, ordinary creature, who attained
to extraordinary popularity. I often wondered why; after he had left, I
asked a boy to tell me; he thought for a moment, and then he said, "I
suppose, sir, it was because when we were all talking about other
chaps--and one does that nearly all the time--he used to be as much
down on them as any one else, and he never jawed--but he always had
something nice to say about them, not made up, but as if it just came
into his head."

Well, I must stop; I suppose you are forging out over the Bay, and
sleeping, I hope, like a top. There is no sleep like the sleep on a
steamer--profound, deep, so that one wakes up hardly knowing where or
who one is, and in the morning you will see the great purple
league-long rollers. I remember them; I generally felt very unwell; but
there was something tranquillising about them, all the same--and then
the mysterious steamers that used to appear alongside, pitching and
tumbling, with the little people moving about on the decks; and a mile
away in a minute. Then the water in the wake, like marble, with its
white-veined sapphire, and the hiss and smell of the foam; all that is
very pleasant. Good night, Herbert!--Ever yours,

T. B.

UPTON,
Feb. 9, 1904.

MY DEAR HERBERT,--I hope you have got Lockhart's Life of Scott with
you; if not, I will send it out to you. I have been reading it lately,
and I have a strong wish that you should do the same. It has not all
the same value; the earlier part, the account of the prosperous years,
is rather tiresome in places. There is something boisterous,
undignified--even, I could think, vulgar--about the aims and ambitions
depicted. It suggests a prosperous person, seated at a well-filled
table, and consuming his meat with a hearty appetite. The desire to
stand well with prominent persons, to found a family, to take a place
in the county, is a perfectly natural and wholesome desire; but it is a
commonplace ambition. There is a charm in the simplicity, the
geniality, the childlike zest of the man; but there is nothing great
about it. Then comes the crash; and suddenly, as though a curtain drew
up, one is confronted with the spectacle of an indomitable and
unselfish soul, bearing a heavy burden with magnificent tranquillity,
and settling down with splendid courage to an almost intolerable task.
The energy displayed by our hero in attempting to write off the load of
debt that hung round his neck is superhuman, august.