I pondered. “Mamma says it is a very noble calling, authorship,” I remembered, “and that any one ought to be very proud and glad to be able to write books, because they give people happiness and make them forget things; and that one ought to be very good if one is going to be an author, so as to be worthy to help and teach others.”
“And do you try to be good, Paul?” he enquired.
“Yes,” I answered; “but it's very hard to be quite good—until of course you're grown up.”
He smiled, but more to himself than to me. “Yes,” he said, “I suppose it is difficult to be good until you are grown up. Perhaps we shall all of us be good when we're quite grown up.” Which, from a gentleman with a grey beard, appeared to me a puzzling observation.
“And what else does mamma say about literature?” he asked. “Can you remember?”
Again I pondered, and her words came back to me. “That he who can write a great book is greater than a king; that the gift of being able to write is given to anybody in trust; that an author should never forget he is God's servant.”
He sat for awhile without speaking, his chin resting on his folded hands supported by his gold-topped cane. Then he turned and laid a hand upon my shoulder, and his clear, bright eyes were close to mine.
“Your mother is a wise lady, Paul,” he said. “Remember her words always. In later life let them come back to you; they will guide you better than the chatter of the Clubs.”
“And what modern authors do you read?” he asked after a silence: “any of them—Thackeray, Bulwer Lytton, Dickens?”
“I have read 'The Last of the Barons,'” I told him; “I like that. And I've been to Barnet and seen the church. And some of Mr. Dickens'.”