But I find it hard either to judge
him or convey the full development of him to the reader. I saw too much
of him; my memory is choked with disarranged moods and aspects. Now
he is distended with megalomania, now he is deflated, now he is
quarrelsome, now impenetrably self-satisfied, but always he is sudden,
jerky, fragmentary, energetic, and--in some subtle fundamental way that
I find difficult to define--absurd.
There stands out--because of the tranquil beauty of its setting
perhaps--a talk we had in the veranda of the little pavilion near
my worksheds behind Crest Hill in which my aeroplanes and navigable
balloons were housed. It was one of many similar conversations, and I do
not know why it in particular should survive its fellows. It happens
so. He had come up to me after his coffee to consult me about a certain
chalice which in a moment of splendour and under the importunity of
a countess he had determined to give to a deserving church in the
east-end. I, in a moment of even rasher generosity, had suggested Ewart
as a possible artist.
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