"You want something to do," he said, "and you shall have some light employment." That same day, before Amroth left me, I had a curious talk with him. I said to him: "Let me ask you one question. I had always had a sort of hope that when I came to the land of spirits, I should have a chance of seeing and hearing something of some of the great souls of earth. I had dimly imagined a sort of reception, where one could wander about and listen to the talk of the men one had admired and longed to see--Plato, let me say, and Shakespeare, Walter Scott, and Shelley--some of the immortals. But I don't seem to have seen anything of them--only just ordinary and simple people." Amroth laughed. "You do say the most extraordinarily ingenuous things," he said. "In the first place, of course, we have quite a different scale of values here. People do not take rank by their accomplishments, but by their power of loving. Many of the great men of earth--and this is particularly the case with writers and artists--are absolutely nothing here. They had, it is true, a fine and delicate brain, on which they played with great skill; but half the artists of the world are great as artists, simply because they do not care. They perceive and they express; but they would not have the heart to do it at all, if they really cared. Some of them, no doubt, were men of great hearts, and they have their place and work. But to claim to see all the highest spirits together is as absurd as if you called on a doctor in London at eleven o'clock and expected to meet all the great physicians at his house, intent on general conversation. Some of the great people, indeed, you have met, and they were very simple persons on earth. The greatest person you have hitherto seen was a butler on earth--the master of your College. And if it does not shock your aristocratic susceptibilities too much, the President of this place kept a small shop in a country village. But one of the teachers here was actually a marquis in the world! Does that uplift you? He teaches the little girls how to play cricket, and he is a very good dancer. Perhaps you would like to be introduced to him?" "Don't treat me as a child," I said, rather pettishly. "No, no," said Amroth, "it isn't that. But you are one of those impressible people; and they always find it harder to disentangle themselves from the old ideas."