intellectual line, to ventilate ideas, to write, to teach--that's a
fine life--to be able to hold one's own in talk and discussion--
that's where we country people fail. I have plenty of ideas, you
know, myself, but I can't put them into shape, into form, so to
speak."

"I think Jack would rather like a commercial career," said Howard.
"It's the only thing he has ever mentioned; and I am sure he might
do well if he could get an opening; he likes real things, he says."

"He does!" said Mr. Sandys enthusiastically--"that's what he always
says. Do you know, if you won't think me very vain, Howard, I
believe he gets that from me. Maud is different--she takes after
her dear mother--whose loss was so irreparable a calamity--my dear
wife was full of imagination; it was a beautiful mind. I will show
you some of her sketches when you come to see us--I am looking
forward to that--not much technique, perhaps, but a real instinct
for beauty; to be just, a little lacking in form, but full of
feeling. Well, Jack, as I was saying, likes reality. So do I! A
firm hold on reality--that's the best thing; I was not intellectual
enough for the life of thought, and I fell back on humanity--vastly
engrossing! I assure you, though you would hardly think it, that
even these simple people down here are most interesting: no two of
them alike. My old friends say to me sometimes that I must find
country people very dull, but I always say, 'No two of them alike!'
Of course I try to keep my intellectual tastes alive--they are only
tastes, of course, not faculties, like yours--but we read and talk
and ventilate our ideas, Maud and I; and when we are tired of
books, why I fall back on the great book of humanity. We don't
stagnate--at least I hope not--I have a horror of stagnation. I