“The old humbug!”

A little shiver ran through Mr. Eames.  Then he observed, in a suave tone of voice: 

“He was an historian of the period, an agreeable gentleman telling others of his kind what he knows will be of interest to them.  That is what makes his work attractive to me:  the personality of the writer.  The facts that he records, taken in conjunction with those he slurs over or omits—­they give one such an insight into changing human nature!  You can construct the character of a man and his age not only from what he does and says, but from what he fails to say and do.”

“Modern historians are not like that,” said Mr. Heard.  “They give you the truth to the best of their ability.  It is rather dry reading sometimes.  I would like to borrow your Perrelli for a day or two, if you don’t mind.”

“I’ll send it round, together with some old prints of this island and modern photographs.  You will then see what I mean.  The prints are not exactly true to nature; these people did not want to be true to nature.  And yet they convey a better impression of the place than the modern pictures.  Perhaps there are two truths:  the truth of fact and that of suggestion.  Perrelli is very suggestive; romance grafted upon erudition, and blossoming out of it!  So imaginative!  He has a dissertation on the fishes of Nepenthe—­it reads like a poem and is yet full of practical gastronomic hints.  Can you picture Virgil collaborating with Apicius?”

The bishop said: 

“Horace might have got on better with that old Bon-VIVANT.”

“Horace could never have had a hand in this chapter.  He lacks the idealistic tinge.  He could never have written about red mullets as Perrelli writes when he compares their skin to the fiery waves of Phelgethon, to the mantle of rosy-fingered dawn, to the blush of a maiden surprised in her bath, and then goes on to tell you how to cook the b east in thirty different ways and how to spit out the bones in the most noiseless, genteel fashion.  That is Perrelli—­so original, so leisurely.  Always himself!  He smiled as he wrote; there is not a shadow of doubt about it.  In another section, on the fountains of the island, he deliberately indulges in the humour of some old mediaeval schoolman.  Then there is a chapter on the ecclesiastical conditions of the place under Florizel the Fat—­it is full of veiled attacks on the religious orders of his own day; I suspect it got him into trouble, that chapter.  I am sorry to say there is a good deal of loose talk scattered about his pages.  I fear he was not altogether a pure-minded man.  But I cannot bring myself to despise him.  What do you think?  Certain problems are always cropping up, aren’t they?”

Mr. Eames suddenly looked quite troubled.

“They are,” replied the bishop, who was not in a mood to discuss ethics just then.  “What are you going to do about it?” he added.

“About what?”