tude in regard to things psychological. It was this fact,
perhaps, which made him say to me, half humorously
but half in earnest, when he knew that he was leaving the
office to die, as I also knew it, "Remember, Strachey, if
you ever write anything about me in The Spectator, I will
haunt you!"

I obeyed his wish and clearly must alway do so, though
not merely for this warning. Indeed, I remember well
hoping that perhaps his spirit might still be anxious, and
might find it possible to revisit his room, of which I had
become the occupant. In this instance, at least, "the
harsh heir" would not have resented the return. As I
sat at his table late in the evening and heard, as we so
often did in our river-side office, wild gusts of wind blow-
ing up the Thames, rattling my windows, sweeping up the
stairway, and shaking the door, I often caught myself
trying to believe that it was Hutton's half-lame step on
the threshold, and that at any moment he might fling
open the door, put his hand in mine, and ask a hundred
things of the paper and the staff. But, alas! he never
came. As on many other occasions in my life, the desire
to be haunted, the longing to see the dead was not potent,
efficient, authoritative. But I must write no more of
Hutton. If we cannot see the dead, at least we must keep
troth with them.

Of Mr. Townsend I am happy in being able to speak
quite freely. I am not trammelled by any promise. Be-
fore doing so, however, I would most strongly insist that
no one shall suppose that because I say so much more
of him than of his brother Editor, it is because my
heart felt warmer towards him. I had, indeed, the
warmest of feelings towards both, then. If anyone were to
ask me which I liked the better, I should find it impossible
to answer. They were both true friends. They made a

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