“Oh, no, you don’t,” he said; “this is too simple for you!  You want something more artistic and more psychological.  This would bore you to extinction.”

We walked all round the place, saw the games going on, and were presently joined by Amroth, who seemed to be on terms of old acquaintanceship with my friend.  I was surprised at this, and he said: 

“Why, yes, Amroth had the pleasure of bringing me here too.  Things are done here in groups, you know; and Amroth knows all about our lot.  It is very well organised, much better than one perceives at first.  You remember how you and I drifted to school together, and the set of boys we found ourselves with—­my word, what young ruffians some of us were!  Well, of course all that had been planned, though we did not know it.”

“What!” said I; “the evil as well as the good?”

The two looked at each other and smiled.

“That is not a very real distinction,” said Amroth.  “Of course the poor bodies got in the way, as always; there was some fizzing and some precipitation, as they say in chemistry.  But you each of you gave and received just what you were meant to give and receive; though these are complicated matters, like the higher mathematics; and we must not talk of them to-day.  If one can escape the being shocked at things and yet be untainted by them, and, on the other hand, if one can avoid pomposity and yet learn self-respect, that is enough.  But you are tired to-day, and I want you just to rest and be refreshed.”

Presently Amroth asked me if I should like to stay there awhile, and I most willingly consented.

“You want something to do,” he said, “and you shall have some light employment.”

That same day, before Amroth left me, I had a curious talk with him.

I said to him:  “Let me ask you one question.  I had always had a sort of hope that when I came to the land of spirits, I should have a chance of seeing and hearing something of some of the great souls of earth.  I had dimly imagined a sort of reception, where one could wander about and listen to the talk of the men one had admired and longed to see—­Plato, let me say, and Shakespeare, Walter Scott, and Shelley—­some of the immortals.  But I don’t seem to have seen anything of them—­only just ordinary and simple people.”

Amroth laughed.

“You do say the most extraordinarily ingenuous things,” he said.  “In the first place, of course, we have quite a different scale of values here.  People do not take rank by their accomplishments, but by their power of loving.  Many of the great men of earth—­and this is particularly the case with writers and artists—­are absolutely nothing here.  They had, it is true, a fine and delicate brain, on which they played with great skill; but half the artists of the world are great as artists, simply because they do not care.  They perceive and they express; but they would not have the heart