to me. I do not know whether Miss Battersby's
advice was asked. Mine certainly was not. Nor was I told at the time the
result of the deliberations. That leaked out long afterward, when the
wedding was over and we had returned home to settle down, I scarcely
hoped, in peace. I suspected, of course, that I should be made to do
something, and I was agreeably surprised that no form of labour was
directly imposed on me for some time. Lalage, acting no doubt on my
mother's advice, decided to shepherd rather than goad me along the way
on which it was decided that I should go.

She began by saying in a casual way, one night after dinner, that she
did not think I had any real taste for political life. I agreed with
her heartily. Then she and my mother smiled at each other in a way which
made me certain that they had some other career for me in mind. Shortly
afterward they took to talking a great deal about books, especially at
meal times, and several literary papers appeared regularly on my study
table. I came to the conclusion that they wished me to become a patron
of literature, perhaps to collect a library or to invite poets to spend
their holidays with us. I was quite willing to fall in with this plan,
but I determined, privately, only to become acquainted with poets of
a peaceable kind who wrote pastorals or elegies and went out for long,
solitary walks to commune with nature. In my eagerness to please Lalage
I went so far as to write to Selby-Harrison, asking him to make out for
me a list of the leading poets of the meditative and mystical schools. I
also gave an order to a bookseller for all the books of original poetry
published during that autumn. The number of volumes I received surprised
me. I used to exhibit them with great pride to my mother and Lalage. I
once offered to read out extracts from them in the evening.

"The bent of your genius," said Lalage, "is evidently literary."

My mother backed her up of course.

"It is," I said, "and always was. It's a great pity that it wasn't found
out sooner. Think of the time I wasted in Portugal and of that wretched
episode in East Connor. However, there's no use going back on past
mistakes."

"They weren't altogether mistakes," said Lalage. "We couldn't have known
that you were literary until we found out that you weren't any good at
anything else."

"That view of literature," I said, "as the last refuge of the
incompetent, is quite unworthy of you, Lalage. Recollect