I am called the Saint of Victoria Street because I live in a
sort of London cloister with you for my companion, and in the cloister
I read or I give myself up to music, and I hang my walls with pictures,
and I wonder at the sins of men, and I believe I am that deadly thing,
a Pharisee."
"But you are perfectly tolerant."
"Am I? I often find myself sneering at the follies of others, at what I
call their coarsenesses, their wallowing in the mire."
"It is wallowing."
"And which is most human, the man who drives in a carriage, or the man
who walks sturdily along the road, and gets the mud on his boots, and
lets the rain fall on him and the wind be his friend? I suspect it is
a fine thing to be out unsheltered in a storm, Julian."
Julian's dark eyes were glowing. Valentine spoke with an unusual, almost
with an electric warmth, and Julian was conscious of drawing very near to
him tonight. Always in their friendship, hitherto, he had thought of
Valentine as of one apart, walking at a distance from all men, even from
him. And he had believed most honestly that this very detachment had
drawn him to Valentine more than to any other human being. But to-night
he began suddenly to feel that to be actually side by side with his
friend would be a very glorious thing.
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