure--that, travel about as I would with my mere
automatic arms and legs, I could never overtake such happiness as he
did on the wings of harmony.

"We corresponded, from time to time, for a year or two, I in the usual
manner and he by means of dictation to his servant, who was an earnest
if somewhat poor performer on the type-writer. But gradually the
thread of our intercourse was broken in some way and our letters
ceased."

"I've always said that nothing but community of interests preserved
friendship," declared the writer sententiously, "with the exception,
of course, of our own."

"I was surprised, therefore," went on the clergyman, "to receive about
eighteen months ago a brief note telling me that a great sorrow and a
great joy had come into his life almost simultaneously, and begging me
to go to him, if he might so far trespass upon our acquaintance, as he
had 'matters about which it behooved a man'--I am repeating his
words--'to consult another wiser than himself.' I started at once. It
took me all day to accomplish the journey, and it was early evening
when I arrived at the little station he had mentioned as the place
where he would send somebody to meet me. I found the carriage without
difficulty, and was driven for some five miles through the beautiful
autumn woods.

"It was a low, square, comfortable-looking paper-weight of a house,"
he went on after a moment, "beaming welcome from an open front door,
where my friend's confidential servant stood waiting for me. He
conducted me at once to my room, saying that dinner would be served as
soon as I could make myself ready and join his master in the library.
This I made haste to do. I found my friend in his wheeled chair, near
a cheerfully crackling fire in a delightful room lined with books from
its scarlet-carpeted floor to its oak-beamed ceiling. He welcomed me
warmly and yet with a certain constrain