disposed to be friendly, and it struck Mr. Direck that for a man of his
real intellectual distinction Mr. Britling was unusually short.

For there can be no denying that Mr. Britling was, in a sense,
distinguished. The hero and subject of this novel was at its very
beginning a distinguished man. He was in the _Who's Who_ of two
continents. In the last few years he had grown with some rapidity into a
writer recognised and welcomed by the more cultivated sections of the
American public, and even known to a select circle of British readers.
To his American discoverers he had first appeared as an essayist, a
serious essayist who wrote about aesthetics and Oriental thought and
national character and poets and painting. He had come through America
some years ago as one of those Kahn scholars, those promising writers
and intelligent men endowed by Auguste Kahn of Paris, who go about the
world nowadays in comfort and consideration as the travelling guests of
that original philanthropist--to acquire the international spirit.
Previously he had been a critic of art and literature and a writer of
thoughtful third leaders in the London _Times_. He had begun with a
Pembroke fellowship and a prize poem. He had returned from his world
tour to his reflective yet original corner of _The Times_ and to the
production of books about national relationships and social psychology,
that had brought him rapidly into prominence.

His was a naturally irritable mind, which gave him point and passion;
and moreover he had a certain obstinate originality and a generous
disposition. So that he was always lively, sometimes spacious, and never
vile. He loved to write and talk. He talked about everything, he had
ideas about everything; he could no more help having ideas about
everything than a dog can resist smelling at your heels. He sniffed at
the heels of reality. Lots of people found him interesting and