Walter was in danger, as you very well understand.  There is no need at this time of day to remind ourselves of teachers who have fallen into the fatal springe of apostolicism.  Men would so fain be prophets, when once they have a fellow mortal by the ear.  Egremont could have exposed this risk to you as well as any, yet he deliberately ignored it in his own case—­no great novelty that.  ’Have I not something veritably to say?  Are not thoughts of and for the present surging in my mind?  Whereto have we language if not for the purpose of uttering the soul within us?’ So he fell to work on his introductory lecture, and for a few days had peace—­nay, lived in enthusiasm once more.

His week of absence at Christmas, of which we have heard, was spent again in Jersey.  To the roaring music of the Channel breakers he built up his towers and battlements of prophecy.  More, he wrote a poem, and for a day wondered whether it might be well to read it to his audience as preface.  A friendly sprite whispered in his ear, and saved him from too utter folly.  The sprite had not yet forsaken him; woe to him if ever it should!  He wrapped the poem in a letter to Mr. Newthorpe, and had a very pleasant reply, written, as he afterwards heard, only a day or two before Mr. Newthorpe fell ill.  Annabel sent her message; ‘the verses were noble, and pure as the sea-foam.’

On returning to town, he sent a note to Grail, asking him to come in the evening to Great Russell Street or, if that were inconvenient, to appoint a time for a meeting in Walnut Tree Walk.  Gilbert accepted the invitation, and came for the first time to Egremont’s rooms.

Things were not ill with him, Gilbert Grail.  You saw in the man’s visage that he had put off ten years of haggard life.  His dark, deep eyes spoke their meanings with the ardour of soul’s joy; his cheeks seemed to have filled out, his brows to have smoothed.  It was joy of the purest and manliest.  His life had sailed like some battered, dun-coloured vessel into a fair harbour of sunlight and blue, and hands were busy giving to it a brave new aspect.  He could scarce think of all his happiness at once; the coming release from a hateful drudgery, and the coming day which would put Thyrza’s hand in his, would not go into one perspective.  Sometimes he would all but forget the one in thinking of the other.  Now let the early mornings be dark and chill as they would, let the sky lower in its muddy gloom, let weariness of the flesh do its worst—­those two days were approaching.  Why, was he not yet young?  What are five-and-thirty years behind one, when bliss unutterable beckons forward?  It should all be forgotten, that grimy past poisoned through and through with the stench of candles.  Books, books, and time to use them, and a hearth about which love is busy—­what more can you offer son of man than these?

He had written his acceptance, had endeavoured to write his thanks.  The words were ineffectual.