"When the parson," he said with stolid determination, "goes in for mediæval saints, I don't interfere. He can forge ahead and I won't try to split his wind. But when he talks sailing he must talk sense. No, sir! I do not believe that story—and no Angel Gabriel would make me."
There was a force behind his tones of conviction which amused some of his hearers.
"Jack Cresswell! You surprise me," said Geoffrey loftily.
After lunch the ladies went up into the city to visit some friends, and the men were lying about under the awning, chatting, smoking, and sipping claret.
"Well, there was one thing about that boat that caused the entire disturbance," said Charley, sagaciously. "I've thought the whole thing out; and I put down the trouble to the usual cause—and that is—whisky. When the fishermen found there was liquor on board they 'steered for the open sea,' and when they were all stark, staring, blind drunk they went ashore."
"I fancy you have solved the difficulty," said Mr. Lemons. "The preacher did not, somehow, seem to get hold of me. My notion is that he should come down to your level and help you up—like those Arab chaps that lug and butt you up the Pyramids—not stand at the top and order you to climb."
"Just so," said Geoffrey. "A speaker must in some way make his listeners feel at home with him, just as a novel, to sell well, must contain some one touch of nature that makes the whole world kin. The sympathies must be excited. In books accepted by gentle folk the "one touch" of attractive and primitive nature is refined, and in this shape it is called poetry—in this shape it creates vague and pleasant wonderings, especially in the minds of those whose fancies are capable of no higher intellectual flight. When we see that people so universally seek productions in which nature is only more or less disguised, we seem to understand man better."
"What are you trying to get at now?" asked Jack, with a smiling show of impatience.
"Why," said Hampstead, "take the work of the sprightliest modern novel writers—say, for instance, Besant and Rice. Deduct the fun from their books and the shadowy plot, and what remains? A girl—a fresh, young, innocent girl—who, with her beautiful face and figure, charms the heart. She does not do much, and (with William Black) she says even less; but the people in the book are all in love with her, and the reader becomes, in a second-hand and imaginative way, in love with her also. She is quiet, lady-like, and delicious; her surroundings assist in creating an interest in her; but in the dawn and development of love within her lies the chief interest of most readers. The mind concentrates itself without effort when lured by any of our earlier instincts. What we want is a definition as to what degree of careful mental exertion is worthy of being dignified by the name of "thought," as distinguished from that sequence of ideas, without exertion, which is sufficient in all animals for daily routine and the carrying out of instinct."
"There are some of your ideas, Hampstead, which do not seem to promise improvement to anybody," said Jack.