ead or shrinking, but just as it pleased Odysseus to
tell the tale of how he sped down the whirlpool, with death beneath and
death above, facing it all, taking it all in, not cherishing any
delusion of hope, and yet enjoying it as an adventure of real experience
which it was good to have tasted even so.

And when I came to look at some of his letters, and saw the sweet and
generous things which he had said of myself in the old days, his
gratitude for trifling kindnesses and gifts which I had myself
forgotten, I felt a touch of sorrow for a moment that I had not been
even nearer to him than I was, and more in his enlivening company; and I
remembered how, when he arrived to see me, he would come lightly in, say
a word of greeting, and plunge into talk of all that we were doing; and
then I felt that I must not think of him unworthily, as having any
grievance or shadow of concern about my many negligences and coldnesses:
but that we were bound by ties of lasting love and trust, and shared a
treasure of dear memories and kindnesses; and that I might leave his
spirit in its newly found activities, take up my own task in the light
of his vivid example, and look forward to a day when we might be again
together, sharing recollection and purpose alike, as cheerfully and
gladly as we had done in the good days that were gone, with all the
added joy of the new dawn, and with the old understanding made more
perfect.

XVIII

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS

Hugh was always youthful-looking for his age, light and quick in
movement, intent but never deliberate, passing very rapidly from one
thing to another, impatient of boredom and dullness, always desiring to
do a thing that very minute. He was fair of complexion, with grey-blue
eyes and a shock head of light hair, little brushed, and uncut often too
long. He was careless of appearances, and wore clothes by preference of
great shabbiness. He told me in 1909 that he had only bought one suit in
the last five years. I have seen him, when gardening at Hare Street,
wear a pair of shoes such as might have been picked up in a ditch after
a tramp's encampment. At the same time he took a pleasure of a boyish
kind in robes of state. He liked his Monsignor's purple, his red-edged
cassock and crimson cincture, as a soldier likes his uniform. He was in
no way ascetic; and though he could be and often seemed to be wholly
indifferent to food, yet he was amused by culinary experiments, and
coll