Meetings with King 



sketch of Spanish character and cir- 

 cumstance, Mambrind s Helmet, which 

 is almost as little companioned as it 

 is paralleled. The power of uniting 

 himself by sympathy with an alien 

 life while remaining humorously and 

 critically detached from it, which he 

 evinced in this and the earlier studies, 

 approved him to my thinking an im- 

 aginative talent of the first potential- 

 ity ; and I have to accuse myself of 

 using the wrong word in calling that 

 or any life alien to him. As an artist, 

 as a realistic observer, every kind of 

 life appealed to him for report ; and 

 he was one with it, if I may trust my 

 reading of his work, and my conjec- 

 ture of his nature. He was first of all 

 most tolerant, which is the wisest and 

 best thing any man can be ; but he 

 was not trammeled by his kindness 

 in any helpless complicity. He liked 

 the thing he laughed at, and yet he 

 laughed, for he was both humorous 

 154 



