way of telling one what he conceived to be the truth, which, as
he had less imagination than a dormouse, generally it was not.
For if the truth is a jewel, it is one coloured and veiled by
many different lights and atmospheres.

It only remains to add that he was learned in his theological
fashion and that among his further peculiarities were the slow,
monotonous voice in which he uttered his views in long sentences,
and his total indifference to adverse argument however sound and
convincing.

My other friend, Bickley, was a person of a quite different
character. Like Bastin, he was learned, but his tendencies faced
another way. If Bastin's omnivorous throat could swallow a camel,
especially a theological camel, Bickley's would strain at the
smallest gnat, especially a theological gnat. The very best and
most upright of men, yet he believed in nothing that he could not
taste, see or handle. He was convinced, for instance, that man is
a brute-descended accident and no more, that what we call the
soul or the mind is produced by a certain action of the grey
matter of the brain; that everything apparently inexplicable has
a perfectly mundane explanation, if only one could find it; that
miracles certainly never did happen, and never will; that all
religions are the fruit of human hopes and fears and the most
convincing proof of human weakness; that notwithstanding our
infinite variations we are the subjects of Nature's single law
and the victims of blind, black and brutal chance.

Such was Bickley with his clever, well-cut face that always
reminded me of a cameo, and thoughtful brow; his strong, capable