That little breakfast–room adjoined Sir Cradockʼs favourite study, and was as pretty a little room as he could have wished to sit in. He had made pretence of breakfasting, but perhaps he looked forward to lunch–time, for not more than an ounce of food had he swallowed altogether. There he sat nervously, trying vainly to bring his mind to bear on the newspaper. Fine gush of irony, serried antithesis, placid assumption of the point at issue, then logic as terse and tight as the turns of a three–inch screw–jack, withering indignation at those who wonʼt think exactly as we do, the sunrise glow of metaphor, the moonlight gleam of simile, the sparkling stars of wit, and the playful Aurora of humour—alas, all these are like water on a duckʼs back when the heart wonʼt let the brain go. If we cannot appreciate their beauty, because our opinions are different, how can we hope to do so when we donʼt care what any opinions are? It is all very well, very easy, to talk about objectivity; but a really objective man the Creator has never shown us, save once; and even He rebuked the fig–tree, to show sympathy with our impatience. And I doubt but it is lest we deify the grand incarnations of intellect—the Platos and the Aristotles, the Bacons and the Shakespeares—that it has pleased the Maker of great and small to leave us small tales of the great ones, mean anecdotes, low traditions; lest at any time we should be dazzled, and forget that they were but sparkles from the dross which heaven hammers on. Oh vast and soaring intellects, was it that your minds flew higher because they had shaken the soul off; or was it that your souls grew sullen at the mindʼs preponderance? Fash we not ourselves about it, though we pay the consequences. If we have not those great minds in the lump, we have a deal more, taking the average, and we make it go a deal further, having learned the art of economy and the division of labour. Nevertheless, Sir Cradock Nowell, being not at all an objective man, lay deep in the pot of despondency; and, even worse than that, hung, jerked thereout every now and then, by the flesh–hook of terror and nervousness. How could he go kindly with his writer when his breakfast would not so with him? He was expecting Bull Garnet. Let alone all his other wearing troubles, he never could be comfortable when he expected Bull Garnet. At every step in the passage, every bang of a door, the proud old gentleman trembled and flushed, and was wroth with himself for doing so. Then Hogstaff came in, and fussed about, and Sir Cradock was fain to find fault with him. “How careless you are getting about the letters, Hogstaff. Later and later every morning! What is the reason that you never now bring me the bag at the proper time?” It was very strange, no doubt, of Job Hogstaff, but he could not bear to be found fault with; and now he saw his way to a little triumph, and resolved to make the most of it.