“Yes, there is a good deal in that,” said Father Payne, “but ought not the trained critics to withstand it?”

“The trained critic,” said Gladwin, “the man who sells his opinion of a work of art for money, is, of course, the debased outcome of a degrading system.  If you press me, I should consider that both the extravagant laudation and the equally extravagant reaction are entirely vulgar and horrible.  Personally, I am not easily pleased:  but then what does it matter whether I am pleased or not?”

“But you sometimes bring yourself to form, and even express, an opinion?” said Father Payne with a smile.

“An opinion—­an opinion”—­said Gladwin, shaking his head, “I don’t know that I ever get so far as that.  One has a kind of feeling, no doubt; but it is so far underground, that one hardly knows what its operations may be.”

“‘Well said, old mole!  Canst work i’ the earth so fast?  A worthy pioneer!’” said Payne, laughing.

Gladwin gave a quick smile:  “A good quotation!” he said, “that was very ready!  I congratulate you on that!  But there’s more of the mole than the pioneer about my work, such as it is!”

Gladwin drifted about the next day like a tired fairy.

He had a long conference with Father Payne, and at dinner he seemed aloof, and hardly spoke at all.  He vanished the next day with an air of relief.  “Well, what did you think of our guest?” said Father Payne to me, meeting me in the garden before dinner.

“Well,” I said, “he seemed to me an unhappy, heavily-burdened man—­but he was evidently extraordinarily able.”

“Yes,” said Father Payne, “that’s about it.  His mind is too big for him to carry.  He sees everything, understands everything, and passes judgment on everything.  But he hasn’t enough vitality.  It must be an awful curse to have no illusions—­to see the inferiority of everything so clearly.  He’s awfully lonely, and I must try to see more of him.  But it is very difficult.  I used to amuse him, and he appointed me, in a way he has, a sort of State Jester—­Royal Letters Patent, you know.  But then he began to detect the commonness of my mind and taste, and, one by one, all the avenues of communication became closed.  If I liked a book which he disliked, and praised it to him, he became inflicted with a kind of mental nausea:  and it’s impossible to see much of a man, with any real comfort, when you realise that you are constantly turning him faint and sick.  I had a dreary time with him yesterday.  He produced some critical essays of his own, which he was thinking of making into a book.  They were awfully dry, like figs which have been kept too long—­not a drop of juice in them.  They were hideously acute, I saw that.  But there wasn’t any reason why they should have been written.  They were mere dissections:  I suggested that he should call them ‘Depreciations,’ and he shivered, and I felt a brute.  But that didn’t last long, because he has a way of putting you in your place.