ed to evade Swinburne's vehement
insistence by parading an affection for Alfred de Musset. Swinburne
would have none of it; De Musset was unequal; he did not sustain
himself on the wing.

Adams would have given a world or two, if he owned one, to sustain
himself on the wing like De Musset, or even like Hugo; but his
education as well as his ear was at fault, and he succumbed.
Swinburne tried him again on Walter Savage Landor. In truth the
test was the same, for Swinburne admired in Landor's English the
qualities that he felt in Hugo's French; and Adams's failure was
equally gross, for, when forced to despair, he had to admit that
both Hugo and Landor bored him. Nothing more was needed. One who
could feel neither Hugo nor Landor was lost.

The sentence was just and Adams never appealed from it. He knew his
inferiority in taste as he might know it in smell. Keenly mortified
by the dullness of his senses and instincts, he knew he was no
companion for Swinburne; probably he could be only an annoyance; no
number of centuries could ever educate him to Swinburne's level,
even in technical appreciation; yet he often wondered whether there
was nothing he had to offer that was worth the poet's acceptance.
Certainly such mild homage as the American insect would have been
only too happy to bring, had he known how, was hardly worth the
acceptance of any one. Only in France is the attitude of prayer
possible; in England it became absurd. Even Monckton Milnes, who
felt the splendours of Hugo and Landor, was almost as helpless as
an American private secretary in personal contact with them. Ten
years afterwards Adams met him at the Geneva Conference, fresh
from Paris, bubbling with delight at a call he had made on Hugo; "I
was shown into a large room," he said, "with women and men seated
in chairs against the walls, and Hugo at one end throned. No one
spoke. At last Hugo raised his voice solemnly, and uttered the
words: "Quant a moi, je crois en Dieu!" Silence followed. Then a
woman responded as if in deep meditation: "Chose sublime! un Dieu
qui croit en Dieu!"

The _Chose sublime_ is an Adamesque touch! It gives the last delicate
tint to the impression. Page after page gleams with such impressions and
such touches. He looks deep, and he sees clearly. But he lacks faith! H