Look at the succesful men in any of the learned professions. How perfectly hideous they are! Except of course in the Church. But then in the Church they don't think. A Bishop keeps on saying at the age of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen, and consequently he always looks absolutley delightful. Your mysterious young friend, whose name you have never told me, but whose picture really fascinates me, never Thinks. I feel quite sure of That. He is a brainless, beautiful thing, who should be always here in winter when we have no flowers to look at and always here in summer when we want something to chill our intelligences. Don't flatter yourself, basil. You are not in the least like him." "You don't understand me Harry. Of course I am not like him. I know that perfectly well. Indeed I shall be sorry to look like him. You shrug your shoulders! I'm telling you the truth. There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different than ones
