ther forms of religious life, rather than in tracing the
movements of the soul. Probably this was inseparable from the position
Hugh had taken up, and there was not the slightest pose, or desire to
improve the situation about his mind. The descriptions, the
lightly-touched details, the naturalness and ease of the talk are
wholly admirable. He must have been a very swift observer, both of
nature and people, because he never gave the least impression of
observing anything. I never saw him stop to look at a view, or go into
raptures over anything beautiful or picturesque; in society he was
either silent and absorbed, or more commonly extremely animated and
expansive. But he never seemed to be on the look-out for any impressions
at all, and still less to be recording them.

I believe that all his books, with the exception, perhaps, of _Richard
Raynal_, can be called brilliant improvisations rather than deliberate
works of art. "I write best," he once said, "when I rely most on
imagination." The time which elapsed from his conception of an idea to
the time when the book was completed was often incredibly short. I
remember his telling me his first swift thought about _The Coward_; and
when I next asked him about it, the book had gone to the publishers and
he was writing another. When he was actually engaged in writing he was
oblivious of all else, and lived in a sort of dream. I have several
sketches of books which he made. He used to make a rough outline, a kind
of _scenario_, indicating the gradual growth of the plot. That was done
rapidly, and he always said that the moment his characters were
conceived, they began to haunt his mind with emphatic vividness; but he
wrote very fast, and a great quantity at a time. His life got fuller and
fuller of engagements, but he would get back to Hare Street for a day or
two, when he would write from morning to night with a brief interval for
gardening or handicraft, and briefer intervals for meals. He was fond of
reading aloud bits of the books, as they grew. He read all his books
aloud to my mother in MS., and paid careful heed to her criticisms,
particularly with reference to his female characters, though it has been
truly said that the women in his novels are mostly regarded either as
indirect obstacles or as direct aids to conversion.

Mr. Belloc once said, very wisely and truly, that inertia was the
breeding-ground of inspiration. I think, on the whole, that the total
and entire