Indeed, his presence sufficiently denied it. How shall I describe him? A sturdy, thick-set figure, inclining to rotundity, yet athletic; a face extraordinarily mobile; bushy, grey eyebrows; eyes at once deeply and radiantly human, yet holding the primitive faun in their coverts; a broad mouth made for broad, natural laughter, hearty without lewdness. "There are nice Rabelaisians, and there are nasty; but the latter are not Rabelaisians. I have an idea," he claimed, "that my judgment within this area is infallible." And it was. All honest laughter he welcomed as a Godlike function. "God sits upon His hill, And sees the shadows fly; And if He laughs at fools, why should He not?" And for that matter, why should not we? Though at this point his fine manners intervened, correcting, counselling moderation. "I am certain God made fools for us to enjoy, but there must be _an economy of joy_ in the presence of a fool; you must not betray your enjoyment." Imagine all this overlaid with a certain portliness of bearing, suggestive of the high-and-dry Oxford scholar. Add something of the parsonic (he was ordained deacon before leaving Oxford, but did not proceed to priest's orders till near the end of his time at Clifton); add a simple natural piety which purged the parsonic of all "churchiness." "This silence and solitude are to me absolute food," he writes from the Clifton College Library on the morning of Christmas Day, 1875, "especially after all the row and worry at the end of Term. . . . Where are the men and women? Well, now look here, you'll not mention it again. They're all in church. See how good God is! See how He has placed these leitourgic traps in which people, especially disagreeable people, get caught--and lo! the universe for me!!! me-- me. . . ."