Not one reader in a million, laughing over that merciless and iridescent book that Julia Oliphant said he had written in little more than three months, had the faintest idea of the sheer burden of merely intellectual work that lay behind it. Piece by piece he had dissected the whole of our national economy before setting pen to paper at all. Bear with me for a moment if I take one little piece only--Shipping. It will give an idea of the scale, not so much of the _Vicarage_ only as of that far vaster thing--the book he now projected and for the sake of which he clung so desperately to his "false middle" of thirty-three. Men (he argued) need ships; but, over and above those who actually handle them, ships need men no less. From one standpoint ships exist in order that men may be carried from one place to another; but from the opposite standpoint a ship is merely a hungry belly that must be constantly fed with its human food--passengers. Without its meal of passengers it cannot live for a week. Thus, the Thing must move the Man from one place to another whether he wishes it or not, whether in itself it is desirable that he should be moved or not. The ships of one nation snarl at those of another for this sustenance. Where then is the balance? Where does blind force get the upper hand, and where wise control? What happens if the power is usurped by a "Vicar" who can by no means be dislodged?... I need say no more. You see the yawning immensities of it. And that was only Shipping. There were a hundred other things. He had applied his brilliant intellect to them all in turn, and had (as I may say) so "orchestrated" the whole that in the result it seemed the easiest of improvisations. And now think what his present plan was! He contemplated, not an analysis of one system, _but a welding of analyses of all systems_! That was why he sought to juggle with his own years--that he might combine the enthusiasm of sixteen with the grasp and certainty and power of forty-five, and at the same time assure the coincidence between his past and his present impulses to create. Montesquieu had never dreamed of such a work--Moses' task had been simpler. Therefore I saw the position as follows: He was thirty-three. But thirty-three was a falsemiddle. He was in a rage to attempt a But the dazzling endeavour might work for which no man had ever elude him at any moment. been equipped as he was equipped. He would make that python-meal But he might be thirty again of material and produce a before he digested it. super-_Vicarage_. He was still hanging on, his But he was hanging on as a enthusiasm at its keenest, straphanger hangs on--totteringly, his experience at its richest. insecurely. Once he had got going he would But not until he got going. take a week off with me, a day with Julia Oliphant.