If I am rhetorical it is because Stroeve was rhetorical. (Do we not know that man in moments of emotion expresses himself naturally in the terms of a novelette?) Stroeve was trying to express a feeling which he had never known before, and he did not know how to put it into common terms. He was like the mystic seeking to describe the ineffable. But one fact he made clear to me; people talk of beauty lightly, and having no feeling for words, they use that one carelessly, so that it loses its force; and the thing it stands for, sharing its name with a hundred trivial objects, is deprived of dignity. They call beautiful a dress, a dog, a sermon; and when they are face to face with Beauty cannot recognise it. The false emphasis with which they try to deck their worthless thoughts blunts their susceptibilities. Like the charlatan who counterfeits a spiritual force he has sometimes felt, they lose the power they have abused. But Stroeve, the unconquerable buffoon, had a love and an understanding of beauty which were as honest and sincere as was his own sincere and honest soul. It meant to him what God means to the believer, and when he saw it he was afraid. “What did you say to Strickland when you saw him?” “I asked him to come with me to Holland.” I was dumbfounded. I could only look at Stroeve in stupid amazement. “We both loved Blanche. There would have been room for him in my mother’s house. I think the company of poor, simple people would have done his soul a great good. I think he might have learnt from them something that would be very useful to him.” “What did he say?” “He smiled a little. I suppose he thought me very silly. He said he had other fish to fry.” I could have wished that Strickland had used some other phrase to indicate his refusal. “He gave me the picture of Blanche.” I wondered why Strickland had done that. But I made no remark, and for some time we kept silence. “What have you done with all your things?” I said at last. “I got a Jew in, and he gave me a round sum for the lot. I’m taking my pictures home with me. Beside them I own nothing in the world now but a box of clothes and a few books.” “I’m glad you’re going home,” I said. I felt that his chance was to put all the past behind him. I hoped that the grief which now seemed intolerable would be softened by the lapse of time, and a merciful forgetfulness would help him to take up once more the burden of life. He was young still, and in a few years he would look back on all his misery with a sadness in which there would be something not unpleasurable. Sooner or later he would marry some honest soul in Holland, and I felt sure he would be happy. I smiled at the thought of the vast number of bad pictures he would paint before he died. Next day I saw him off for Amsterdam. Chapter XL