at men
dream and imagine and play that they are! How much darker, how much
smaller, and therefore how much more interesting and wonderful. No one
has yet written--perhaps because no one has yet conceived--such a book
as I have in mind. I might call it a 'Bionopsis.'"

"But surely," said I, "you have chosen a strange place to write it--the
Hilltop School--this quiet and secluded region! The stream of humanity
is very slow and slender here--it trickles. You must get out into the
busy world. You must be in the full current and feel its force. You must
take part in the active life of mankind in order really to know it."

"A mistake!" he cried. "Action is the thing that blinds men. You
remember Matthew Arnold's line:

In action's dizzying eddy whurled.

To know the world you must stand apart from it and above it; you must
look down on it."

"Well, then," said I, "you will have to find some secret spring of
inspiration, some point of vantage from which you can get your outlook
and your insight."

He stopped short and looked me full in the face.

"And that," cried he, "is precisely what I have found!"

Then he turned and pushed along the narrow trail so swiftly that I had
hard work to follow him. After a few minutes we came to a little stream,
flowing through a grove of hemlocks. Keene seated himself on the fallen
log that served for a bridge and beckoned me to a place beside him.

"I promised to give you an explanation to-day--to take you on one of my
long walks. Well, there is only one of them. It is always the same. You
shall see where it leads, what it means. You shall share my secret--all
the wonder and glory of it! Of course I know my conduct, has seemed
strange to you. Sometimes it has seemed strange even to me. I have been
doubtful, troubled, almost distracted. I have been risking a great deal,
in danger of losing what I value, what most men count the best thing in
the world. But it could not be helped. The risk was worth while. A great
discovery, the opportunity of a lifetime, yes, of an age, perhaps of
many ages, came to me. I simply could not throw it away. I must use it,
make the best of it, at any danger, at any cost. You shall judge for
yourself whether I was right or wrong. But you must judge fairly,
without haste, without prejudice. I ask you to make me one promise. You
will suspend judgment, you will say nothing, you will keep my secret,
until you have been with me three times at the place where I