"_August_ 1903.--In the afternoon walked with Hugh the Paxhill round.
Hugh is in very good cheerful spirits, steering in a high wind straight
to Rome, writing a historical novel, full of life and jests and laughter
and cheerfulness; not creeping in, under the shadow of a wall, sobbing
as the old cords break; but excited, eager, jubilant, enjoying."

His room was piled with books and papers; he used to rush into meals
with the glow of suspended energy, eat rapidly and with appetite--I have
never seen a human being who ate so fast and with so little preference
as to the nature of what he ate--then he would sit absorbed for a
moment, and ask to be excused, using the old childish formula: "May I
get down?" Sometimes he would come speeding out of his room, to read
aloud a passage he had written to my mother, or to play a few chords on
the piano. He would not as a rule join in games or walks--he went out
for a short, rapid walk by himself, a little measured round, and flew
back to his work. He generally, I should think, worked about eight hours
a day at this time. In the evening he would play a game of cards after
dinner, and would sit talking in the smoking-room, rapidly consuming
cigarettes and flicking the ash off with his forefinger. He was also, I
remember, very argumentative. He said once of himself that he was
perpetually quarrelling with his best friends. He was a most experienced
coat-trailer! My mother, my sister, my brother, Miss Lucy Tait who lives
with us, and myself would find ourselves engaged in heated arguments,
the disputants breathing quickly, muttering unheeded phrases, seeking in
vain for a loophole or a pause. It generally ended by Hugh saying with
mournful pathos that he could not understand why everyone set on
him--that he never argued in any other circle, and he could only entreat
to be let alone. It is true that we were accustomed to argue questions
of every kind with tenacity and even with invective. But the fact that
these particular arguments always dealt with the inconsistencies and