dation
of human endeavour and sympathy. He had no philosophic grasp of history,
nor was he a student of the psychology of religion. His instincts were
all individualistic and personal; and indeed I believe that all his life
he was an artist in the largest sense, in the fact that his work was
the embodiment of dreams, the expression of the beauty which he
constantly perceived. His ideal was in one sense a larger one than the
technically artistic ideal, because it embraced the conception of moral
beauty even more ardently than mere external beauty. The mystical
element in him was for ever reaching out in search of some Divine
essence in the world. He was not in search at any time of personal
relations. He attracted more affection than he ever gave; he rejoiced
its sympathy and kindred companionship as a flower rejoices in sunshine;
but I think he had little taste of the baffled suffering which
accompanies all deep human passion. He once wrote "God has preserved me
extraordinarily from intimacies with others. He has done this, not I. I
have longed for intimacies and failed to win them." He had little of the
pastoral spirit; I do not think that he yearned over unshepherded souls,
or primarily desired to seek and save the lost. On the other hand he
responded eagerly to any claim made to himself for help and guidance,
and he was always eager not to chill or disappoint people who seemed to
need him. But he found little satisfaction in his work at the Eton
Mission, and I do not think he would ever have been at home there.

At Kemsing, on the other hand, he had an experience of what I may fairly
call the epicureanism of religion. The influences there were mainly
aesthetic; the creation of a circle like that at Kemsing would have been
impossible without wealth. Beautiful worship, refined enjoyment,
cultivated companionship were all lavished upon him. But he soon tired
of this, because it was an exotic thing. It was a little paradise of a
very innocent kind, from which all harsh and contradictory elements had
been excluded. But this mere sipping of exquisite flavours became to him
a very objectless thing, because it corresponded to no real need. I
believe that if at this time he had discovered his literary gifts, and
had begun seriously to write, he might have been content to remain
under such conditions, at all events for a time. But he had as yet no
audience, and had not begun to exercise his creative imagination.
Moreover, to a