other life, so different from his own in kind and temper. What was it? Was it the sharp mind, that original and penetrating instrument which picked up the old and weary problems of the spirit by new handles, displaying without labour planes and facets rarely seen? With what fierce joy he welcomed those long walks together in the night, along the quiet streets of Cambridge, or by the marvellous river that wound away small and magical in the blazing moonlight into the sweet, dark countryside! What other pleasure, what other appeasement of his mind and sense had been so complete and wonderful as that which came from this association as, oblivious of the world, they carried on their fierce debate about all things under heaven; his own voice, passionate, torrential, and wild, crying out against the earth, the moon, invoking all the gods of verse and magic while his mind played rivers of lightning across the vast fields of reading and experience!
And how eagerly he waited for the answers of that other voice, quiet, weary, drawling—how angrily he stormed against its objections, how hungrily and gratefully he fed upon its agreement! What other tongue had had the power to touch his pride and his senses as this one had—how cruelly had its disdain wounded him, how magnificently had its praise filled his heart with glory! On these nights when he and Starwick had walked along the river in these vehement, passionate, and yet affectionate debates, he would relive the scene for hours after it had ended, going over their discussion again and again, remembering every gesture, every intonation of the voice, every flash of life and passion in the face. Late in the night he would pace up and down his room, or pause dreaming by his window, still carrying on in his mind the debate with his friend, inventing and regretting splendid things he might have said, exulting in those he had said and in every word of approval or burst of laughter he had provoked. And he would think: Ah, but I was good there! I could see how he admired me, how high a place I have in his affection. For when he says a thing he means it: he called me a poet, his voice was quiet and full of passion; he said my like had never been, that my destiny was great and sure.
Was this, then, the answer?
Until this period of his life he had drunk very little: in spite of the desperate fear his mother had that each of her children inherited the whisky disease—“the curse of liquor,” as she called it—from their father, he felt no burning appetite for stimulant. Alone, he never sought it out, he
