Chap­ter VI opens with an eccen­tric yet intrigu­ing arrival that dis­rupts the atmos­phere at Crome with an unex­pect­ed ener­gy. Mr. Bar­be­cue-Smith, with his thick aura of con­fi­dence and spir­i­tu­al flair, becomes impos­si­ble to ignore. Though respect­ed by many for his best­selling inspi­ra­tional works, his behav­ior hints at some­one who may take him­self a bit too seri­ous­ly. His air of supe­ri­or­i­ty is quick­ly felt by Denis, the young writer-in-res­i­dence, who finds him­self caught between admi­ra­tion and irri­ta­tion. At tea, what begins as a cor­dial gath­er­ing turns into a qui­et psy­cho­log­i­cal duel. Barbecue-Smith’s con­de­scend­ing atti­tude toward Denis is not sub­tle, and his remarks cut deep, even if wrapped in gen­til­i­ty.

Denis, who yearns for lit­er­ary suc­cess, finds him­self belit­tled by the very per­son he might oth­er­wise have stud­ied. Bar­be­cue-Smith shares his uncon­ven­tion­al writ­ing process with great pride, describ­ing how he writes by tap­ping into the sub­con­scious mind. Accord­ing to him, it’s a mat­ter of attunement—of align­ing one­self with the Infi­nite to receive words in a con­tin­u­ous stream. His fin­gers, he claims, are mere­ly instru­ments through which wis­dom flows unbid­den. Denis lis­tens, try­ing to mask his dis­be­lief, unsure whether to envy the man or dis­cred­it him entire­ly. Bar­be­cue-Smith even offers advice: clear the mind, open the spir­it, and let the ideas come forth with­out inter­fer­ence.

What’s par­tic­u­lar­ly strik­ing is Barbecue-Smith’s claim that effort is not nec­es­sary if one is tru­ly aligned with the high­er con­scious­ness. He boasts about pro­duc­ing thou­sands of words in a sin­gle sit­ting, as if genius were a faucet that mere­ly required the right twist. His tech­nique, though puz­zling, has clear­ly worked for him—or at least sold books. Denis, though cour­te­ous, can­not help but ques­tion the legit­i­ma­cy of such an approach. To him, writ­ing is an act of strug­gle and refine­ment, not a pas­sive per­for­mance of chan­nel­ing vague cos­mic insights. Yet the old­er man’s suc­cess is unde­ni­able, and that fact lingers heav­i­ly in Denis’s mind long after their con­ver­sa­tion ends.

Bar­be­cue-Smith’s method empha­sizes inspi­ra­tion over dis­ci­pline. While this idea might seem lib­er­at­ing, it risks dimin­ish­ing the val­ue of craft. Many sea­soned writ­ers argue that dai­ly con­sis­ten­cy and revi­sion shape stronger lit­er­a­ture than wait­ing for mys­ti­cal flash­es of bril­liance. It’s tempt­ing to believe that a high­er pow­er will hand over a per­fect sto­ry, but in most cas­es, mas­tery is built through patience, edit­ing, and fail­ure. Denis’s skep­ti­cism is war­rant­ed. The spir­i­tu­al short­cut might work for some, but it can leave oth­ers frus­trat­ed and depen­dent on fleet­ing feel­ings. Real cre­ativ­i­ty often requires struc­ture and rou­tine, even if inspi­ra­tion occa­sion­al­ly sparks the flame.

Still, there’s an under­ly­ing truth in Barbecue-Smith’s idea of men­tal free­dom. Writ­ers who allow their thoughts to roam—free from inter­nal censorship—sometimes find break­throughs. Stream-of-con­scious­ness tech­niques, for instance, have been used suc­cess­ful­ly by fig­ures like James Joyce and Vir­ginia Woolf to explore the depths of char­ac­ter and thought. What Bar­be­cue-Smith calls trance might sim­ply be a relaxed, focused state that bypass­es the ana­lyt­i­cal mind. For Denis, under­stand­ing this dis­tinc­tion could offer new approach­es to his work. Instead of reject­ing the idea entire­ly, he might explore how spon­tane­ity and dis­ci­pline can work togeth­er. In this way, even eccen­tric advice may offer prac­ti­cal val­ue if fil­tered thought­ful­ly.

As their con­ver­sa­tion con­tin­ues, Bar­be­cue-Smith reads aloud some of his writ­ten phras­es, each coat­ed in vague pro­fun­di­ty. These apho­risms, while lofty in tone, often bor­der on absur­di­ty. Denis strug­gles to take them seri­ous­ly, sens­ing that style has tak­en prece­dence over sub­stance. Yet he is too polite—or too unsure—to open­ly chal­lenge the man. The ten­sion between gen­uine insight and emp­ty per­for­mance becomes the silent thread of their inter­ac­tion. Bar­be­cue-Smith remains obliv­i­ous to the doubt in Denis’s eyes, absorbed in his own per­for­mance of wis­dom. To him, truth is a prod­uct of out­put; quan­ti­ty val­i­dates qual­i­ty.

Mean­while, Denis con­tin­ues to observe, inter­nal­iz­ing both the arro­gance and the con­fi­dence before him. It becomes clear that the old­er man rep­re­sents a path Denis hopes to avoid: one where words flow eas­i­ly but lack emo­tion­al or intel­lec­tu­al rig­or. The spir­i­tu­al sheen might appeal to read­ers, but Denis seeks some­thing more ground­ed and per­son­al. What he craves isn’t affir­ma­tion from a crowd, but recog­ni­tion from a peer—or even from him­self. His aspi­ra­tions, though vague, are tied to authen­tic­i­ty. And that makes Barbecue-Smith’s approach feel hol­low, even if it’s suc­cess­ful in the mar­ket­place.

This encounter plants a seed in Denis’s mind. He begins to think not just about writ­ing, but about the iden­ti­ty of the writer. Is it enough to be pro­lif­ic if one isn’t gen­uine? Is pop­u­lar­i­ty the true mea­sure of lit­er­ary mer­it? These ques­tions don’t yield imme­di­ate answers, but they deep­en his reflec­tion. And while Bar­be­cue-Smith retires from the scene with his usu­al self-sat­is­fac­tion, Denis is left with some­thing more endur­ing than advice: a clear­er under­stand­ing of what he does and does not want to become. Some­times, even the worst exam­ples serve as the best teach­ers. The chap­ter ends not with res­o­lu­tion but with direction—a silent but firm push toward clar­i­ty.