times part of a general angelic reservoir and sometimes in
single samples, but definite personalities. His was only
a fierce and violent way of saying what Tennyson said so
exquisitely in the immortal lines:

Eternal form shall still divide
The eternal soul from all beside,
And I shall know him when we meet.

There can be no eternal form without an edge. The edge,
the dividing-line, is the essential thing in individuals, and
Townsend's mind had pounced upon this as a cat will fall
like a thunderbolt upon a mouse. It was in this vivid,
practical way that his mind worked. He jumped all the
intermediate things and came out with the essential in his
mouth. But those who had slow or atrophied minds and
did not see the process often failed to recognise what he
was after, or what a clever kill he had made.

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