I had no wish whatever to be rude to Mr. Morrow, I was much too initiated not to tend to more diplomacy; but I had a quick inspiration, and I entertained an insurmountable, an almost superstitious objection to his crossing the threshold of my friend’s little lonely shabby consecrated workshop. “No, no—we shan’t get at his life that way,” I said. “The way to get at his life is to—But wait a moment!” I broke off and went quickly into the house, whence I in three minutes reappeared before Mr. Morrow with the two volumes of Paraday’s new book. “His life’s here,” I went on, “and I’m so full of this admirable thing that I can’t talk of anything else. The artist’s life’s his work, and this is the place to observe him. What he has to tell us he tells us with _this_ perfection. My dear sir, the best interviewer is the best reader.” Mr. Morrow good-humouredly protested. “Do you mean to say that no other source of information should be open to us?” “None other till this particular one—by far the most copious—has been quite exhausted. Have you exhausted it, my dear sir? Had you exhausted it when you came down here? It seems to me in our time almost wholly neglected, and something should surely be done to restore its ruined credit. It’s the course to which the artist himself at every step, and with such pathetic confidence, refers us. This last book of Mr. Paraday’s is full of revelations.” “Revelations?” panted Mr. Morrow, whom I had forced again into his chair. “The only kind that count. It tells you with a perfection that seems to me quite final all the author thinks, for instance, about the advent of the ‘larger latitude.’” “Where does it do that?” asked Mr. Morrow, who had picked up the second volume and was insincerely thumbing it. “Everywhere—in the whole treatment of his case. Extract the opinion, disengage the answer—those are the real acts of homage.” Mr. Morrow, after a minute, tossed the book away. “Ah but you mustn’t take me for a reviewer.” “Heaven forbid I should take you for anything so dreadful! You came down to perform a little act of sympathy, and so, I may confide to you, did I. Let us perform our little act together. These pages overflow with the testimony we want: let us read them and taste them and interpret them. You’ll of course have perceived for yourself that one scarcely does read Neil Paraday till one reads him aloud; he gives out to the ear an extraordinary full tone, and it’s only when you expose it confidently to that test that you really get near his style. Take up your book again and let me listen, while you pay it out, to that wonderful fifteenth chapter. If you feel you can’t do it justice, compose yourself to attention while I produce for you—I think I can!—this scarcely less admirable ninth.”