He came, in the morning.  One has only to set eyes upon him to know that one is in the presence of a hero, to feel that his poetry just streams from him like light from the sun; that it is not the central warmth, but the flying rippling radiance of the outward-bound light, falling in momentary beauty on the common things about his path.  He is a great big man, carelessly dressed, like a Homeric king.  I liked everything about him from head to foot, his big carelessly-worn clothes, the bright tie thrust loosely through a cameo ring; his loose shaggy locks, his strong beard.  His face, with its delicate pallor, and purely moulded features, had a youthful air of purity and health; yet there was a dim trouble of thought on his brow, over the great, smiling, flashing grey eyes.  He came in with a sort of royal greeting, he flung his big limbs on a sofa; he talked easily, quietly, lavishly, saying fine things with no effort, dropping a subject quickly if he thought it did not interest me; sometimes flashing out with a quick gesture of impatience or gusto, enjoying life, every moment and every detail.  His quick eyes, roving about, took in each smallest point, not in the weary feverish way in which I apprehend a new scene, but as though he liked everything new and unfamiliar, like an unsated child.  He greeted Maud and the children with a kind of chivalrous tenderness and intimacy, as though he loved all pretty and tender things, and took joy in their nearness.  He held Alec between his knees, and played with him while he talked.  The children took possession of him, as if they had known him all their lives.  And yet there was no touch of pose, no consciousness of greatness or vigour about him.  He was as humble, grateful, interested, as though he were a poor stranger dependent on our bounty.  I asked him in a quiet moment about his work.  “No, I am writing nothing,” he said with a smile, “I have said all I have got to say,”—­and then with a sudden humorous flash, “though I believe I should be able to write more if I could get decent paper and respectable type to print my work.”  I ventured to ask if he did not feel any desire to write?  “No,” he said, “frankly I do not—­the world is so full of pleasant things to do and hear and see, that I sometimes think myself almost a fool for having spent so much time in scribbling.  Do you know,” he went on, “a delicious story I picked up the other day?  A man was travelling in some God-forsaken out-of-the-way place—­I believe it was the Andes—­and he fell in with an old podgy Roman priest who was going everywhere, in a state of perpetual fatigue, taking long expeditions every day, and returning worn-out in the evening, but perfectly content.  The man saw a good deal of the priest, and asked him what he was doing.  The priest smiled and said, ’Well, I will tell you.  I had an illness some time ago and believed that I was going to die.  One evening—­I was half unconscious—­I thought I saw some one standing by my bed.  I