“The fruit of the Spirit,” wrote the wise apostle—­who knew, too, the bitter pleasures of a vehement controversy, and was no milk-and-water saint—­“the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, meekness, long-suffering, kindness.”  None of these fruits hang upon the vigorous boughs of our friend’s tree.  He is rather like that detestable and spidery thing the araucaria, which has a wound for every tender hand, and invites no bright-eyed feathered songsters to perch or build among its sinister branches.

The only critic who helps me is the critic whose humility keeps pace with his acuteness, who leads me gently where he has himself trodden patiently and observantly, and does not attempt to disfigure and ravage the regions which he has not been able to desire to explore.  The man who will show me unsuspected connections, secret paths of thought, who will teach me how to extend my view, how I may pass quietly from the known to the unknown; who will show me that stars and flowers have voices, and that running water has a quiet spirit of its own; and who in the strange world of human life will unveil for me the hopes and fears, the deep and varied passions, that bind men together and part them, and that seem to me such unreasonable and inexplicable things if they are bounded by the narrow fences of life—­emotions that travel so long and intricate a path, that are born with such an amazing suddenness and attain so large a volume, so fierce a velocity—­this is the interpreter and guide whom I would welcome, even if he know but a little more than myself; while if my guide is infallible and disdainful, if he denies what he cannot see and derides what he has never felt, then I feel that I have but one enemy the more, in a place where I am beset with foes.

XXXVI

I have had rather a humiliating experience to-day.  A young literary man, whom I knew slightly, came down to see me, and stayed the night.  He was a small, shapely, trim personage, with a pale, eloquent face, large eyes, mobile lips, and of extraordinary intelligence.  I was prepared—­I make the confession very frankly—­to find a certain shyness and deference about my young friend.  He has not made his mark as yet, though I think he is likely to make it; he has written nothing in particular, whereas I am rather a veteran in these matters.

We had a long talk about all kinds of things, mostly books; and it presently dawned upon me that, so far from being either shy or deferential, it was rather the other way.  He looked upon himself, and quite rightly, as an advanced and modern young man, brimful of ideas and thoroughly abreast of the thoughts and movement of the day.  Presently I made a fresh discovery, that he looked upon me as an old fogey, from whom intelligence and sympathy could hardly be expected.  He discussed some modern books with great acuteness, and I became aware that, so far from desiring to learn my opinion, he had not the slightest