I began to perceive at last that he was feeling as Hamlet did when the bones of Yorick were unearthed; with a kind of luxurious pity for my mouldering conditions; touched, perhaps, a little by the thought that I was excluded from the bright and brave shows of earth, and sadly conscious of the odour of corruption.  I felt as he strolled with me round my garden on the following morning that he was regarding my paltry, unadventurous life with a sincere pity, as the life of one who had stolen from the brisk encounters of wit and revelry to a quiet bedroom and a basin of gruel.  And yet the curious thing was that I felt no kind of resentment about it at all.  I did not envy him his youth and his pride; indeed, I felt glad to have escaped from it, if I was like what he was at his age.  The world seemed full to me of a whole range of fine sensations, gentle secrets, remote horizons, of which he had no perception.  Indeed, I think he despised my whole conception of patient and faithful art.  His idea rather was that one should not spend much time over work, but that one should break at intervals into a spurting, fizzing flame, and ascend like a rocket over the heads of the crowd, discharging a shower of golden stars.

I may, of course, be only coming down like a burnt-out stick; and this is where the humiliation lies; but I feel rather as if I were soaring to worlds unknown:  though perhaps, after all, that is only one of the happy delusions, the gentle compensations, which God showers down so plentifully upon the middle-aged.

I have had two visitors lately who have set me reflecting upon the odd social habits of the men of my nation.  They were not unusual experiences—­indeed I think they may fairly be called typical.

One of these was a man who invited himself to come and see me; the excuse, a small matter of business; but he added that we had many common friends, that he had read my books, and much wished to make my acquaintance.

He came down to luncheon and to spend the afternoon.  He was a tall, handsome, well-dressed man, with a courteous, conventional manner, but every inch a gentleman.  He had a perfect social ease; he began by paying me rather trite compliments, saying that he found my books extremely sympathetic, and that I constantly put feelings into words which he had always had and which he had never been able to express.  Then we turned to our business and finished it in five minutes.  It now remained to fill the remainder of the time.  We strolled round the garden; we lunched; we strolled again.  We had an early tea, and I walked down to the station with him.  I had thought that perhaps he wished to discuss some of the topics on which I had written in my books; but he did not appear to have any such wish.  He had lately taken a house himself in the country; and he appeared to wish to tell me about that.  I was delighted to hear about it, because I am always interested to hear how other people live; but I began to be surprised when I discovered