congenial to him. He had always
rather effaced himself in the presence of our ecclesiastical visitors,
and had avoided the constraint of their dignity. Indeed, up to this time
he had not much gone in search of personal relationships at all except
with equals and contemporaries.

But the ignorance of the world he was about to enter upon was a more
serious factor in his outlook. He knew that he would have to enter
submissively and humbly an entirely strange domain, that he would have
to join a chilly and even suspicious circle--for I suppose a convert to
any new faith is apt to be regarded, until he is fully known, as
possibly weak, indeterminate, and fluctuating, and to be treated with
compassion rather than admiration. With every desire to be sympathetic,
people in conscious possession of security and certainty are naturally
inclined to regard a claimant as bent on acquisition rather than as a
hero eager for self-sacrifice.

Certainly Hugh's dejection, which I think was reserved for his tired
moments, was not apparent. To me, indeed, he appeared in the light of
one intent on a great adventure, with all the rapture of confidence and
excitement about him. As my mother said, he went to the shelter of his
new belief as a lover might run to the arms of his beloved. Like the
soldier in the old song, he did not linger, but "gave the bridle-reins a
shake." He was not either melancholy or brooding. He looked very well,
he was extremely active in mind and in body.

I find the following extract from my diary of August:

"_August_ 1903.--In the afternoon walked with Hugh the Paxhill round.
Hugh is in very good cheerful spirits, steering in a high wind straight
to Rome, writing a historical novel, full of life and jests and laughter
and cheerfulness; not creeping in, under the shadow of a wall, sobbing
as the old cords break; but excited, eager, jubilant, enjoying."

His room was piled with books and papers; he used to rush into meals
with the glow of suspended energy, eat rapidly and with appetite--I have
never seen a human being who ate so fast and with so little preference
as to the nature of what he ate--then he would sit absorbed for a
moment, and ask to be excused, using the old childish formula: "May I
get down?" Sometimes he would come speeding out of his room, to read
aloud a passage he had written to my mother, or to play a few chords on
the piano. He would not as a rule join in games or walks--he went out
for a shor