But the war
and the Commission changed him,--worried him and aged him.... I grudged
him to that Commission. He let it worry him frightfully."
"It meant very much to him," said Dr. Martineau.
"It meant too much to him. But of course his ideas were splendid. You
know it is one of my hopes to get some sort of book done, explaining his
ideas. He would never write. He despised it--unreasonably. A real thing
done, he said, was better than a thousand books. Nobody read books, he
said, but women, parsons and idle people. But there must be books. And
I want one. Something a little more real than the ordinary official
biography.... I have thought of young Leighton, the secretary of the
Commission. He seems thoroughly intelligent and sympathetic and really
anxious to reconcile Richmond's views with those of the big business men
on the Committee. He might do.... Or perhaps I might be able to persuade
two or three people to write down their impressions of him. A sort
of memorial volume.... But he was shy of friends. There was no man he
talked to very intimately about his ideas unless it was to you... I wish
I had the writer's gift, doctor."
Section 7
It was on the second afternoon that Lady Hardy summoned Dr. Martineau
by telephone. "Something rather disagreeable," she said.
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