It is strange, if one considers carefully what houses they are that one would thus wish to visit, to reflect how many of them are homes of poets, and after them of novelists.  It is the personal, the imaginative, the creative touch that weaves the spell, I do not think that one would travel far to see the house of a historian or a philosopher, however eminent; I do not personally even desire to see the houses of generals or statesmen or philanthropists.  I would rather visit Rydal Mount than Hughenden; I should experience a greater exaltation of soul at Haworth than at Strathfieldsaye.  I would rather see the lane where Tennyson wrote “Break, break, break,” than Mr. Gladstone’s library at Hawarden.  Not that the houses of statesmen and generals are not interesting; I would take some trouble to visit them if I were in the neighbourhood of them; but it would be a mental rather than a spiritual pleasure, and when one was there one would tend to ask questions rather than contemplate the scene in silent awe.  It may be a sentimental thing to say, but I should hope to visit Brantwood and Somerby Rectory with my heart full of prayer and my eyes full of tears, just as I should visit some old and well-loved house that had been the scene for me of happy days and loving memories.

What I find to regret in these latter days is—­I say it with shame—­that there is no house of any living writer which I should visit with this sense of awe and desire and sacredness.  There are writers whom I honour and admire greatly, whose work I reverence and read, but there is no author alive a summons to whose presence I should obey with eager solemnity and devout expectation.  That is perhaps my own fault, or the fault perhaps of my advancing years; but, to put it differently, there is no author now writing whose book I should order the moment I saw it announced, and await its arrival with keen anticipation.  There are books announced that I determine I will see and read, but no books that I feel are sure to hold some vital message of truth and beauty.  I cannot help feeling that this is a great loss.  I remember the almost terrible excitement with which I saw Tennyson stalking out of Dean’s Yard at Westminster, with his dark complexion, his long hair, his strange, ill-fitting clothes, his great glasses, his dim yet piercing look.  I recollect the timid expectation with which I went to meet Robert Browning—­and the disappointment which I endured in his presence at his commonplace bonhomie, his facile, uninteresting talk.  I remember, as an undergraduate, begging and obtaining an introduction to Matthew Arnold, who stood robed in his scarlet gown at an academical garden-party; and I shall never forget the stately and amiable condescension with which he greeted me.  But what seer of high visions, what sayer of ineffable things, transforming the commonplace world into a place of spirits and heavenly echoes, now moves and breathes among us?  The result of our present conditions of life seems to be to develop a large number of effective and accomplished people, but not to evolve great, lonely, majestic figures of indubitable greatness.