He
considered--not altogether justly--that Bille cloaked himself in false
earnestness.
He himself was profoundly and actively philanthropic, with an impulse--
by no means universal--to relieve and help. Society life he hated; to
him it was waste of time and a torture to be obliged to figure in a
ballroom; he cared very little for his appearance, and was by no means
elegant in his dress. He was happy, however, in the unconstrained
society of the comrades he cared about, enjoyed a merry chat or a
frolicsome party, and in intimate conversation he would reveal his
inmost nature with modest unpretension, with good-natured wit, directed
against himself as much as against others, and with an understanding and
sympathetic eye for his surroundings. His warmest outburst had generally
a little touch of mockery or teasing about it, as though he were
repeating, half roguishly, the feelings of another, rather than
unreservedly expressing his own. But a heartfelt, steadfast look would
often come into his beautiful dark eyes.
XXV.
His death left a great void in his home. His old father said to me one
day:
"Strange how one ends as one begins! I have written no verses since my
early youth, and now I have written a poem on my grief for Ludvig. I
will read it to you."
There was an Art and Industrial Exhibition in Stockholm, that Summer,
which C.
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