He laughed at this, and clapped me on the back. "You're in the same case as I, old man," he said, "only you haven't got such a pile of blood and bones to your credit! Here, we must stow this talk, or we shall become both humbugs and materialists. It's a puzzling business, talking! It leads you into some very ugly places!" LXI OF BOOKISHNESS I went in to see Father Payne one morning about some work. He was reading a book with knitted brows: he looked up, gave a nod, but no smile, pointed to a chair, and I sate down: a minute or two later he shut the book--a neat enough little volume--with a snap, and skimmed it deftly from where he sate, into his large waste-paper basket. This, by the way, was a curious little accomplishment of his,--throwing things with unerring aim. He could skim more cards across a room into a hat than anyone I have ever seen who was not a professed student of legerdemain. "What are you doing?" I said--"such a nice little book!" I rose and rescued the volume, which was a careful enough edition of some poems and scraps of poems, posthumously discovered, of a well-known poet. "Pray accept it with my kindest regards," said Father Payne. "No, I don't know that I _ought_ to give it you. It is the sort of book I object to." "Why?" I said, examining it--"it seems harmless enough." "It's the wrong sort of literature," said Father Payne. "There isn't time, or there ought not to be, to go fumbling about with these old scraps. They aren't good enough to publish--and what's more, if the man didn't publish them himself, you may be sure he had very good reasons for _not_ doing so. The only interest of them is that so good a poet could write such drivel, and that he knew it was drivel sufficiently well not to publish it. But the man who can edit it doesn't know that, and the critics who review it don't know it either--it was a respectful review that made me buy the rubbish--and as for the people who read it, God alone knows what they think of it. It's a case of "'Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes in holy dread.' "You have to shut your eyes pretty tight not to see what bosh it all is--it is all this infernal reverence paid by people, who have no independence of judgment, to great reputations. It reminds me of the barber who used to cut the Duke of Wellington's hair and nails, who made quite a lot of money by selling clippings to put in lockets!" "But isn't it worth while to see a great poet's inferior jottings, and to grasp how he worked?" said I.