say that, and why you should expect
to take so much pleasure in the beauty of heaven, when you have taken
so little trouble to see anything of the beauty of earth;" and then he
left me; and I reflected that I had always been doing my work in a dull
humdrum way, in the same place all my life; and I determined that, if I
got well, I would go about and see something of the glory that IS
revealed to us, and not expect only the glory that SHALL BE revealed to
us.' It is a fine story," he went on, "and makes a parable for us
writers, who are inclined to think too much about our work, and
disposed to see that it is very good, like God brooding over the
world." He sate for a little, smiling to himself. And then I plied him
with questions about his writing, how his thoughts came to him how he
worked them out. He told me as if he was talking about some one else,
half wondering that there could be anything to care about. I have heard
many craftsmen talk about their work, but never one who talked with
such detachment. As a rule, writers talk with a secret glee, and with a
deprecating humility that deceives no one; but the great man talked,
not as if he cared to think about it, but because it happened to
interest me. He strolled with me, he lunched; and he thanked us when he
went away with an earnest and humble thankfulness, as though we had
extended our hospitality to an obscure and unworthy guest. And then his
praise of my own books--it was all so natural; not as if he had come
there with fine compliments prepared, with incense to burn; but
speaking about them as though they were in his mind, and he could not
help it. "I read all you write," he said; "ah, you go deep--you are a
lucky fellow, to be able to see so far and so minutely, and to bring it
all home to our blind souls. He must be a terrible fellow to live
with," he said, smiling at my wife. "It must be like being married to a
doctor, and feeling that he knows so much more about one than one knows
oneself--but he sees what is best and truest, thank God; and says it
with the voice of an angel, speaking softly out of his golden cloud."

I can't say what words like these have meant to me; but the visit
itself, the sight of this strong, equable, good-humoured man, with no
feverish ambitions, no hankering after fame or recognition, has done
even more. I have heard it said that he is indolent, that he has not
sufficient sense of responsibility for his gifts. But the man has done