{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_30326/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_30326","id":"gutenberg_30326","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30326","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Essays"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE THREAD OF GOLD\n\n\nBY ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON\n\n\nFELLOW OF MAGDALENE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE\n\nAUTHOR OF \"THE HOUSE OF QUIET\"\n\n\n\n  _Quem locum nosti mihi destinatum?_\n  _Quo meos gressus regis?_\n\n\n\nLONDON\n\nJOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W\n\n1912\n\n\n\n\n  FIRST EDITION, . . . . . . . . . . November 1905\n  Reprinted, . . . . . . . . . . . . November 1905\n  Reprinted, . . . . . . . . . . . . January 1906\n  Reprinted, . . . . . . . . . . . . October 1906\n  SECOND EDITION,  . . . . . . . . . December 1906\n  Reprinted, . . . . . . . . . . . . January 1907\n  THIRD EDITION, . . . . . . . . . . October 1907\n  Reprinted, . . . . . . . . . . . . November 1907\n  FOURTH EDITION (1/- net) . . . . . May 1910\n  Reprinted, . . . . . . . . . . . . October 1910\n  Reprinted, . . . . . . . . . . . . January 1911\n  Reprinted, . . . . . . . . . . . . May 1911\n  Reprinted, . . . . . . . . . . . . July 1912\n\n\n\n\n[Transcriber's note: The source book had no Table of Contents and its\nchapters were numbered only, not titled.  However, its pages had\nrunning headers which changed with each chapter.  Those headers have\nbeen converted to chapter titles, and collected here as the Table of\nContents.]\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n           Preface\n           Introduction (1906)\n           Introduction\n       I.  The Red Spring\n      II.  The Deserted Shrine, The Manor House\n     III.  Leucocholy\n      IV.  The Flower\n       V.  The Fens\n      VI.  The Well and the Chapel\n     VII.  The Cuckoo\n    VIII.  Spring-time\n      IX.  The Hare\n       X.  The Diplodocus\n      XI.  The Beetle\n     XII.  The Farm-yard\n    XIII.  The Artist\n     XIV.  Young Love\n      XV.  A Strange Gathering\n     XVI.  The Cripple\n    XVII.  Oxford\n   XVIII.  Authorship\n     XIX.  Hamlet\n      XX.  A Sealed Spirit\n     XXI.  Leisure\n    XXII.  The Pleasures of Work\n   XXIII.  The Abbey\n    XXIV.  Wordsworth\n     XXV.  Dorsetshire\n    XXVI.  Portland\n   XXVII.  Canterbury Tower\n  XXVIII.  Prayer\n    XXIX.  The Death-bed of Jacob\n     XXX.  By the Sea of Galilee\n    XXXI.  The Apocalypse\n   XXXII.  The Statue\n  XXXIII.  The Mystery of Suffering\n   XXXIV.  Music\n    XXXV.  The Faith of Christ\n   XXXVI.  The Mystery of Evil\n  XXXVII.  Renewal\n XXXVIII.  The Secret\n   XXXIX.  The Message\n      XL.  After Death\n     XLI.  The Eternal Will\n    XLII.  Until the Time\n           Conclusion\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\nI sate to-day, in a pleasant hour, at a place called _The Seven\nSprings_, high up in a green valley of the _Cotswold_ hills.  Close\nbeside the road, seven clear rills ripple out into a small pool, and\nthe air is musical with the sound of running water.  Above me, in a\nlittle thicket, a full-fed thrush sent out one long-drawn cadence after\nanother, in the joy of his heart, while the lengthening shadows of bush\nand tree crept softly over the pale sward of the old pasture-lands, in\nthe westering light of the calm afternoon.\n\nThese springs are the highest head-waters of the _Thames_, and that\nfact is stated in a somewhat stilted Latin hexameter carved on a stone\nof the wall beside the pool.  The so-called _Thames-head_ is in a\nmeadow down below _Cirencester_, where a deliberate engine pumps up,\nfrom a hidden well, thousands of gallons a day of the purest water,\nwhich begins the service of man at once by helping to swell the scanty\nflow of the _Thames_ and _Severn Canal_.  But _The Seven Springs_ are\nthe highest hill-fount of Father _Thames_ for all that, streaming as\nthey do from the eastward ridge of the great oolite crest of the downs\nthat overhang _Cheltenham_.  As soon as those rills are big enough to\nform a stream, the gathering of waters is known as the _Churn_, which,\nspeeding down by _Rendcomb_ with its ancient oaks, and _Cerney_, in a\ngreen elbow of the valley, join the _Thames_ at _Cricklade_.\n\nIt was of the essence of poetry to feel that the water-drops which thus\nbabbled out at my feet in the spring sunshine would be moving, how many\ndays hence, beside the green playing-fields at _Eton_, scattered,\ndiminished, travel-worn, polluted; but still, under night and stars,\nthrough the sunny river-reaches, through hamlet and city, by\nwater-meadow or wharf, the same and no other.  And half in fancy, half\nin earnest, I bound upon the heedless waters a little message of love\nfor the fields and trees so dear to me.\n\nWhat a strange parable it all made! the sparkling drops so soon lost to\nsight and thought alike, each with its own definite place in the\nlimitless mind of God, all numbered, none forgotten; each\ndrop,--bright, new-born, and fresh as it appeared, racing out so\nlight-heartedly into the sun,--yet as old, and older, than the rocks\nfrom which it sprang!  How often had those water-drops been woven into\ncloud-wreaths, through what centuries they had leapt and plunged among\nsea-billows, or lain cold and dark in the ocean depths, since the day\nwhen this mass of matter that we call the earth had been cut off and\nsent whirling into space, a molten drop from the fierce vortex of its\ncentral sun!  And, what is the strangest thought of all, I can sit here\nmyself, a tiny atom spun from drift of storms, and concourse of frail\ndust, and, however dimly and faintly, depict the course of things,\ntrace, through some subtle faculty, the movement of the mind of God\nthrough the aeons; and yet, though I can send my mind into the past and\nthe future, though I can see the things that are not and the things\nthat are, I am denied the least inkling of what it all signifies, what\nthe slow movement of the ages is all aimed at, and even what the swift\ninterchange of light and darkness, pain and pleasure, sickness and\nhealth, love and hate, is meant to mean to me--whether there _is_ a\npurpose and an end at all, or whether I am just allowed, for my short\nspace of days, to sit, a bewildered spectator, at some vast and\nunintelligible drama.\n\nYet to-day the soft sunshine, the babbling springs, the valley brimmed\nwith haze, the bird's sweet song, all seem framed to assure me that God\nmeans us well, urgently, intensely well.  \"My Gospel,\" wrote one to me\nthe other day, whose feet move lightly on the threshold of life, \"is\nthe Gospel of contentment.  I do not see the necessity of asking myself\nuneasy and metaphysical questions about the Why and the Wherefore and\nthe What.\"  The necessity?  Ah, no!  But if one is forced, against\none's will and hope, to go astray in the wilderness out of the way, to\nfind oneself lonely and hungry, one must needs pluck the bitter berries\nof the place for such sustenance as one can.  I doubt, indeed, whether\none is able to compel oneself into and out of certain trains of\nthought.  If one dislikes and dreads introspection, one will doubtless\nbe happier for finding something definite to do instead.  But even so,\nthe thoughts buzz in one's ears; and then, too, the very wonder about\nsuch things has produced some of the most beautiful things in the\nworld, such as _Hamlet_, or Keats' _Ode to the Nightingale_, things we\ncould not well do without.  Who is to decide which is the nobler,\nwiser, righter course?  To lose oneself in a deep wonder, with an\nanxious hope that one may discern the light; or, on the other hand, to\nmingle with the world, to work, to plan, to strive, to talk, to do the\nconventional things?  We choose (so we call it) the path that suits us\nbest, though we disguise our motives in many ways, because we hardly\ndare to confess to ourselves how frail is our faculty of choice at all.\nBut, to speak frankly, what we all do is to follow the path where we\nfeel most at home, most natural; and the longer I live the more I feel\nthat we do the things we are impelled to do, the works prepared for us\nto walk in, as the old collect says.  How often, in real life, do we\nsee any one making a clean sweep of all his conditions and\nsurroundings, to follow the path of the soul?  How often do we see a\nman abjure wealth, or resist ambition, or disregard temperament,\n_unexpectedly_?  Not once, I think, to speak for myself, in the whole\nof my experience.\n\nThis, then, is the _motif_ of the following book: that whether we are\nconquerors or conquered, triumphant or despairing, prosperous or\npitiful, well or ailing, we are all these things through Him that loves\nus.  We are here, I believe, to learn rather than to teach, to endure\nrather than to act, to be slain rather than to slay; we are tolerated\nin our errors and our hardness, in our conceit and our security, by the\ngreat, kindly, smiling Heart that bade us be.  We can make things a\nlittle easier for ourselves and each other; but the end is not there:\nwhat we are meant to become is joyful, serene, patient, waiting\nmomently upon God; we are to become, if we can, content not to be\ncontent, full of tenderness and loving-kindness for all the frail\nbeings that, like ourselves, suffer and rejoice.  But though we are\nbound to ameliorate, to improve, to lessen, so far as we can, the\nbrutal promptings of the animal self that cause the greatest part of\nour unhappiness, we have yet to learn to hope that when things seem at\ntheir worst, they are perhaps at their best, for then we are, indeed,\nat work upon our hard lesson; and perhaps the day may come when,\nlooking back upon the strange tangle of our lives, we may see that the\ntime was most wasted when we were serene, easy, prosperous, and\nunthinking, and most profitable when we were anxious, overshadowed, and\nsuffering.  _The Thread of Gold_ is the fibre of limitless hope that\nruns through our darkest dreams; and just as the water-drop which I saw\nbreak to-day from the darkness of the hill, and leap downwards in its\nchannel, will see and feel, in its seaward course, many sweet and\ngentle things, as well as many hard and evil matters, so I, in a year\nof my pilgrimage, have set down in this book, a frank picture of many\nlittle experiences and thoughts, both good and evil.  Sometimes the\nwater-drop glides in the sun among mossy ledges, or lingers by the edge\nof the copse, where the hazels lean together; but sometimes it is\ndarkened and polluted, so that it would seem that the foul oozings that\ninfect it could never be purged away.  But the turbid elements, the\nscum, the mud, the slime--each of which, after all, have their place in\nthe vast economy of things--float and sink to their destined abode; and\nthe crystal drop, released and purified, runs joyfully onwards in its\nappointed way.\n\nA. C. B.\n\nCIRENCESTER, 8_th April_ 1907.\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION (1906)\n\nI am glad to have the opportunity of saying a few words in my own name\nabout this book, because the original introduction seems to have misled\nsome of my readers; and as I have had many kind, encouraging, and\nsacred messages about the book from very unexpected quarters, I should\nlike to add a few further words of explanation.\n\nOne of the difficulties under which literary art seems to me to labour\nis that it feels bound to run in certain channels, to adopt stereotyped\nand conventional media of expression.  What can be more conventional\nthan the average play, or the average novel?  People in real life do\nnot behave or talk--at least, this is my experience--in the smallest\ndegree as they behave or talk in novels or plays; life as a rule has no\nplot, and very few dramatic situations.  In real life the adventures\nare scanty, and for most of us existence moves on in a commonplace and\ninconsequent way.  Misunderstandings are not cleared up, complexities\nare not unravelled.  I think it is time that more unconventional forms\nof expression should be discovered and used; and at least, we can try\nexperiments; the experiment that I have here tried, is to present a\nsort of _liber studiorum_, a portfolio of sketches and impressions.\nThe only coherence they possess is that, at the time when they were\nwritten, I was much preoccupied with the wonder as to whether an\noptimistic view of life was justified.  The world is a very mysterious\nplace, and at first sight it presents a sad scene of confusion.  The\nwrong people often seem to be punished; blessings, such as those heaped\nupon the head of the patriarch Job, do not seem to be accumulated upon\nthe righteous.  In fact, the old epigram that prosperity is the\nblessing of the Old Testament, adversity the blessing of the New, seems\nfrequently justified.  But, after all, the only soul-history that one\nknows well enough to say whether or not the experience of life is\nadapted to the qualities of the particular soul, is one's own history;\nand, speaking for myself, I can but say, looking back upon my life,\nthat it does seem to have been regulated hitherto by a very tender and\nintimate kind of guidance, though I did not always see how delicate the\nadaptation of it was at the time.  The idea of this book, that there is\na certain golden thread of hope and love interwoven with all our lives,\nrunning consistently through the coarsest and darkest fabric, was what\nI set out to illustrate rather than to prove.  Everything that bore\nupon this fact, while the book was being written, I tried to express as\nsimply and as lucidly as I could.  The people who have thought the book\nformless or lacking in structure, are perfectly right.  It is not, and\nit did not set out to be, a finished picture, with a due subordination\nof groups and backgrounds.  To me personally, though a finished picture\nis a beautiful and an admirable thing, the loose, unconsidered sketches\nand studies of an artist have a special charm.  Of an artist, I say;\nhave I then a claim to be considered an artist?  I cannot answer that\nquestion, but I will go further and say that the sketches of the\nhumblest amateur have an interest for me, which their finished pictures\noften lack.  One sees a revelation of personality, one sees what sort\nof things strike an individual mind as beautiful, one sees the method\nwith which it deals with artistic difficulties.  The most interesting\nthings of the kind I have ever seen are the portfolios of sketches by\nLeonardo da Vinci in the Royal library at Windsor; outlines of heads,\nfeatures, flowers, backgrounds, strange engines of war, wings of\nbirds--the _debris_, almost, of the studio--are there piled up in\nconfusion.  And in a lesser degree the same is true of all such\ncollections, though perhaps this shows that one is more interested in\npersonality than in artistic performance.\n\nA good many people, too, have a gift for presenting a simple impression\nof a beautiful thing, who have not the patience or the power of\ncombination necessary for working out a finished design; and surely it\nis foolish to let the convention of art overrule a man's capacities?\nTo allow that, to acquiesce in silence, to say that because one cannot\nexpress a thing in a certain way, one will not express it at all, seems\nto me to be making an instinct into a moral sanction.  One must express\nwhatever one desires to express, as clearly and as beautifully as\npossible, and one must take one's chance as to whether it is a work of\nart.  To hold one's tongue, if anything appears to be worth saying,\nbecause one does not know the exact code of the professionals, is as\nfoolish as if a man born in a certain class of society were to say that\nhe would never go to any social gathering except those of his precise\nsocial equals, because he was afraid of making mistakes of etiquette.\nEtiquette is not a matter of principle; it was not one of the things of\nwhich Moses saw the pattern in the Mount!  The only rule is not to be\npretentious or assuming, not to claim that one's efforts are\nnecessarily worthy of admiration and attention.\n\nThere is a better reason too.  Orthodoxy in art is merely compliance\nwith the instinctive methods of great artists, and no one ever\nsucceeded in art who did not make a method of his own.  Originality is\nlike a fountain-head of fresh water; orthodoxy is too often only the\nunimpeachable fluid of the water company.  The best hope for the art\nand literature of a nation is that men should try to represent and\nexpress things that they have thought beautiful in an individual way.\nThey do not always succeed, it is true; sometimes they fail for lack of\nforce, sometimes for lack of a sympathetic audience.  I have found, in\nthe case of this book, a good deal of sincere sympathy; and where it\nfails, it fails through lack of force to express thoughts that I have\nfelt with a profound intensity.  I have had critics who have frankly\ndisliked the book, and I do not in the least quarrel with them for\nexpressing their opinion; but one does not write solely for the\ncritics; and on the other hand, I can humbly and gratefully say that I\nhave received many messages, of pleasure in, and even gratitude for,\nthe book which leave me in no sort of doubt that it was worth writing;\nthough I wish with all my heart that it had been worthier of its\nmotive, and had been better able to communicate the delight of my\nvisions and dreams.\n\nARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON.\n\n  MAGDALENE COLLEGE,\n  CAMBRIDGE, 24_th November_ 1906.\n\n\n\n\nTHE THREAD OF GOLD\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nI have for a great part of my life desired, perhaps more than I have\ndesired anything else, to make a beautiful book; and I have tried,\nperhaps too hard and too often, to do this, without ever quite\nsucceeding; by that I mean that my little books, when finished, were\nnot worthy to be compared with the hope that I had had of them.  I\nthink now that I tried to do too many things in my books, to amuse, to\ninterest, to please persons who might read them; and I fear, too, that\nin the back of my mind there lay a thought, like a snake in its\nhole--the desire to show others how fine I could be.  I tried honestly\nnot to let this thought rule me; whenever it put its head out, I drove\nit back; but of course I ought to have waited till it came out, and\nthen killed it, if I had only known how to do that; but I suppose I had\na secret tenderness for the little creature as being indeed a part of\nmyself.\n\nBut now I have hit upon a plan which I hope may succeed.  I do not\nintend to try to be interesting and amusing, or even fine.  I mean to\nput into my book only the things that appear to me deep and strange and\nbeautiful; and I can happily say that things seem to me to be more and\nmore beautiful every day.  As when a man goes on a journey, and sees,\nin far-off lands, things that please him, things curious and rare, and\nbuys them, not for himself or for his own delight, but for the delight\nof one that sits at home, whom he loves and thinks of, and wishes every\nday that he could see;--well, I will try to be like that.  I will keep\nthe thought of those whom I love best in my mind--and God has been very\ngood in sending me many, both old and young, whom I love--and I will\ntry to put down in the best words that I can find the things that\ndelight me, not for my sake but for theirs.  For one of the strangest\nthings of all about beauty is, that it is often more clearly perceived\nwhen expressed by another, than when we see it for ourselves.  The only\ndifficulty that I see ahead is that many of the things that I love best\nand that give me the best joy, are things that cannot be told, cannot\nbe translated into words: deep and gracious mysteries, rays of light,\ndelicate sounds.\n\nBut I will keep out of my book all the things, so far as I can, which\nbring me mere trouble and heaviness; cares and anxieties and bodily\npains and dreariness and unkind thoughts and anger, and all\nuncleanness.  I cannot tell why our life should be so sadly bound up\nwith these matters; the only comfort is that even out of this dark and\nheavy soil beautiful flowers sometimes spring.  For instance, the\npressure of a care, an anxiety, a bodily pain, has sometimes brought\nwith it a perception which I have lacked when I have been bold and\njoyful and robust.  A fit of anger too, by clearing away little clouds\nof mistrust and suspicion, has more than once given me a friendship\nthat endures and blesses me.\n\nBut beauty, innocent beauty of thought, of sound, of sight, seems to me\nto be perhaps the most precious thing in the world, and to hold within\nit a hope which stretches away even beyond the grave.  Out of silence\nand nothingness we arise; we have our short space of sight and hearing;\nand then into the silence we depart.  But in that interval we are\nsurrounded by much joy.  Sometimes the path is hard and lonely, and we\nstumble in miry ways; but sometimes our way is through fields and\nthickets, and the valley is full of sunset light.  If we could be more\ncalm and quiet, less anxious about the impression we produce, more\nquick to welcome what is glad and sweet, more simple, more contented,\nwhat a gain would be there!  I wonder more and more every day that I\nlive that we do not value better the thought of these calmer things,\nbecause the least effort to reach them seems to pull down about us a\nwhole cluster of wholesome fruits, grapes of Eschol, apples of\nParadise.  We are kept back, it seems to me, by a kind of silly fear of\nridicule, from speaking more sincerely and instantly of these delights.\n\nI read the _Life_ of a great artist the other day who received a title\nof honour from the State.  I do not think he cared much for the title\nitself, but he did care very much for the generous praise of his\nfriends that the little piece of honour called forth.  I will not quote\nhis exact words, but he said in effect that he wondered why friends\nshould think it necessary to wait for such an occasion to indulge in\nthe noble pleasure of praising, and why they should not rather have a\nday in the year when they could dare to write to the friends whom they\nadmired and loved, and praise them for being what they were.  Of course\nif such a custom were to become general, it would be clumsily spoilt by\nfoolish persons, as all things are spoilt which become conventional.\nBut the fact remains that the sweet pleasure of praising, of\nencouraging, of admiring and telling our admiration, is one that we\nEnglish people are sparing of, to our own loss and hurt.  It is just as\nfalse to refrain from saying a generous thing for fear of being thought\ninsincere and what is horribly called gushing, as it is to say a hard\nthing for the sake of being thought straightforward.  If a hard thing\nmust be said, let us say it with pain and tenderness, but faithfully.\nAnd if a pleasant thing can be said, let us say it with joy, and with\nno less faithfulness.\n\nNow I must return to my earlier purpose, and say that I mean that this\nlittle book shall go about with me, and that I will write in it only\nstrange and beautiful things.  I have many businesses in the world, and\ntake delight in many of them; but we cannot always be busy.  So when I\nhave seen or heard something that gives me joy, whether it be a new\nplace, or, what is better still, an old familiar place transfigured by\nsome happy accident of sun or moon into a mystery; or if I have been\ntold of a generous and beautiful deed, or heard even a sad story that\nhas some seed of hope within it; or if I have met a gracious and kindly\nperson; or if I have read a noble book, or seen a rare picture or a\ncurious flower; or if I have heard a delightful music; or if I have\nbeen visited by one of those joyful and tender thoughts that set my\nfeet the right way, I will try to put it down, God prospering me.  For\nthus I think that I shall be truly interpreting his loving care for the\nlittle souls of men.  And I call my book _The Thread of Gold_, because\nthis beauty of which I have spoken seems to me a thing which runs like\na fine and precious clue through the dark and sunless labyrinths of the\nworld.\n\nAnd, lastly, I pray God with all my heart, that he may, in this matter,\nlet me help and not hinder his will.  I often cannot divine what his\nwill is, but I have seen and heard enough to be sure that it is high\nand holy, even when it seems to me hard to discern, and harder still to\nfollow.  Nothing shall here be set down that does not seem to me to be\nperfectly pure and honest; nothing that is not wise and true.  It may\nbe a vain hope that I nourish, but I think that God has put it into my\nheart to write this book, and I hope that he will allow me to\npersevere.  And yet indeed I know that I am not fit for so holy a task,\nbut perhaps he will give me fitness, and cleanse my tongue with a coal\nfrom his altar fire.\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nThe Red Spring\n\nVery deep in this enchanted land of green hills in which I live, lies a\nstill and quiet valley.  No road runs along it; but a stream with many\ncurves and loops, deep-set in hazels and alders, moves brimming down.\nThere is no house to be seen; nothing but pastures and little woods\nwhich clothe the hill-sides on either hand.  In one of these fields,\nnot far from the stream, lies a secluded spot that I visit duly from\ntime to time.  It is hard enough to find the place; and I have\nsometimes directed strangers to it, who have returned without\ndiscovering it.  Some twenty yards away from the stream, with a ring of\nlow alders growing round it, there is a pool; not like any other pool I\nknow.  The basin in which it lies is roughly circular, some ten feet\nacross.  I suppose it is four or five feet deep.  From the centre of\nthe pool rises an even gush of very pure water, with a certain hue of\ngreen, like a faintly-tinted gem.  The water in its flow makes a\nperpetual dimpling on the surface; I have never known it to fail even\nin the longest droughts; and in sharp frosty days there hangs a little\nsmoke above it, for the water is of a noticeable warmth.\n\nThis spring is strongly impregnated with iron, so strongly that it has\na sharp and medical taste; from what secret bed of metal it comes I do\nnot know, but it must be a bed of great extent, for, though the spring\nruns thus, day by day and year by year, feeding its waters with the\nbitter mineral over which it passes, it never loses its tinge; and the\noldest tradition of the place is that it was even so centuries ago.\n\nAll the rest of the pool is full of strange billowy cloudlike growths,\nlike cotton-wool or clotted honey, all reddened with the iron of the\nspring; for it rusts on thus coming to the air.  But the orifice you\ncan always see, and that is of a dark blueness; out of which the pure\ngreen water rises among the vaporous and filmy folds, runs away briskly\nout of the pool in a little channel among alders, all stained with the\nsame orange tints, and falls into the greater stream at a loop, tinging\nits waters for a mile.\n\nIt is said to have strange health-giving qualities; and the water is\ndrunk beneath the moon by old country folk for wasting and weakening\ncomplaints.  Its strength and potency have no enmity to animal life,\nfor the water-voles burrow in the banks and plunge with a splash in the\nstream; but it seems that no vegetable thing can grow within it, for\nthe pool and channel are always free of weeds.\n\nI like to stand upon the bank and watch the green water rise and dimple\nto the top of the pool, and to hear it bickering away in its rusty\nchannel.  But the beauty of the place is not a simple beauty; there is\nsomething strange and almost fierce about the red-stained water-course;\nsomething uncanny and terrifying about the filmy orange clouds that\nstir and sway in the pool; and there sleeps, too, round the edges of\nthe basin a bright and viscous scum, with a certain ugly radiance, shot\nwith colours that are almost too sharp and fervid for nature.  It seems\nas though some diligent alchemy was at work, pouring out from moment to\nmoment this strangely tempered potion.  In summer it is more bearable\nto look upon, when the grass is bright and soft, when the tapestry of\nleaves and climbing plants is woven over the skirts of the thicket,\nwhen the trees are in joyful leaf.  But in the winter, when all tints\nare low and spare, when the pastures are yellowed with age, and the\nhillside wrinkled with cold, when the alder-rods stand up stiff and\nblack, and the leafless tangled boughs are smooth like wire; then the\npool has a certain horror, as it pours out its rich juice, all overhung\nwith thin steam.\n\nBut I doubt not that I read into it some thoughts of my own; for it was\non such a day of winter, when the sky was full of inky clouds, and the\nwood murmured like a falling sea in the buffeting wind, that I made a\ngrave and sad decision beside the red pool, that has since tinged my\nlife, as the orange waters tinge the pale stream into which they fall.\nThe shadow of that severe resolve still broods about the place for me.\nHow often since in thought have I threaded the meadows, and looked with\nthe inward eye upon the green water rising, rising, and the crowded\norange fleeces of the pool!  But stern though the resolve was, it was\nnot an unhappy one; and it has brought into my life a firm and tonic\nquality, which seems to me to hold within it something of the\nastringent savour of the medicated waters, and perhaps something of\ntheir health-giving powers as well.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nThe Deserted Shrine, The Manor House\n\nI was making a vague pilgrimage to-day in a distant and unfamiliar part\nof the country, a region that few people ever visit, and saw two things\nthat moved me strangely.  I left the high-road to explore a hamlet that\nlay down in a broad valley to the left; and again diverged from the\nbeaten track to survey an old grange that lay at a little distance\namong the fields.  Turning a corner by some cottages, I saw a small\nancient chapel, of brown weathered stone, covered with orange lichen,\nthe roof of rough stone tiles.  In the narrow graveyard round it, the\ngrass grew long and rank; the gateway was choked by briars.  I could\nsee that the windows of the tiny building were broken.  I have never\nbefore in England seen a derelict church, and I clambered over the wall\nto examine it more closely.  It stood very beautifully; from the low\nwall of the graveyard, on the further side, you could look over a wide\nextent of rich water-meadows, fed by full streams; there was much\nranunculus in flower on the edges of the water-courses, and a few\ncattle moved leisurely about with a peaceful air.  Far over the\nmeadows, out of a small grove of trees, a manor-house held up its\nenquiring chimneys.  The door of the chapel was open, and I have seldom\nseen a more pitiful sight than it revealed.  The roof within was of a\nplain and beautiful design, with carved bosses, and beams of some dark\nwood.  The chapel was fitted with oak Jacobean woodwork, pews, a\nreading-desk, and a little screen.  At the west was a tiny balustraded\ngallery.  But the whole was a scene of wretched confusion.  The\nwoodwork was mouldering, the red cloth of the pulpit hung raggedly\ndown, the leaves of the great prayer-book fluttered about the pavement,\nin the draught from the door.  The whole place was gnawed by rats and\nshockingly befouled by birds; there was a litter of rotting nests upon\nthe altar itself.  Yet in the walls were old memorial tablets, and the\npassage of the nave was paved with lettered graves.  It brought back to\nme the beautiful lines--\n\n  \"En ara, ramis ilicis obsita,\n  Quae sacra Chryses nomina fert deae,\n    Neglecta; jamdudum sepultus\n    Aedituus jacet et sacerdos.\"\n\nOutside the sun fell peacefully on the mellow walls, and the starlings\ntwittered in the roof; but inside the deserted shrine there was a sense\nof broken trust, of old memories despised, of the altar of God shamed\nand dishonoured.  It was a pious design to build the little chapel\nthere for the secluded hamlet; and loving thought and care had gone to\nmaking the place seemly and beautiful.  The very stone of the wall, and\nthe beam of the roof cried out against the hard and untender usage that\nhad laid the sanctuary low.  Here children had been baptized, tender\nmarriage vows plighted, and the dead laid to rest; and this was the\nend.  I turned away with a sense of deep sadness; the very sunshine\nseemed blurred with a shadow of dreariness and shame.\n\nThen I made my way, by a stony road, towards the manor-house; and\npresently could see its gables at the end of a pleasant avenue of\nlimes; but no track led thither.  The gate was wired up, and the drive\novergrown with grass.  Soon, however, I found a farm-road which led up\nto the house from the village.  On the left of the manor lay prosperous\nbarns and byres, full of sleek pigs and busy crested fowls.  The teams\ncame clanking home across the water-meadows.  The house itself became\nmore and more beautiful as I approached.  It was surrounded by a moat,\nand here, close at hand, stood another ancient chapel, in seemly\nrepair.  All round the house grew dense thickets of sprawling laurels,\nwhich rose in luxuriance from the edge of the water.  Then I crossed a\nlittle bridge with a broken parapet; and in front of me stood the house\nitself.  I have seldom seen a more perfectly proportioned or\nexquisitely coloured building.  There were three gables in the front,\nthe central one holding a beautiful oriel window, with a fine oak door\nbelow.  The whole was built of a pale red brick, covered with a grey\nlichen that cast a shimmering light over the front.  Tall chimneys of\nsolid grace rose from a stone-shingled roof.  The coigns, parapets and\nmullions were all of a delicately-tinted orange stone.  To the right\nlay a big walled garden, full of flowers growing with careless\nrichness, the whole bounded by the moat, and looking out across the\nbroad green water-meadows, beyond which the low hills rose softly in\ngentle curves and dingles.\n\nA whole company of amiable dogs, spaniels and terriers, came out with\nan effusive welcome; a big black yard-dog, after a loud protesting\nbark, joined in the civilities.  And there I sat down in the warm sun,\nto drink in the beauty of the scene, while the moor-hens cried\nplaintively in the moat, and the dogs disposed themselves at my feet.\nThe man who designed this old place must have had a wonderful sense of\nthe beauty of proportion, the charm of austere simplicity.  Generation\nafter generation must have loved the gentle dignified house, with its\nnarrow casements, its high rooms.  Though the name of the house, though\nthe tale of its dwellers was unknown to me, I felt the appeal of the\nold associations that must have centred about it.  The whole air, that\nquiet afternoon, seemed full of the calling of forgotten voices, and\ndead faces looked out from the closed lattices.  So near to my heart\ncame the spirit of the ancient house, that, as I mused, I felt as\nthough even I myself had made a part of its past, and as though I were\nreturning from battling with the far-off world to the home of\nchildhood.  The house seemed to regard me with a mournful and tender\ngaze, as though it knew that I loved it, and would fain utter its\nsecrets in a friendly ear.  Is it strange that a thing of man's\nconstruction should have so wistful yet so direct a message for the\nspirit?  Well, I hardly know what it was that it spoke of; but I felt\nthe care and love that had gone to the making of it, and the dignity\nthat it had won from rain and sun and the kindly hand of Nature; it\nspoke of hope and brightness, of youth and joy; and told me, too, that\nall things were passing away, that even the house itself, though it\ncould outlive a few restless generations, was indeed _debita morti_,\nand bowed itself to its fall.\n\nAnd then I too, like a bird of passage that has alighted for a moment\nin some sheltered garden-ground, must needs go on my way.  But the old\nhouse had spoken with me, had left its mark upon my spirit.  And I know\nthat in weary hours, far hence, I shall remember how it stood, peering\nout of its tangled groves, gazing at the sunrise and the sunset over\nthe green flats, waiting for what may be, and dreaming of the days that\nare no more.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nLeucocholy\n\nI have had to taste, during the last few days, I know not why, of the\ncup of what Gray called Leucocholy; it is not Melancholy, only the pale\nshadow of it.  That dark giant is, doubtless, stalking somewhere in the\nbackground, and the shadow cast by his misshapen head passes over my\nlittle garden ground.\n\nI do not readily submit to this mood, and I would wish it away.  I\nwould rather feel joyful and free from blame; but Gray called it a good\neasy state, and it certainly has its compensations.  It does not, like\nMelancholy, lay a dark hand on duties and pleasures alike; it is\npossible to work, to read, to talk, to laugh when it is by.  But it\nsends flowing through the mind a gentle current of sad and weary images\nand thoughts, which still have a beauty of their own; it tinges one's\nlife with a sober greyness of hue; it heightens perception, though it\nprevents enjoyment.  In such a mood one can sit silent a long time,\nwith one's eyes cast upon the grass; one sees the delicate forms of the\ntender things that spring softly out of the dark ground; one hears with\na poignant delight the clear notes of birds; something of the spring\nlanguors move within the soul.  There is a sense, too, of reaching out\nto light and joy, a stirring of the vague desires of the heart, a\ntender hope, an upward-climbing faith; the heart sighs for a peace that\nit cannot attain.\n\nTo-day I walked slowly and pensively by little woods and pastures,\ntaking delight in all the quiet life I saw, the bush pricked with\npoints of green, the boughs thickened with small reddening buds, the\nslow stream moving through the pasture; all the tints faint, airy, and\ndelicate; the life of the world seemed to hang suspended, waiting for\nthe forward leap.  In a little village I stood awhile to watch the\ngables of an ancient house, the wing of a ruined grange, peer solemnly\nover the mellow brick wall that guarded a close of orchard trees.  A\nlittle way behind, the blunt pinnacles of the old church-tower stood\nup, blue and dim, over the branching elms; beyond all ran the long,\npure line of the rising wold.  Everything seemed so still, so serene,\nas a long, pale ray of the falling sun, which laboured among flying\nclouds, touched the westward gables with gold--and mine the only\ntroubled, unquiet spirit.  Hard by there was an old man tottering about\nin a little garden, fumbling with some plants, like Laertes on the\nupland farm.  His worn face, his ragged beard, his pitifully-patched\nand creased garments made him a very type of an ineffectual sadness.\nPerhaps his thoughts ran as sadly as my own, but I do not think it was\nso, because the minds of many country-people, and of almost all the\nold, of whatever degree, seem to me free from what is the curse of\ndelicately-trained and highly-strung temperaments--namely, the\ntemptation to be always reverting to the past, or forecasting the\nfuture.  Simple people and aged people put that aside, and live quite\nserenely in the moment; and that is what I believe we ought all to\nattempt, for most moments are bearable, if one only does not import\ninto them the weight of the future and the regret of the past.  To\nseize the moment with all its conditions, to press the quality out of\nit, that is the best victory.  But, alas! we are so made that though we\nmay know that a course is the wise, the happy, the true course, we\ncannot always pursue it.  I remember a story of a public man who bore\nhis responsibilities very hardly, worried and agonised over them,\nsaying to Mr Gladstone, who was at that time in the very thick of a\nfierce political crisis: \"But don't you find you lie awake at night,\nthinking how you ought to act, and how you ought to have acted?\"  Mr\nGladstone turned his great, flashing eyes upon his interlocutor, and\nsaid, with a look of wonder: \"No, I don't; where would be the use of\nthat?\"  And again I remember that old Canon Beadon--who lived, I think,\nto his 104th year--said to a friend that the secret of long life in his\nown case was that he had never thought of anything unpleasant after ten\no'clock at night.  Of course, if you have a series of compartments in\nyour brain, and at ten o'clock can turn the key quietly upon the room\nthat holds the skeletons and nightmares, you are a very fortunate man.\n\nBut still, we can all of us do something.  If one has the courage and\ngood sense, when in a melancholy mood, to engage in some piece of\npractical work, it is wonderful how one can distract the great beast\nthat, left to himself, crops and munches the tender herbage of the\nspirit.  For myself I have generally a certain number of dull tasks to\nperform, not in themselves interesting, and out of which little\npleasure can be extracted, except the pleasure which always results\nfrom finishing a piece of necessary work.  When I am wise, I seize upon\na day in which I am overhung with a shadow of sadness to clear off work\nof this kind.  It is in itself a distraction, and then one has the\npleasure both of having fought the mood and also of having left the\nfield clear for the mind, when it has recovered its tone, to settle\ndown firmly and joyfully to more congenial labours.\n\nTo-day, little by little, the cloudy mood drew off and left me smiling.\nThe love of the peaceful and patient earth came to comfort me.  How\npure and free were the long lines of ploughland, the broad back of the\ngently-swelling down!  How clear and delicate were the February tints,\nthe aged grass, the leafless trees!  What a sense of coolness and\nrepose!  I stopped a long time upon a rustic-timbered bridge to look at\na little stream that ran beneath the road, winding down through a rough\npasture-field, with many thorn-thickets.  The water, lapsing slowly\nthrough withered flags, had the pure, gem-like quality of the winter\nstream; in summer it will become dim and turbid with infusorial life,\nbut now it is like a pale jewel.  How strange, I thought, to think of\nthis liquid gaseous juice, which we call water, trickling in the cracks\nof the earth!  And just as the fish that live in it think of it as\ntheir world, and have little cognisance of what happens in the acid,\nunsubstantial air above, except the occasional terror of the dim,\nlooming forms which come past, making the soft banks quiver and stir,\nso it may be with us; there may be a great mysterious world outside of\nus, of which we sometimes see the dark manifestations, and yet of the\nconditions of which we are wholly unaware.\n\nAnd now it grew dark; the horizon began to redden and smoulder; the\nstream gleamed like a wan thread among the distant fields.  It was time\nto hurry home, to dip in the busy tide of life again.  Where was my sad\nmood gone?  The clear air seemed to have blown through my mind, hands\nhad been waved to me from leafless woods, quiet voices of field and\nstream had whispered me their secrets; \"We would tell, if we could,\"\nthey seemed to say.  And I, listening, had learnt patience, too--for\nawhile.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nThe Flower\n\nI have made friends with a new flower.  If it had a simple and\nwholesome English name, I would like to know it, though I do not care\nto know what ugly and clumsy title the botany books may give it; but it\nlives in my mind, a perfect and complete memory of brightness and\nbeauty, and, as I have said, a friend.\n\nIt was in a steep sea-cove that I saw it.  Round a small circular basin\nof blue sea ran up gigantic cliffs, grey limestone bluffs; here and\nthere, where they were precipitous, slanted the monstrous wavy lines of\ndistorted strata, thrust up, God alone knows how many ages ago, by some\nsharp and horrible shiver of the boiling earth.  Little waves broke on\nthe pebbly beach at our feet, and all the air was full of pleasant\nsharp briny savours.  A few boats were drawn up on the shingle;\nlobster-pots, nets, strings of cork, spars, oars, lay in pleasant\nconfusion, by the sandy road that led up to the tiny hamlet above.  We\nhad travelled far that day and were comfortably weary; we found a\nsloping ledge of turf upon which we sat, and presently became aware\nthat on the little space of grass between us and the cliff must once\nhave stood a cottage and a cottage garden.  There was a broken wall\nbehind us, and the little platform still held some garden flowers\nsprawling wildly, a stunted fruitbush or two, a knotted apple-tree.\n\nMy own flower, or the bushes on which it grew, had once, I think,\nformed part of the cottage hedge; but it had found a wider place to its\nliking, for it ran riot everywhere; it scaled the cliff, where, too,\nthe golden wall-flowers of the garden had gained a footing; it fringed\nthe sand-patches beyond us, it rooted itself firmly in the shingle.\nThe plant had rough light-brown branches, which were now all starred\nwith the greenest tufts imaginable; but the flower itself!  On many of\nthe bushes it was not yet fully out, and showed only in an abundance of\nsmall lilac balls, carefully folded; but just below me a cluster had\nfound the sun and the air too sweet to resist, and had opened to the\nlight.  The flower was of a delicate veined purple, a five-pointed\nstar, with a soft golden heart.  All the open blossoms stared at me\nwith a tranquil gaze, knowing I would not hurt them.\n\nBelow, two fishermen rowed a boat quietly out to sea, the sharp\ncreaking of the rowlocks coming lazily to our ears in the pauses of the\nwind.  The little waves fell with a soft thud, followed by the crisp\necho of the surf, feeling all round the shingly cove.  The whole place,\nin that fresh spring day, was unutterably peaceful and content.\n\nAnd I too forgot all my busy schemes and hopes and aims, the tiny part\nI play in the world, with so much petty energy, such anxious\nresponsibility.  My purple-starred flower approved of my acquiescence,\nsmiling trustfully upon me.  \"Here,\" it seemed to say, \"I bloom and\nbrighten, spring after spring.  No one regards me, no one cares for me;\nno one praises my beauty; no one sorrows when these leaves grow pale,\nwhen I fall from my stem, when my dry stalks whisper together in the\nwinter wind.  But to you, because you have seen and loved me, I whisper\nmy secret.\"  And then the flower told me something that I cannot write\neven if I would, because it is in the language unspeakable, of which St\nPaul wrote that such words are not lawful for a man to utter; but they\nare heard in the third heaven of God.\n\nThen I felt that if I could but remember what the flower said I should\nnever grieve or strive or be sorrowful any more; but, as the wise\nPsalmist said, be content to tarry the Lord's leisure.  Yet, even when\nI thought that I had the words by heart, they ceased like a sweet music\nthat comes to an end, and which the mind cannot recover.\n\nI saw many other things that day, things beautiful and wonderful, no\ndoubt; but they had no voice for me, like the purple flower; or if they\nhad, the sea wind drowned them in the utterance, for their voices were\nof the earth; but the flower's voice came, as I have said, from the\ninnermost heaven.\n\nI like well to go on pilgrimage; and in spite of weariness and rainy\nweather, and the stupid chatter of the men and women who congregate\nlike fowls in inn-parlours, I pile a little treasure of sights and\nsounds in my guarded heart, memories of old buildings, spring woods,\nsecluded valleys.  All these are things seen, impressions registered\nand gratefully recorded.  But my flower is somehow different from all\nthese; and I shall never again hear the name of the place mentioned, or\neven see a map of that grey coast, without a quiet thrill of gladness\nat the thought that there, spring by spring, blooms my little friend,\nwhose heart I read, who told me its secret; who will wait for me to\nreturn, and indeed will be faithfully and eternally mine, whether I\nreturn or no.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nThe Fens\n\nI have lately become convinced--and I do not say it either\nsophistically, to plead a bad cause with dexterity, or resignedly, to\nmake the best out of a poor business; but with a true and hearty\nconviction--that the most beautiful country in England is the flat\nfenland.  I do not here mean moderately flat country, low sweeps of\nland, like the heaving of a dying groundswell; that has a miniature\nbeauty, a stippled delicacy of its own, but it is not a fine quality of\ncharm.  The country that I would praise is the rigidly and\nmathematically flat country of Eastern England, lying but a few feet\nabove the sea, plains which were once the bottoms of huge and ancient\nswamps.\n\nIn the first place, such country gives a wonderful sense of expanse and\nspace; from an eminence of a few feet you can see what in other parts\nof England you have to climb a considerable hill to discern.  I love to\nfeast my eyes on the interminable rich level plain, with its black and\ncrumbling soil; the long simple lines of dykes and water-courses carry\nthe eye peacefully out to a great distance; then, too, by having all\nthe landscape compressed into so narrow a space, into a belt of what\nis, to the eye, only a few inches in depth, you get an incomparable\nrichness of colour.  The solitary distant clumps of trees surrounding a\nlonely farm gain a deep intensity of tint from the vast green level all\nabout them; and the line of the low far-off wolds, that close the view\nmany miles away, is of a peculiar delicacy and softness; the eye, too,\nis provided with a foreground of which the elements are of the\nsimplest; a reedy pool enclosed by willows, the clustered buildings of\na farmstead; a grey church-tower peering out over churchyard elms; and\nthus, instead of being checked by near objects, and hemmed in by the\nlimited landscape, the eye travels out across the plain with a sense of\nfreedom and grateful repose.  Then, too, there is the huge perspective\nof the sky; nowhere else is it possible to see, so widely, the slow\nmarch of clouds from horizon to horizon; it all gives a sense of\nlargeness and tranquillity such as you receive upon the sea, with the\nadditional advantage of having the solid earth beneath you, green and\nfertile, instead of the steely waste of waters.\n\nA day or two ago I found myself beside the lower waters of the Cam, in\nflat pastures, full of ancient thorn-trees just bursting into bloom.  I\ngained the towing-path, which led me out gradually into the heart of\nthe fen; the river ran, or rather moved, a sapphire streak, between its\nhigh green flood-banks; the wide spaces between the embanked path and\nthe stream were full of juicy herbage, great tracts of white\ncow-parsley, with here and there a reed-bed.  I stood long to listen to\nthe sharp song of the reed-warbler, slipping from spray to spray of a\nwillow-patch.  Far to the north the great tower of Ely rose blue and\ndim above the low lines of trees; in the centre of the pastures lay the\nlong brown line of the sedge-beds of Wicken Mere, almost the only\nuntouched tract of fenland; slow herds of cattle grazed, more and more\nminute, in the unhedged pasture-land, and the solitary figure of a\nlabourer moving homeward on the top of the green dyke, seemed in the\nlong afternoon to draw no nearer.  Here and there were the floodgates\nof a lode, with the clear water slowly spilling itself over the rim of\nthe sluice, full of floating weed.  There was something infinitely\nreposeful in the solitude, the width of the landscape; there was no\nsense of crowded life, no busy figures, intent on their small aims, to\ncross one's path, no conflict, no strife, no bitterness, no insistent\nvoice; yet there was no sense of desolation, but rather the spectacle\nof glad and simple lives of plants and birds in the free air, their\nwildness tamed by the far-off and controlling hand of man, the calm\nearth patiently serving his ends.  I seemed to have passed out of\nmodern life into a quieter and older world, before men congregated into\ncities, but lived the quiet and sequestered life of the country side;\nand little by little there stole into my heart something of a dreamful\ntranquillity, the calm of the slow brimming stream, the leisurely\nherds, the growing grass.  All seemed to be moving together, neither\nlingering nor making haste, to some far-off end within the quiet mind\nof God.  Everything seemed to be waiting, musing, living the untroubled\nlife of nature, with no thought of death or care or sorrow.  I passed a\ntrench of still water that ran as far as the eye could follow it across\nthe flat; it was full from end to end of the beautiful water violet,\nthe pale lilac flowers, with their faint ethereal scent, clustered on\nthe head of a cool emerald spike, with the rich foliage of the plant,\nlike fine green hair, filling the water.  The rising of these beautiful\nforms, by some secret consent, in their appointed place and time, out\nof the fresh clear water, brought me a wistful sense of peace and\norder, a desire for I hardly know what--a poised stateliness of life, a\ntender beauty--if I could but win it for myself!\n\nOn and on, hour by hour, that still bright afternoon, I made my slow\nway over the fen; insensibly and softly the far-off villages fell\nbehind; and yet I seemed to draw no nearer to the hills of the horizon.\nNow and then I passed a lonely grange; once or twice I came near to a\ntall shuttered engine-house of pale brick, and heard the slow beat of\nthe pumps within, like the pulse of a hidden heart, which drew the\nmarsh-water from a hundred runlets, and poured it slowly seawards.\nField after field slid past me, some golden from end to end with\nbuttercups, some waving with young wheat, till at last I reached a\nsolitary inn beside a ferry, with the quaint title: \"_No hurry! five\nmiles from anywhere._\"  And here I met with a grave and kindly welcome,\nsuch as warms the heart of one who goes on pilgrimage: as though I was\ncertainly expected, and as if the lord of the place had given charge\nconcerning me.  It would indeed hardly have surprised me if I had been\nhad into a room, and shown strange symbols of good and evil; or if I\nhad been given a roll and a bottle, and a note of the way.  But no such\npresents were made to me, and it was not until after I had left the\nlittle house, and had been ferried in an old blackened boat across the\nstream, that I found that I had the gifts in my bosom all the while.\n\nThe roll was the fair sight that I had seen, in this world where it is\nso sweet to live.  My cordial was the peace within my spirit.  And as\nfor the way, it seemed plain enough that day, easy to discern and\nfollow; and the heavenly city itself as near and visible as the blue\ntowers that rose so solemnly upon the green horizon.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nThe Well and the Chapel\n\nIt is not often that one is fortunate enough to see two perfectly\nbeautiful things in one day.  But such was my fortune in the late\nsummer, on a day that was in itself perfect enough to show what\nSeptember can do, if he only has a mind to plan hours of delight for\nman.  The distance was very blue and marvellously clear.  The trees had\nthe bronzed look of the summer's end, with deep azure shadows.  The\ncattle moved slowly about the fields, and there was harvesting going\non, so that the villages we passed seemed almost deserted.  I will not\nsay whence we started or where we went, and I shall mention no names at\nall, except one, which is of the nature of a symbol or incantation; for\nI do not desire that others should go where I went, unless I could be\nsure that they went with the same peace in their hearts that I bore\nwith me that day.\n\nOne of the places we visited on purpose; the other we saw by accident.\nOn the small map we carried was marked, at the corner of a little wood\nthat seemed to have no way to it, a well with the name of a saint, of\nwhom I never heard, though I doubt not she is written in the book of\nGod.\n\nWe reached the nearest point to the well upon the road, and we struck\ninto the fields; that was a sweet place where we found ourselves!  In\nancient days it had been a marsh, I think.  For great ditches ran\neverywhere, choked with loose-strife and water-dock, and the ground\nquaked as we walked, a pleasant springy black mould, the dust of\nendless centuries of the rich water plants.\n\nTo the left, the ground ran up sharply in a minute bluff, with the soft\noutline of underlying chalk, covered with small thorn-thickets; and it\nwas all encircled with small, close woods, where we heard the pheasants\nscamper.  We found an old, slow, bovine man, with a cheerful face, who\nreadily threw aside some fumbling work he was doing, and guided us; and\nwe should never have found the spot without him.  He led us to a\nstream, crossed by a single plank with a handrail, on which some\nchildren had put a trap, baited with nuts for the poor squirrels, that\nlove to run chattering across the rail from wood to wood.  Then we\nentered a little covert; it was very pleasant in there, all dark and\ngreen and still; and here all at once we came to the place; in the\ncovert were half a dozen little steep pits, each a few yards across,\ndug out of the chalk.  From each of the pits, which lay side by side, a\nchannel ran down to the stream, and in each channel flowed a small\nbickering rivulet of infinite clearness.  The pits themselves were a\nfew feet deep; at the bottom of each was a shallow pool, choked with\nleaves; and here lay the rare beauty of the place.  The water rose in\neach pit out of secret ways, but in no place that we could see.  The\nfirst pit was still when we looked upon it; then suddenly the water\nrose in a tiny eddy, in one corner, among the leaves, sending a little\nripple glancing across the pool.  It was as though something, branch or\ninsect, had fallen from above, the water leapt so suddenly.  Then it\nrose again in another place, then in another; then five or six little\nfreshets rose all at once, the rings crossing and recrossing.  And it\nwas the same in all the pits, which we visited one by one; we descended\nand drank, and found the water as cold as ice, and not less pure; while\nthe old man babbled on about the waste of so much fine water, and of\nits virtues for weak eyes: \"Ain't it cold, now?  Ain't it, then?  My\nGod, ain't it?\"--he was a man with a rich store of simple\nasseverations,--\"And ain't it good for weak eyes neither!  You must\njust come to the place the first thing in the morning, and wash your\neyes in the water, and ain't it strengthening then!\"  So he chirped on,\nsaying everything over and over, like a bird among the thickets.\n\nWe paid him for his trouble, with a coin that made him so gratefully\nbewildered that he said to us: \"Now, gentlemen, if there's anything\nelse that you want, give it a name; and if you meet any one as you go\naway, say 'Perrett told me' (Perrett's my name), and then you'll see!\"\nWhat the precise virtue of this invocation was, we did not have an\nopportunity of testing, but that it was a talisman to unlock hidden\ndoors, I make no doubt.\n\nWe went back silently over the fields, with the wonder of the thing\nstill in our minds.  To think of the pure wells bubbling and flashing,\nby day and by night, in the hot summer weather, when the smell of the\nwood lies warm in the sun; on cold winter nights under moon and stars,\nfor ever casting up the bright elastic jewel, that men call water, and\nfeeding the flowing stream that wanders to the sea.  I was very full of\ngratitude to the pure maiden saint that lent her name to the well and I\nam sure she never had a more devout pair of worshippers.\n\nSo we sped on in silence, thinking--at least I thought--how the water\nleaped and winked in the sacred wells, and how clear showed the chalk,\nand the leaves that lay at the bottom: till at last we drew to our\nother goal.  \"Here is the gate,\" said my companion at last.\n\nOn one side of the road stood a big substantial farm; on the other, by\na gate, was a little lodge.  Here a key was given us by an old hearty\nman, with plenty of advice of a simple and sententious kind, until I\nfelt as though I were enacting a part in some little _Pilgrim's\nProgress_, and as if _Mr Interpreter_ himself, with a very grave smile,\nwould come out and have me into a room by myself, to see some odd\npleasant show that he had provided.  But it was perhaps more in the\nmanner of _Evangelist_, for our guide pointed with his finger across a\nvery wide field, and showed us a wicket to enter in at.\n\nHere was a great flat grassy pasture, the water again very near the\nsurface, as the long-leaved water-plants, that sprawled in all the\nditches, showed.  But when we reached the wicket we seemed to be as far\nremoved from humanity as dwellers in a lonely isle.  A few cattle\ngrazed drowsily, and the crisp tearing of the grass by their big lips\ncame softly across the pasture.  Inside the wicket stood a single\nancient house, uninhabited, and festooned with ivy into a thing more\nbush than house; though a small Tudor window peeped from the leaves,\nlike the little suspicious eye of some shaggy beast.\n\nA stone's throw away lay a large square moat, full of water, all\nfringed with ancient gnarled trees; the island which it enclosed was\novergrown with tiny thickets of dishevelled box-trees, and huge\nsprawling laurels; we walked softly round it, and there was our goal: a\nsmall church of a whitish stone, in the middle of a little close of old\nsycamores in stiff summer leaf.\n\nIt stood so remote, so quietly holy, so ancient, that I could think of\nnothing but the \"old febel chapel\" of the _Morte d'Arthur_.  It had, I\nknow not why, the mysterious air of romance all about it.  It seemed to\nsit, musing upon what had been and what should be, smilingly guarding\nsome tender secret for the pure-hearted, full of the peace the world\ncannot give.\n\nWithin it was cool and dark, and had an ancient holy smell; it was\nfurnished sparely with seat and screen, and held monuments of old\nknights and ladies, sleeping peacefully side by side, heads pillowed on\nhands, looking out with quiet eyes, as though content to wait.\n\nUpon the island in the moat, we learned, had stood once a flourishing\nmanor, but through what sad vicissitudes it had fallen into dust I care\nnot.  Enough that peaceful lives had been lived there; children had\nbeen born, had played on the moat-edge, had passed away to bear\nchildren of their own, had returned with love in their hearts for the\nold house.  From the house to the church children had been borne for\nbaptism; merry wedding processions had gone to and fro, happy Christmas\ngroups had hurried backwards and forwards; and the slow funeral pomp\nhad passed thither, under the beating of the slow bell, bearing one\nthat should not return.\n\nSomething of the love and life and sorrow of the good days passed into\nmy mind, and I gave a tender thought to men and women whom I had never\nknown, who had tasted of life, and of joyful things that have an end;\nand who now know the secret of the dark house to which we all are bound.\n\nWhen we at last rose unwillingly to go, the sun was setting, and flamed\nred and brave through the gnarled trunks of the little wood; the mist\ncrept over the pasture, and far away the lights of the lonely farm\nbegan to wink through the gathering dark.\n\nBut I had seen!  Something of the joy of the two sweet places had\nsettled in my mind; and now, in fretful, weary, wakeful hours, it is\ngood to think of the clear wells that sparkle so patiently in the dark\nwood; and, better still, to wander in mind about the moat and the\nlittle silent church; and to wonder what it all means; what the love is\nthat creeps over the soul at the sight of these places, so full of a\nremote and delicate beauty; and whether the hunger of the heart for\npeace and permanence, which visits us so often in our short and\ndifficult pilgrimage, has a counterpart in the land that is very far\noff.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nThe Cuckoo\n\nI have been much haunted, indeed infested, if the word may be pardoned,\nby cuckoos lately.  When I was a child, acute though my observation of\nbirds and beasts and natural things was, I do not recollect that I ever\nsaw a cuckoo, though I often tried to stalk one by the ear, following\nthe sweet siren melody, as it dropped into the expectant silence from a\nhedgerow tree; and I remember to have heard the notes of two, that\nseemed to answer each other, draw closer each time they called.\n\nBut of late I have become familiar with the silvery grey body and the\ngliding flight; and this year I have been almost dogged by them.  One\nflew beside me, as I rode the other day, for nearly a quarter of a mile\nalong a hedgerow, taking short gliding flights, and settling till I\ncame up; I could see his shimmering wings and his long barred tail.  I\ndismounted at last, and he let me watch him for a long time, noting his\nsmall active head, his decent sober coat.  Then, when he thought I had\nseen enough, he gave one rich bell-like call, with the full force of\nhis soft throat, and floated off.\n\nHe seemed loath to leave me.  But what word or gift, I thought, did he\nbring with him, false and pretty bird?  Do I too desire that others\nshould hatch my eggs, content with flute-like notes of pleasure?\n\nAnd yet how strange and marvellous a thing this instinct is; that one\nbird, by an absolute and unvarying instinct, should forego the dear\nbusiness of nesting and feeding, and should take shrewd advantage of\nthe labours of other birds!  It cannot be a deliberately reasoned or\ncalculated thing; at least we say that it cannot; and yet not Darwin\nand all his followers have brought us any nearer to the method by which\nsuch an instinct is developed and trained, till it has become an\nabsolute law of the tribe; making it as natural a thing for the cuckoo\nto search for a built nest, and to cast away its foundling egg there,\nas it is for other birds to welcome and feed the intruder.  It seems so\nsatanically clever a thing to do; such a strange fantastic whim of the\nCreator to take thought in originating it!  It is this whimsicality,\nthe _bizarre_ humour in Nature, that puzzles me more than anything in\nthe world, because it seems like the sport of a child with odd\ninconsequent fancies, and with omnipotence behind it all the time.  It\nseems strange enough to think of the laws that govern the breeding,\nnesting, and nurture of birds at all, especially when one considers all\nthe accidents that so often make the toil futile, like the stealing of\neggs by other birds, and the predatory incursions of foes.  One would\nexpect a law, framed by omnipotence, to be invariable, not hampered by\nall kinds of difficulties that omnipotence, one might have thought,\ncould have provided against.  And then comes this further strange\nvariation in the law, in the case of this single family of birds, and\nthe mystery thickens and deepens.  And stranger than all is the\nexistence of the questioning and unsatisfied human spirit, that\nobserves these things and classifies them, and that yet gets no nearer\nto the solution of the huge, fantastic, patient plan!  To make a law,\nas the Creator seems to have done; and then to make a hundred other\nlaws that seem to make the first law inoperative; to play this gigantic\ngame century after century; and then to put into the hearts of our\ninquisitive race the desire to discover what it is all about; and to\nleave the desire unsatisfied.  What a labyrinthine mystery!  Depth\nbeyond depth, and circle beyond circle!\n\nIt is a dark and bewildering region that thus opens to the view.  But\none conclusion is to beware of seeming certainties, to keep the windows\nof the mind open to the light; not to be over-anxious about the little\npart we have to play in the great pageant, but to advance, step by\nstep, in utter trustfulness.\n\nPerhaps that is your message to me, graceful bird, with the rich joyful\nnote!  With what a thrill, too, do you bring back to me the brightness\nof old forgotten springs, the childish rapture at the sweet tunable\ncry!  Then, in those far-off days, it was but the herald of the glowing\nsummer days, the time of play and flowers and scents.  But now the soft\nnote, it seems, opens a door into the formless and uneasy world of\nspeculation, of questions that have no answer, convincing me of\nignorance and doubt, bidding me beat in vain against the bars that hem\nme in.  Why should I crave thus for certainty, for strength?  Answer\nme, happy bird!  Nay, you guard your secret.  Softer and more distant\nsound the sweet notes, warning me to rest and believe, telling me to\nwait and hope.\n\nBut one further thought!  One is expected, by people of conventional\nand orthodox minds, to base one's conceptions of God on the writings of\nfrail and fallible men, and to accept their slender and eager testimony\nto the occurrence of abnormal events as the best revelation of God that\nthe world contains.  And all the while we disregard his own patient\nwriting upon the wall.  Every day and every hour we are confronted with\nstrange marvels, which we dismiss from our minds because, God forgive\nus, we call them natural; and yet they take us back, by a ladder of\nimmeasurable antiquity, to ages before man had emerged from a savage\nstate.  Centuries before our rude forefathers had learned even to\nscratch a few hillocks into earthworks, while they lived a brutish\nlife, herding in dens and caves, the cuckoo, with her traditions\nfaultlessly defined, was paying her annual visits, fluting about the\nforest glades, and searching for nests into which to intrude her\nspeckled egg.  The patient witness of God!  She is as direct a\nrevelation of the Creator's mind, could we but interpret the mystery of\nher instincts, as Augustine himself with his scheme of salvation\nlogically defined.  Each of these missions, whether of bird or man, a\nwonder and a marvel!  But do we not tend to accept the eager and\nchildish hopes of humanity, arrayed with blithe certainty, as a nearer\nevidence of the mind of God than the bird that at his bidding pursues\nher annual quest, unaffected by our hasty conclusions, unmoved by our\nglorified visions?  I have sometimes thought that Christ probably spoke\nmore than is recorded about the observation of Nature; the hearts of\nthose that heard him were so set on temporal ends and human\napplications, that they had not perhaps leisure or capacity to\nrecollect aught but those few scattered words, that seem to speak of a\ndeep love for and insight into the things of earth.  They remembered\nbetter that Christ blasted a fig-tree for doing what the Father bade\nthe poor plant do, than his tender dwelling upon grasses and lilies,\nsparrow and sheep.  The withering of the tree made an allegory: while\nthe love of flowers and streams was to those simple hearts perhaps an\nunaccountable, almost an eccentric thing.  But had Christ drawn human\nbreath in our bleaker Northern air, he would have perhaps, if those\nthat surrounded him had had leisure and grace to listen, drawn as grave\nand comforting a soul-music from our homely cuckoo, with her punctual\nobedience, her unquestioning faith, as he did from the birds and\nflowers of the hot hillsides, the pastoral valleys of Palestine.  I am\nsure he would have loved the cuckoo, and forgiven her her heartless\ncustoms.  Those that sing so delicately would not have leisure and\ncourage to make their music so soft and sweet, if they had not a hard\nheart to turn to the sorrows of the world.\n\nYet still I am no nearer the secret.  God sends me, here the frozen\npeak, there the blue sea; here the tiger, there the cuckoo; here\nVirgil, there Jeremiah; here St Francis of Assisi, there Napoleon.  And\nall the while, as he pushes his fair or hurtful toys upon the stage,\nnot a whisper, not a smile, not a glance escapes him; he thrusts them\non, he lays them by; but the interpretation he leaves with us, and\nthere is never a word out of the silence to show us whether we have\nguessed aright.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nSpring-time\n\nYesterday was a day of brisk airs.  The wind was at work brushing great\ninky clouds out of the sky.  They came sailing up, those great rounded\nmasses of dark vapour, like huge galleons driving to the West, spilling\ntheir freight as they came.  The air would be suddenly full of tall\ntwisted rain-streaks, and then would come a bright burst of the sun.\n\nBut a secret change came in the night; some silent power filled the air\nwith warmth and balm.  And to-day, when I walked out of the town with\nan old and familiar friend, the spring had come.  A maple had broken\ninto bloom and leaf; a chestnut was unfolding his gummy buds; the\ncottage gardens were full of squills and hepatica; and the mezereons\nwere all thick with damask buds.  In green and sheltered underwoods\nthere were bursts of daffodils; hedges were pricked with green points;\nand a delicate green tapestry was beginning to weave itself over the\nroadside ditches.\n\nThe air seemed full of a deep content.  Birds fluted softly, and the\nhigh elms which stirred in the wandering breezes were all thick with\ntheir red buds.  There was so much to look at and to point out that we\ntalked but fitfully; and there was, too, a gentle languor abroad which\nmade us content to be silent.\n\nIn one village which we passed, a music-loving squire had made a\nconcert for his friends and neighbours, and doubtless, too, for our\nvagrant delight; we stood uninvited to listen to a tuneful stir of\nviolins, which with a violoncello booming beneath, broke out very\npleasantly from the windows of a village school-room.\n\nWhen body and mind are fresh and vigorous, these outside impressions\noften lose, I think, their sharp savours.  One is preoccupied with\none's own happy schemes and merry visions; the bird sings shrill within\nits cage, and claps its golden wings.  But on such soft and languorous\ndays as these days of early spring, when the body is unstrung, and the\nbonds and ties that fasten the soul to its prison are loosened and\nunbound, the spirit, striving to be glad, draws in through the passages\nof sense these swift impressions of beauty, as a thirsty child drains a\ncup of spring-water on a sun-scorched day, lingering over the limpid\nfreshness of the gliding element.  The airy voices of the strings being\nstilled, with a sort of pity for those penned in the crowded room,\ninterchanging the worn coinage of civility, we stood a while looking in\nat a gate, through which we could see the cool front of a Georgian\nmanor-house, built of dusky bricks, with coigns and dressings of grey\nstone.  The dark windows with their thick white casements, the\nround-topped dormers, the steps up to the door, and a prim circle of\ngrass which seemed to lie like a carpet on the pale gravel, gave the\nfeeling of a picture; the whole being framed in the sombre yews of\nshrubberies which bordered the drive.  It was hard to feel that the\nquiet house was the scene of a real and active life; it seemed so full\nof a slumberous peace, and to be tenanted only by soft shadows of the\npast.  And so we went slowly on by the huge white-boarded mill, its\ncracks streaming with congealed dust of wheat, where the water\nthundered through the sluices and the gear rattled within.\n\nWe crossed the bridge, and walked on by a field-track that skirted the\nedge of the wold.  How thin and clean were the tints of the dry\nploughlands and the long sweep of pasture!  Presently we were at the\nfoot of a green drift-road, an old Roman highway that ran straight up\ninto the downs.  On such a day as this, one follows a spirit in one's\nfeet, as Shelley said; and we struck up into the wold, on the green\nroad, with its thorn-thickets, until the chalk began to show white\namong the ruts; and we were soon at the top.  A little to the left of\nus appeared, in the middle of the pasture, a tiny round-topped tumulus\nthat I had often seen from a lower road, but never visited.  It was\nfresher and cooler up here.  On arriving at the place we found that it\nwas not a tumulus at all, but a little outcrop of the pure chalk.  It\nhad steep, scarped sides with traces of caves scooped in them.  The\ngrassy top commanded a wide view of wold and plain.\n\nOur talk wandered over many things, but here, I do not know why, we\nwere speaking of the taking up of old friendships, and the comfort and\ndelight of those serene and undisturbed relations which one sometimes\nestablishes with a congenial person, which no lapse of time or lack of\ncommunication seems to interrupt--the best kind of friendship.  There\nis here no blaming of conditions that may keep the two lives apart; no\nfeverish attempt to keep up the relation, no resentment if mutual\nintercourse dies away.  And then, perhaps, in the shifting of\nconditions, one's life is again brought near to the life of one's\nfriend, and the old easy intercourse is quietly resumed.  My companion\nsaid that such a relation seemed to him to lie as near to the solution\nof the question of the preservation of identity after death as any\nother phenomenon of life.  \"Supposing,\" he said, \"that such a\nfriendship as that of which we have spoken is resumed after a break of\ntwenty years.  One is in no respect the same person; one looks\ndifferent, one's views of life have altered, and physiologists tell us\nthat one's body has changed perhaps three times over, in the time, so\nthat there is not a particle of our frame that is the same; and yet the\nemotion, the feeling of the friendship remains, and remains unaltered.\nIf the stuff of our thoughts were to alter as the materials of our body\nalter, the continuity of such an emotion would be impossible.  Of\ncourse it is difficult to see how, divested of the body, our\nperceptions can continue; but almost the only thing we are really\nconscious of is our own identity, our sharp separation from the mass of\nphenomena that are not ourselves.  And, if an emotion can survive the\ntransmutation of the entire frame, may it not also survive the\ndissolution of that frame?\"\n\n\"Could it be thus?\" I said.  \"A ray of light falls through a chink in a\nshutter; through the ray, as we watch it, floats an infinite array of\ntiny motes, and it is through the striking of the light upon them that\nwe are aware of the light; but they are never the same.  Yet the ray\nhas a seeming identity, though even the very ripples of light that\ncause it are themselves ever changing, ever renewed.  Could not the\nsoul be such a ray, illuminating the atoms that pass through it, and\nitself a perpetual motion, a constant renewal?\"\n\nBut the day warned us to descend.  The shadows grew longer, and a great\npale light of sunset began to gather in the West.  We came slowly down\nthrough the pastures, till we joined the familiar road again.  And at\nlast we parted, in that wistful silence that falls upon the mood when\ntwo spirits have achieved a certain nearness of thought, have drawn as\nclose as the strange fence of identity allows.  But as I went home, I\nstood for a moment at the edge of a pleasant grove, an outlying\npleasaunce of a great house on the verge of the town.  The trees grew\nstraight and tall within it, and all the underwood was full of spring\nflowers and green ground-plants, expanding to light and warmth; the sky\nwas all full of light, dying away to a calm and liquid green, the\ncolour of peace.  Here I encountered another friend, a retiring man of\nletters, who lives apart from the world in dreams of his own.  He is a\nbright-eyed, eager creature, tall and shadowy, who has but a slight\nhold upon the world.  We talked for a few moments of trivial things,\ntill a chance question of mine drew from him a sad statement of his own\nhealth.  He had been lately, he said, to a physician, and had been\nwarned that he was in a somewhat precarious condition.  I tried to\ncomfort him, but he shook his head; and though he tried to speak\nlightly and cheerfully, I could see that there was a shadow of doom\nupon him.\n\nAs I turned to go, he held up his hand, \"Listen to the birds!\" he said.\nWe were silent, and could hear the clear flute-like notes of thrushes\nhidden in the tall trees, and the soft cooing of a dove.  \"That gives\none,\" he said, \"some sense of the happiness which one cannot capture\nfor oneself!\"  He smiled mournfully, and in a moment I saw his light\nfigure receding among the trees.  What a world it is for sorrow!  My\nfriend was going, bearing the burden of a lonely grief, which I could\nnot lighten for him; and yet the whole scene was full of so sweet a\ncontent, the birds full of hope and delight, the flowers and leaves\nglad to feel themselves alive.  What was one to make of it all?  Where\nto turn for light?  What conceivable benefit could result from thus\nperpetually desiring to know and perpetually being baffled?\n\nYet, after all, to-day has been one of those rare days, like the gold\nsifted from the _debris_ of the mine, which has had for me, by some\nsubtle alchemy of the spirit, the permanent quality which is often\ndenied to more stirring incidents and livelier experiences.  I had seen\nthe mysteries of life and death, of joy and sorrow, sharply and sadly\ncontrasted.  I had been one with Nature, with all her ardent ecstasies,\nher vital impulses; and then I had seen too the other side of the\npicture, a soul confronted with the mystery of death, alone in the\nshapeless gloom; the very cries and stirrings and joyful dreams of\nNature bringing no help, but only deepening the shadow.\n\nAnd there came too the thought of how little such easy speculations as\nwe had indulged in on the grassy mound, thoughts which seemed so\nradiant with beauty and mystery, how little they could sustain or\ncomfort the sad spirit which had entered into the cloud.\n\nSo that bright first day of spring shaped itself for me into a day when\nnot only the innocent and beautiful flowers of the world rose into life\nand sunshine; but a day when sadder thoughts raised their head too, red\nflowers of suffering, and pale blooms of sadness; and yet these too can\nbe woven into the spirit's coronal, I doubt not, if one can but find\nheart to do it, and patience for the sorrowful task.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nThe Hare\n\nI have just read a story that has moved me strangely, with a helpless\nbewilderment and a sad anger of mind.  When the doors of a factory, in\nthe heart of a northern town, were opened one morning, a workman, going\nto move a barrel that stood in a corner, saw something crouching behind\nit that he believed to be a dog or cat.  He pushed it with his foot,\nand a large hare sprang out.  I suppose that the poor creature had been\nprobably startled by some dog the evening before, in a field close to\nthe town, had fled in the twilight along the streets, frightened and\nbewildered, and had slipped into the first place of refuge it had\nfound; had perhaps explored its prison in vain, when the doors were\nshut, with many dreary perambulations, and had then sunk into an uneasy\nsleep, with frequent timid awakenings, in the terrifying unfamiliar\nplace.\n\nThe man who had disturbed it shouted aloud to the other workmen who\nwere entering; the doors were shut, and the hare was chased by an eager\nand excited throng from corner to corner; it fled behind some planks;\nthe planks were taken up; it made, in its agony of fear, a great leap\nover the men who were bending down to catch it; it rushed into a corner\nbehind some tanks, from which it was dislodged with a stick.  For half\nan hour the chase continued, until at last it was headed into a\nwork-room, where it relinquished hope; it crouched panting, with its\nlong ears laid back, its pretty brown eyes wide open, as though\nwondering desperately what it had done to deserve such usage; until it\nwas despatched with a shower of blows, and the limp, bleeding body\nhanded over to its original discoverer.\n\nNot a soul there had a single thought of pity for the creature; they\nwent back to work pleased, excited, amused.  It was a good story to\ntell for a week, and the man who had struck the last blows became a\nlittle hero for his deftness.  The old savage instinct for prey had\nswept fiercely up from the bottom of these rough hearts--hearts\ncapable, too, of tenderness and grief, of compassion for suffering,\ngentle with women and children.  It seems to be impossible to blame\nthem, and such blame would have been looked upon as silly and misplaced\nsentiment.  Probably not even an offer of money, far in excess of the\nmarket value of the dead body, if the hare could be caught unharmed,\nwould have prevailed at the moment over the instinct for blood.\n\nThere are many hares in the world, no doubt, and _nous sommes tous\ncondamnes_.  But that the power which could call into being so\nharmless, pretty, and delicately organised a creature does not care or\nis unable to protect it better, is a strange mystery.  It cannot be\nsupposed that the hare's innocent life deserved such chastisement; and\nit is difficult to believe that suffering, helplessly endured at one\npoint of the creation, can be remedial at another.  Yet one cannot bear\nto think that the extremity of terror and pain, thus borne by a\nsensitive creature, either comes of neglect, or of cruel purpose, or is\nmerely wasted.  And yet the chase and the slaughter of the unhappy\nthing cannot be anything but debasing to those who took part in it.\nAnd at the same time, to be angry and sorry over so wretched an episode\nseems like trying to be wiser than the mind that made us.  What single\ngleam of brightness is it possible to extract from the pitiful little\nstory?  Only this: that there must lie some tender secret, not only\nbehind what seems a deed of unnecessary cruelty, but in the implanting\nin us of the instinct to grieve with a miserable indignation over a\nthing we cannot cure, and even in the withholding from us any hope that\nmight hint at the solution of the mystery.\n\nBut the thought of the seemly fur stained and bedabbled, the bright\nhazel eyes troubled with the fear of death, the silky ears, in which\nrang the horrid din of pursuit, rises before me as I write, and casts\nme back into the sad mood, that makes one feel that the closer that one\ngazes into the sorrowful texture of the world, the more glad we may\nwell be to depart.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nThe Diplodocus\n\nI have had my imagination deeply thrilled lately by reading about the\ndiscovery in America of the bones of a fossil animal called the\n_Diplodocus_.  I hardly know what the word is derived from, but it\nmight possibly mean an animal which _takes twice as much_, of\nnourishment, perhaps, or room; either twice as much as is good for it,\nor twice as much as any other animal.  In either case it seems a\nfelicitous description.  The creature was a reptile, a gigantic toad or\nlizard that lived, it is calculated, about three million years ago.  It\nwas in Canada that this particular creature lived.  The earth was then\na far hotter place than now; a terrible steaming swamp, full of rank\nand luxuriant vegetation, gigantic palms, ferns as big as trees.  The\ndiplodocus was upwards of a hundred feet long, a vast inert creature,\nwith a tough black hide.  In spite of its enormous bulk its brain was\nonly the size of a pigeon's egg, so that its mental processes must have\nbeen of the simplest.  It had a big mouth full of rudimentary teeth, of\nno use to masticate its food, but just sufficing to crop the luxuriant\njuicy vegetable stalks on which it lived, and of which it ate in the\ncourse of the day as much as a small hayrick would contain.  The\npoisonous swamps in which it crept can seldom have seen the light of\nday; perpetual and appalling torrents of rain must have raged there,\nsteaming and dripping through the dim and monstrous forests, with their\nfallen day, varied by long periods of fiery tropical sunshine.  In this\nhot gloom the diplodocus trailed itself about, eating, eating; living a\ncentury or so; loving, as far as a brain the size of a pigeon's egg can\nlove, and no doubt with a maternal tenderness for its loathly\noffspring.  It had but few foes, though, in the course of endless\ngenerations, there sprang up a carnivorous race of creatures which seem\nto have found the diplodocus tender eating.  The particular diplodocus\nof which I speak probably died of old age in the act of drinking, and\nwas engulfed in a pool of the great curdling, reedy river that ran\nlazily through the forest.  The imagination sickens before the thought\nof the speedy putrefaction of such a beast under such conditions; but\nthis process over, the creature's bones lay deep in the pool.\n\nAnother feature of the earth at that date must have been the vast\nvolcanic agencies at work; whole continents were at intervals submerged\nor uplifted.  In this case the whole of the forest country, where the\ndiplodocus lay, was submerged beneath the sea, and sank to a depth of\nseveral leagues; for, in the course of countless ages, sea-ooze, to a\ndepth of at least three miles, was deposited over the forest,\npreserving the trunks and even the very sprays of the tropical\nvegetation.  Who would suppose that the secret history of this great\nbeast would ever be revealed, as it lay century after century beneath\nthe sea-floor?  But another convulsion took place, and a huge ridge of\ncountry, forming the rocky backbone of North and South America, was\nthrust up again by a volcanic convulsion, so that the diplodocus now\nlay a mile above the sea, with a vast pile of downs over his head which\nbecame a huge range of snow mountains.  Then the rain and the sun began\ntheir work; and the whole of the immense bed of uplifted ocean-silt,\nnow become chalk, was carried eastward by mighty rivers, forming the\nwhole continent of North America, between these mountains and the\neastern sea.  At last the tropic forest was revealed again, a wide\ntract of petrified tree-trunks and fossil wood.  And then out of an\nexcavation, made where one of the last patches of the chalk still lay\nin a rift of the hills, where the old river-pool had been into which\nthe great beast had sunk, was dug the neck-bone of the creature.\nCuriosity was aroused by the sight of this fragment of an unknown\nanimal, and bit by bit the great bones came to light; some portions\nwere missing, but further search revealed the remains of three other\nspecimens of the great lizard, and a complete skeleton was put together.\n\nThe mind positively reels before the story that is here revealed; we,\nwho are feebly accustomed to regard the course of recorded history as\nthe crucial and critical period of the life of the world, must be\nsobered by the reflection that the whole of the known history of the\nhuman race is not the thousandth, not the ten-thousandth part of the\nhistory of the planet.  What does this vast and incredible panorama\nmean to us?  What is it all about?  This ghastly force at work, dealing\nwith life and death on so incredible a scale, and yet guarding its\nsecret so close?  The diplodocus, I imagine, seldom indulged in\nreveries as to how it came to be there; it awoke to life; its business\nwas to crawl about in the hot gloom, to eat, and drink, and sleep, to\npropagate its kind; and not the least amazing part of the history is\nthat at length should have arisen a race of creatures, human beings,\nthat should be able to reconstruct, however faintly, by investigation,\nimagination, and deduction, a picture of the dead life of the world.\nIt is this capacity for arriving at what has been, for tracing out the\nhuge mystery of the work of God, that appears to me the most wonderful\nthing of all.  And yet we seem no nearer to the solution of the secret;\nwe come into the world with this incredible gift of placing ourselves,\nso to speak, on the side of the Creator, of surveying his work; and yet\nwe cannot guess what is in his heart; the stern and majestic eyes of\nNature behold us stonily, permitting us to make question, to explore,\nto investigate, but withholding the secret.  And in the light of those\ninscrutable eyes, how weak and arrogant appear our dogmatic systems of\nreligion, that would profess to define and read the very purposes of\nGod; our dearest conceptions of morality, our pathetic principles, pale\nand fade before these gigantic indications of mysterious, indifferent\nenergy.\n\nYet even here, I think, the golden thread gleams out in the darkness;\nfor slight and frail as our so-called knowledge, our beliefs, appear,\nbefore that awful, accumulated testimony of the past, yet the latest\ndevelopment is none the less the instant guiding of God; it is all as\nmuch a gift from him as the blind impulses of the great lizard in the\ndark forest; and again there emerges the mighty thought, the only\nthought that can give us the peace we seek, that we are all in his\nhand, that nothing is forgotten, nothing is small or great in his\nsight; and that each of our frail, trembling spirits has its place in\nthe prodigious scheme, as much as the vast and fiery globe of the sun\non the one hand, and, on the other, the smallest atom of dust that\nwelters deep beneath the sea.  All that is, exists; indestructible,\naugust, divine, capable of endless rearrangement, infinite\nmodifications, but undeniably there.\n\nThis truth, however dimly apprehended, however fitfully followed, ought\nto give us a certain confidence, a certain patience.  In careless moods\nwe may neglect it; in days of grief and pain we may feel that it cannot\nhelp us; but it is the truth; and the more we can make it our own, the\ndeeper that we can set it in our trivial spirits, the better are we\nprepared to learn the lesson which the deepest instinct of our nature\nbids us believe, that the Father is trying to teach us, or is at least\nwilling that we should learn if we can.\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nThe Beetle\n\nHow strange it is that sometimes the smallest and commonest incident,\nthat has befallen one a hundred times before, will suddenly open the\ndoor into that shapeless land of fruitless speculation; the land on to\nwhich, I think, the Star Wormwood fell, burning it up and making it\nbitter; the land in which we most of us sometimes have to wander, and\nalways alone.\n\nIt was such a trifling thing after all.  I was bicycling very\npleasantly down a country road to-day, when one of those small pungent\nbeetles, a tiny thing, in black plate-armour, for all the world like a\nminute torpedo, sailed straight into my eye.  The eyelid, quicker even\nthan my own thought, shut itself down, but too late.  The little fellow\nwas engulphed in what Walt Whitman would call the liquid rims.  These\nsmall, hard creatures are tenacious of life, and they have, moreover,\nthe power of exuding a noxious secretion--an acrid oil, with a strong\nscent, and even taste, of saffron.  It was all over in a moment.  I\nrubbed my eye, and I suppose crushed him to death; but I could not get\nhim out, and I had no companion to extract him; the result was that my\neye was painful and inflamed for an hour or two, till the tiny, black,\nflattened corpse worked its way out for itself.\n\nNow, that is not a very marvellous incident; but it set me wondering.\nIn the first place, what a horrible experience for the creature; in a\nmoment, as he sailed joyfully along, saying, \"Aha,\" perhaps, like the\nwar-horse among the trumpets, on the scented summer breeze, with the\nsun warm on his mail, to find himself stuck fast in a hot and oozy\ncrevice, and presently to be crushed to death.  His little taste of the\npleasant world so soon over, and for me an agreeable hour spoilt, so\nfar as I could see, to no particular purpose.\n\nNow, one is inclined to believe that such an incident is what we call\nfortuitous; but the only hope we have in the world is to believe that\nthings do not happen by chance.  One believes, or tries to believe,\nthat the Father of all has room in his mind for the smallest of his\ncreatures; that not a sparrow, as Christ said, falls to the ground\nwithout his tender care.  Theologians tell us that death entered into\nthe world by sin; but it is not consistent to believe that, whereas\nboth men and animals suffer and die, the sufferings and death of men\nare caused by their sins, or by the sins of their ancestors, while\nanimals suffer and die without sin being the cause.  Surely the cause\nmust be the same for all the creation? and still less is it possible to\nbelieve that the suffering and death of creatures is caused by the sin\nof man, because they suffered and died for thousands of centuries\nbefore man came upon the scene.\n\nIf God is omnipotent and all-loving, we are bound to believe that\nsuffering and death are sent by him deliberately, and not cruelly.  One\nsingle instance, however minute, that established the reverse, would\nvitiate the whole theory; and if so, then we are the sport of a power\nthat is sometimes kind and sometimes malignant.  An insupportable\nthought!\n\nIs it possible to conceive that the law of sin works in the lower\ncreation, and that they, too, are punished, or even wisely corrected,\nfor sinning against such light as they have?  Had the little beetle\nthat sailed across my path acted in such a way that he had deserved his\nfate?  Or was his death meant to make him a better, a larger-minded\nbeetle?  I cannot bring myself to believe that.  Perhaps a\nphilosophical theologian would say that creation was all one, and that\nsuffering at one point was remedial at some other point.  I am not in a\nposition to deny the possibility of that, but I am equally unable to\naffirm that it is so.  There is no evidence which would lead me to\nthink it.  It only seems to me necessary to affirm it, in order to\nconfirm the axiom that God is omnipotent and all-loving.  Much in\nnature and in human life would seem to be at variance with that.\n\nIt may be said that one is making too much of a minute incident; but\nsuch incidents are of hourly occurrence all the world over; and the\nonly possible method for arriving at truth is the scientific method of\ncumulative evidence.  The beetle was small, indeed, and infinitely\nunimportant in the scheme of things.  But he was all in all to himself.\nThe world only existed so far as he was concerned, through his tiny\nconsciousness.\n\nThe old-fashioned religious philosophers held that man was the crown\nand centre of creation, and that God was mainly preoccupied with man's\ndestiny.  They maintained that all creatures were given us for our use\nand enjoyment.  The enjoyment that I derived from the beetle, in this\ncase, was not conspicuous.  But I suppose that such cheerful optimists\nwould say that the beetle was sent to give me a little lesson in\npatience, to teach me not to think so much about myself.  But, as a\nmatter of fact, the little pain I suffered made me think more of myself\nthan I had previously been doing; it turned me for the time from a\nbland and hedonistic philosopher into a petulant pessimist, because it\nseemed that no one was the better for the incident; certainly, if life\nis worth having at all, the beetle was no better off, and in my own\ncase I could trace no moral improvement.  I had been harmlessly enough\nemployed in getting air and exercise in the middle of hard work.  It\nwas no vicious enjoyment that was temporarily suspended.\n\nAgain, there are people who would say that to indulge in such reveries\nis morbid; that one must take the rough with the smooth, and not\ntrouble about beetles or inflamed eyes.  But if one is haunted by the\nhopeless desire to search out the causes of things, such arguments do\nnot assist one.  Such people would say, \"Oh, you must take a larger or\nwider view of it all, and not strain at gnats!\"  But the essence of\nGod's omnipotence is, that while he can take the infinitely wide view\nof all created things, he can also take, I would fain believe, the\ninfinitely just and minute point of view, and see the case from the\nstandpoint of the smallest of his creatures!\n\nWhat, then, is my solution?  That is the melancholy part of it; I am\nnot prepared to offer one.  I am met on every side by hopeless\ndifficulties.  I am tempted to think that God is not at all what we\nimagine him to be; that our conceptions of benevolence and justice and\nlove are not necessarily true of him at all.  That he is not in the\nleast like our conceptions of him; that he has no particular tenderness\nabout suffering, no particular care for animal life.  Nature would seem\nto prove that at every turn; and yet, if it be true, it leaves me\nstruggling in a sad abyss of thought; it substitutes for our grave,\nbeautiful, and hopeful conceptions of God a kind of black mystery\nwhich, I confess, lies very heavy on the heart, and seems to make\neffort vain.\n\nAnd thus I fall back again upon faith and hope.  I know that I wish all\nthings well, that I desire with all my heart that everything that\nbreathes and moves should be happy and joyful; and I cannot believe in\nmy heart that it is different with God.  And thus I rest in the trust\nthat there is somewhere, far-off, a beauty and a joy in suffering; and\nthat, perhaps, death itself is a fair and a desirable thing.\n\nAs I rode to-day in the summer sun, far off, through the haze, I could\nsee the huge Cathedral towers and portals looming up over the trees.\nEven so might be the gate of death!  As we fare upon our pilgrimage,\nthat shadowy doorway waits, silent and sombre, to receive us.  That\ngate, the gate of death, seems to me, as in strength and health I sweep\nalong the pleasant road of life, a terrible, an appalling place.  But\nshall I feel so, when indeed I tread the threshold, and see the dark\narches, the mysterious windows to left and right?  It may prove a cool\nand secure haven of beauty and refreshment, rich in memory, echoing\nwith melodious song.  The poor beetle knows about it now, whatever it\nis; he is wise with the eternal wisdom of all that have entered in,\nleaving behind them the frail and delicate tabernacle, in which the\nspirit dwelt, and which is so soon to moulder into dust.\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\nThe Farm-yard\n\nThere is a big farm-yard close to the house where I am staying just\nnow; it is a constant pleasure, as I pass that way, to stop and watch\nthe manners and customs of the beasts and birds that inhabit it; I am\nashamed to think how much time I spend in hanging over a gate, to watch\nthe little dramas of the byre.  I am not sure that pigs are an\naltogether satisfactory subject of contemplation.  They always seem to\nme like a fallen race that has seen better days.  They are able,\nintellectual, inquisitive creatures.  When they are driven from place\nto place, they are not gentle or meek, like cows and sheep, who follow\nthe line of least resistance.  The pig is suspicious and cautious; he\nis sure that there is some uncomfortable plot on foot, not wholly for\nhis good, which he must try to thwart if he can.  Then, too, he never\nseems quite at home in his deplorably filthy surroundings; he looks at\nyou, up to the knees in ooze, out of his little eyes, as if he would\nlive in a more cleanly way, if he were permitted.  Pigs always remind\nme of the mariners of Homer, who were transformed by Circe; there is a\ndreadful humanity about them, as if they were trying to endure their\nbase conditions philosophically, waiting for their release.\n\nBut cows bring a deep tranquillity into the spirit; their glossy skins,\ntheir fragrant breath, their contented ease, their mild gaze, their\nEpicurean rumination tend to restore the balance of the mind, and make\none feel that vegetarianism must be a desirable thing.  There is the\ndignity of innocence about the cow, and I often wish that she did not\nbear so poor a name, a word so unsuitable for poetry; it is lamentable\nthat one has to take refuge in the archaism of _kine_, when the thing\nitself is so gentle and pleasant.\n\nBut the true joy of the farm-yard is, undoubtedly, in the domestic\nfowls.  It is long since I was frightened of turkeys; but I confess\nthat there is still something awe-inspiring about an old turkey-cock,\nwith a proud and angry eye, holding his breath till his wattles are\nblue and swollen, with his fan extended, like a galleon in full sail,\nhis wings held stiffly down, strutting a few rapid steps, and then\nslowly revolving, like a king in royal robes.  There is something\ntremendous about his supremacy, his almost intolerable pride and glory.\n\nAnd then we come to cocks and hens.  The farm-yard cock is an\nincredibly grotesque creature.  His furious eye, his blood-red crest,\nmake him look as if he were seeking whom he might devour.  But he is\nthe most craven of creatures.  In spite of his air of just anger, he\nhas no dignity whatever.  To hear him raise his voice, you would think\nthat he was challenging the whole world to combat.  He screams\ndefiance, and when he has done, he looks round with an air of\nsatisfaction.  \"There! that is what you have to expect if you interfere\nwith me!\" he seems to say.  But an alarm is given; the poultry seek\nrefuge in a hurried flight.  Where is the champion?  You would expect\nto see him guarding the rear, menacing his pursuer; but no, he has\nheaded the flight, he is far away, leading the van with a desperate\nintentness.\n\nThis morning I was watching the behaviour of a party of fowls, who were\nsitting together on a dusty ledge above the road, sheltering from the\nwind.  I do not know whether they meant to be as humorous as they were,\nbut I can hardly think they were not amused at each other.  They stood\nand lay very close together, with fierce glances, and quick, jerky\nmotions of the head.  Now and then one, tired of inaction, raised a\ndeliberate claw, bowed its head, scratched with incredible rapidity,\nshook its tumbled feathers, and looked round with angry\nself-consciousness, as though to say: \"I will ask any one to think me\nabsurd at his peril.\"  Now and then one of them kicked diligently at\nthe soil, and then, turning round, scrutinised the place intently, and\npicked delicately at some minute object.  One examined the neck of her\nneighbour with a fixed stare, and then pecked the spot sharply.  One\nsettled down on the dust, and gave a few vigorous strokes with her legs\nto make herself more comfortable.  Occasionally they all crooned and\nwailed together, and at the passing of a cart all stood up defiantly,\nas if intending to hold their fort at all hazards.  Presently a woman\ncame out of a house-door opposite, at which the whole party ran\nfuriously and breathlessly across the road, as if their lives depended\nupon arriving in time.  There was not a gesture or a motion that was\nnot admirably conceived, intensely dramatic.\n\nAgain, what is more delightfully absurd than to see a hen find a large\nmorsel which she cannot deal with at one gulp?  She has no sense of\ndiplomacy or cunning; her friends, attracted by her motions, close in\nabout her; she picks up the treasured provender, she runs, bewildered\nwith anxiety, till she has distanced her pursuers; she puts the object\ndown and takes a couple of desperate pecks; but her kin are at her\nheels; another flight follows, another wild attempt; for half an hour\nthe same tactics are pursued.  At last she is at bay; she makes one\nprodigious effort, and gets the treasure down with a convulsive\nswallow; you see her neck bulge with the moving object; while she looks\nat her baffled companions with an air of meek triumph.\n\nDucks, too, afford many simple joys to the contemplative mind.  A slow\nprocession of white ducks, walking delicately, with heads lifted high\nand timid eyes, in a long line, has the air of an ecclesiastical\nprocession.  The singers go before, the minstrels follow after.  There\nis something liturgical, too, in the way in which, as if by a\npreconcerted signal, they all cry out together, standing in a group,\nwith a burst of hoarse cheering, cut off suddenly by an intolerable\nsilence.  The arrival of ducks upon the scene, when the fowls are fed,\nis an impressive sight.  They stamp wildly over the pasture, falling,\nstumbling, rising again, arrive on the scene with a desperate\nintentness, and eat as though they had not seen food for months.\n\nThe pleasure of these farm-yard sights is two-fold.  It is partly the\nsense of grave, unconscious importance about the whole business,\nserious lives lived with such whole-hearted zeal.  There is no sense of\ndivided endeavour; the discovery of food is the one thing in the world,\nand the sense of repletion is also the sense of virtue.  But there is\nsomething pathetic, too, about the taming to our own ends of these\nforest beasts, these woodland birds; they are so unconscious of the sad\nreasons for which we desire their company, so unsuspicious, so serene!\nInstead of learning by the sorrowful experience of generations what our\ndark purposes are, they become more and more fraternal, more and more\ndependent.  And yet how little we really know what their thoughts are.\nThey are so unintelligent in some regions, so subtly wise in others.\nWe cannot share our thoughts with them; we cannot explain anything to\nthem.  We can sympathise with them in their troubles, but cannot convey\nour sympathy to them.  There is a little bantam hen here, a great pet,\nwho comes up to the front door with the other bantams to be fed.  She\nhas been suffering for some time from an obscure illness.  She arrives\nwith the others, full of excitement, and begins to pick at the grain\nthrown them; but the effort soon exhausts her; she goes sadly apart,\nand sits with dim eye and ruffled plumage, in silent suffering,\nwondering, perhaps, why she is not as brisk and joyful as ever, what is\nthe sad thing that has befallen her.  And one can do nothing, express\nnothing of the pathetic sorrow that fills one's mind.  But, none the\nless, one tries to believe, to feel, that this suffering is not\nfortuitous, is not wasted--how could one endure the thought otherwise,\nif one did not hope that \"the earnest expectation of the creature\nwaiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God!\"\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\nThe Artist\n\nI have been reading with much emotion the life of a great artist.  It\nis a tender, devoted record; and there is an atmosphere of delicate\nbeauty about the style.  It is as though his wife, who wrote the book,\nhad gained through the years of companionship, a pale, pure reflection\nof her husband's simple and impassioned style, just as the moon's\nclear, cold light is drawn from the hot fountains of the sun.  And yet,\nthere is an individuality about the style, and the reflection is rather\nof the same nature as the patient likeness of expression which is to be\nseen in the faces of an aged pair, who have travelled in love and unity\ndown the vale of years together.\n\nIn this artist's own writing, which has a pure and almost childlike\n_naivete_ of phrasing, there is a glow, not of rhetoric or language,\nbut of emotion, an almost lover-like attitude towards his friends,\nwhich is yet saved from sentimentality by an obvious sincerity of\nfeeling.  In this he seems to me to be different from the majority of\nartistic natures and temperaments.  It is impossible not to feel, as a\nrule, when one is brought into contact with an artistic temperament,\nthat the basis of it is a kind of hardness, a fanaticism of spirit.\nThere is, of course, in the artistic temperament, an abundance of\nsensitiveness which is often mistaken for feeling.  But it is not\ngenerally an unselfish devotion, which desires to give, to lavish, to\nmake sacrifices for the sake of the beloved.  It is, after all,\nimpossible to serve two masters; and in the highly developed artist,\nthe central passion is the devotion to art, and sins against art are\nthe cardinal and unpardonable sins.  The artist has an eager thirst for\nbeautiful impressions, and his deepest concern is how to translate\nthese impressions into the medium in which he works.  Many an artist\nhas desired and craved for love.  But even love in the artist is not\nthe end; love only ministers to the sacred fire of art, and is treated\nby him as a costly and precious fuel, which he is bound to use to feed\nthe central flame.  If one examines the records of great artistic\ncareers, this will, I think, be found to be a true principle; and it\nis, after all, inevitable that it should be so, in the case of a nature\nwhich has the absorbing desire for self-expression.  Perhaps, it is not\nalways consciously recognised by the artist, but the fact is there; he\ntends to regard the deepest and highest experiences of life as\nministering to the fulness of his nature.  I remember hearing a great\nmaster of musical art discussing the music of a young man of\nextraordinary promise; he said: \"Yes, it is very beautiful, very pure;\nhe is perfect in technique and expression, as far as it goes; but it is\nincomplete and undeveloped.  What he wants is to fall in love.\"\n\nA man who is not bound by the noble thraldom of art, who is full of\nvitality and emotion, but yet without the imperative desire for\nself-expression, regards life in a different mood.  He may be fully as\neager to absorb beautiful impressions, he may love the face of the\nearth, the glories of hill and plain, the sweet dreams of art, the\nlingering cadences of music; but he takes them as a child takes food,\nwith a direct and eager appetite, without any impulse to dip them in\nhis own personality, or to find an expression for them.  The point for\nhim is not how they strike him and affect him, but that they are there.\nSuch a man will perhaps find his deepest experience in the mysteries of\nhuman relationship; and he will so desire the happiness of those he\nloves, that he will lose himself in efforts to remove obstacles, to\nlighten burdens, to give rather than to receive joy.  And this, I\nthink, is probably the reason why so few women, even those possessed of\nthe most sensitive perception and apprehension, achieve the highest\ntriumphs of art; because they cannot so subordinate life to art,\nbecause they have a passionate desire for the happiness of others, and\nfind their deepest satisfaction in helping to further it.  Who does not\nknow instances of women of high possibilities, who have quietly\nsacrificed the pursuit of their own accomplishments to the tendance of\nsome brilliant self-absorbed artist?  With such love is often mingled a\ntender compassionateness, as of a mother for a high-spirited and eager\nchild, who throws herself with perfect sympathy into his aims and\ntastes, while all the time there sits a gentle knowledge in the\nbackground of her heart, of the essential unimportance of the things\nthat the child desires so eagerly, and which she yet desires so\nwhole-heartedly for him.  Women who have made such a sacrifice do it\nwith no feeling that they are resigning the best for the second best,\nbut because they have a knowledge of mysteries that are even higher\nthan the mysteries of art; and they have their reward, not in the\ncontemplation of the sacrifice that they have made, but in having\ndesired and attained something that is more beautiful still than any\ndream that the artist cherishes and follows.\n\nYet the fact remains that it is useless to preach to the artist the\nmystery that there is a higher region than the region of art.  A man\nmust aim at the best 'that he can conceive; and it is not possible to\ngive men higher motives, by removing the lower motives that they can\ncomprehend.  Such an attempt is like building without foundations; and\nthose who have relations with artists should do all they can to\nencourage them to aim at what they feel to be the highest.\n\nBut, on the other hand, it is a duty for the artist to keep his heart\nopen, if he can, to the higher influences.  He must remember, that\nthough the eye can see certain colours, and hear certain vibrations of\nsound, yet there is an infinite scale of colour, and an infinite\ngradation of sound, both above and below what the eye and the ear can\napprehend, and that mortal apprehension can only appropriate to itself\nbut a tiny fragment of the huge gamut.  He ought to believe that if he\nis faithful to the best that he can apprehend, a door may be opened to\nhim which may lead him into regions which are at present closed to him.\nTo accept the artistic conscience, the artistic aim, as the highest\nideal of which the spirit is capable, is to be a Pharisee in art, to be\nself-sufficient, arrogant, limited.  It is a kind of spiritual pride, a\nwilful deafness to more remote voices; and it is thus of all sins, the\none which the artist, who lives the life of perception, whose mind\nmust, above all things, be open and transparent, should be loth to\ncommit.  He should rather keep his inner eye--for the artist is like\nthe great creatures that, in the prophet's vision, stood nearest to the\npresence, who were full of eyes, without and within--open to the\nunwonted apparition which may, suddenly, like a meteor of the night,\nsail across the silent heaven.  It may be that, in some moment of\nfuller perception, he may even have to divorce the sweeter and more\nsubtle mistress in exchange for one who comes in a homelier guise, and\ntake the beggar girl for his queen.  But the abnegation will be no\nsacrifice; rather a richer and livelier hope.\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\nYoung Love\n\nWe had a charming idyll here to-day.  A young husband and wife came to\nstay with us in all the first flush of married happiness.  One realised\nall day long that other people merely made a pleasant background for\ntheir love, and that for each there was but one real figure on the\nscene.  This was borne witness to by a whole armoury of gentle looks,\nswift glances, silent gestures.  They were both full to the brim of a\ndelicate laughter, of over-brimming wonder, of tranquil desire.  And we\nall took part in their gracious happiness.  In the evening they sang\nand played to us, the wife being an accomplished pianist, the husband a\nfine singer.  But though the glory of their art fell in rainbow showers\non the audience, it was for each other that they sang and played.  We\nsat in the dim light of a little panelled room, the lamps making a\ncircle of light about the happy pair; seldom have I felt the revelation\nof personality more.  The wife played to us a handful of beautiful\nthings; but I noticed that she could not interpret the sadder and\ndarker strains, into which the shadow and malady of a suffering spirit\nhad passed; but into little tripping minuets full of laughter and\nlight, and into melodies that spoke of a pure passion of sweetness and\nhuman delight, her soul passed, till the room felt as though flooded\nwith the warmth of the sun.  And he, too, sang with all his might some\njoyful and brave utterances, with the lusty pride of manhood; and in a\ngentler love-song too, that seemed to linger in a dream of delight by\ncrystal streams, the sweet passion of the heart rose clear and true.\nBut when he too essayed a song of sorrow and reluctant sadness, there\nwas no spirit in it; it seemed to him, I suppose, so unlike life, and\nthe joy of life,--so fantastic and unreal an outpouring of the heart.\n\nWe sat long in the panelled room, till it seemed all alive with soft\ndreams and radiant shapes, that floated in a golden air.  All that was\ndark and difficult seemed cast out and exercised.  But it was all so\nsincere and contented a peace that the darker and more sombre shadows\nhad no jealous awakening; for the two were living to each other, not in\na selfish seclusion, but as though they gave of their joy in handfuls\nto the whole world.  The raptures of lovers sometimes take them back so\nfar into a kind of unashamed childishness that the spectacle rouses the\ncontempt and even the indignation of world-worn and cynical people.\nBut here it never deviated from dignity and seemliness; it only seemed\nnew and true, and the best gift of God.  These two spirits seemed, with\nhands intertwined, to have ascended gladly into the mountain, and to\nhave seen a transfiguration of life: which left them not in a blissful\neminence of isolation, but rather, as it were, beckoning others\nupwards, and saying that the road was indeed easy and plain.  And so\nthe sweet hour passed, and left a fragrance behind it; whatever might\nbefall, they had tasted of the holy wine of joy; they had blessed the\ncup, and bidden us too to set our lips to it.\n\n\n\n\nXV\n\nA Strange Gathering\n\nI was walking one summer day in the pleasant hilly country near my\nhome.  There is a road which I often traverse, partly because it is a\nvery lonely one, partly because it leads out on a high brow or shoulder\nof the uplands, and commands a wide view of the plain.  Moreover, the\nroad is so deeply sunken between steep banks, overgrown with hazels,\nthat one is hardly aware how much one climbs, and the wide clear view\nat the top always breaks upon the eye with a certain shock of agreeable\nsurprise.  A little before the top of the hill a road turns off,\nleading into a long disused quarry, surrounded by miniature cliffs,\nfull of grassy mounds and broken ground, overgrown with thickets and\nfloored with rough turf.  It is a very enchanting place in spring, and\nindeed at all times of the year; many flowers grow there, and the birds\nsing securely among the bushes.  I have always imagined that the Red\nDeeps, in _The Mill on the Floss_, was just such a place, and the\nscenes described as taking place there have always enacted themselves\nfor me in the quarry.  I have always had a fancy too that if there are\nany fairies hereabouts, which I very much doubt, for I fear that the\nnew villas which begin to be sprinkled about the countryside have\nscared them all away, they would be found here.  I visited the place\none moonlight night, and I am sure that the whole dingle was full of a\nbright alert life which mocked my clumsy eyes and ears.  If I could\nhave stolen upon the place unawares, I felt that I might have seen\nstrange businesses go forward, and tiny revels held.\n\nThat afternoon, as I drew near, I was displeased to see that my little\nretreat was being profaned by company.  Some brakes were drawn up in\nthe road, and I heard loud voices raised in untuneful mirth.  As I came\nnearer I was much bewildered to divine who the visitors were.  They\nseemed on the point of departing; two of the brakes were full, and into\nanother some men were clambering.  As I came close to them I was still\nmore puzzled.  The majority of the party were dressed all alike, in\nrough brown clothes, with soft black felt hats; but in each of the\nbrakes that were tenanted sat a man as well, with a braided cap, in a\nsort of uniform.  Most of the other men were old or elderly; some had\nwhite beards or whiskers, almost all were grizzled.  They were talking,\ntoo, in an odd, inconsequent, chirping kind of way, not listening to\neach other; and moreover they were strangely adorned.  Some had their\nhats stuck full of flowers, others were wreathed with leaves.  A few\nhad chains of daisies round their necks.  They seemed as merry and as\nobedient as children.  Inside the gate, in the centre of the quarry,\nwas a still stranger scene.  Here was a ring of elderly and aged men,\ntheir hats wreathed with garlands, hand-in-hand, executing a slow and\nsolemn dance in a circle.  One, who seemed the moving spirit, a small\nwiry man with a fresh-coloured face and a long chin-beard, was leaping\nhigh in the air, singing some rustic song, and dragging his less active\ncompanions round and round.  The others all entered into the spirit of\nthe dance.  One very old and feeble man, with a smile on his face, was\nexecuting little clumsy hops, deeply intent on the performance.  A few\nothers stood round admiring the sport; a little apart was a tall grave\nman, talking loudly to himself, with flowers stuck all over him, who\nwas spinning round and round in an ecstasy of delight.  Becoming giddy,\nhe took a few rapid steps to the left, but fell to the ground, where he\nlay laughing softly, and moving his hands in the air.  Presently one of\nthe officials said a word to the leader of the dance; the ring broke\nup, and the performers scattered, gathering up little bundles of leaves\nand flowers that lay all about in some confusion, and then trooping out\nto the brakes.  The quarry was deserted.  Several of the group waved\ntheir hands to me, uttering unintelligible words, and holding out\nflowers.\n\nI was so much surprised at the odd scene that I asked one of the\nofficials what it all meant.  He said politely that it was a picnic\nparty from the Pauper Lunatic Asylum at H----.  The mystery was\nexplained.  I said: \"They seem to be enjoying themselves.\"  \"Yes,\nindeed, sir,\" he said, \"they are like children; they look forward to\nthis all the year; there is no greater punishment than to deprive a man\nof his outing.\"  He entered the last brake as he said these words, and\nthe carriages moved off, a shrill and aged cheer rising from thin and\npiping voices on the air.\n\nThe whole thing did not strike me as grotesque, but as infinitely\npathetic and even beautiful.  Here were these old pitiful creatures, so\ndeeply afflicted, condemned most of them to a lifelong seclusion, who\nwere recalling and living over again their childish sports and\ndelights.  What dim memories of old spring days, before their sad\ndisabilities had settled upon them, were working in those aged and\nfeeble brains!  What pleased me best was the obvious and light-hearted\nhappiness of the whole party, a compensation for days of starved\nmonotony.  No party of school-children on a holiday could have been\nmore thoughtlessly, more intently gay.  Here was a desolate company,\none would have thought, of life's failures, facing one of the saddest\nand least hopeful prospects that the world can afford; yet on this day\nat least they were full to the brim of irresponsible and complete\nhappiness and delight, tasting an enjoyment, it seemed, more vivid than\noften falls to my own lot.  In the presence of such happiness it seemed\nso useless, so unnecessary to ask why so heavy a burden was bound on\ntheir backs, because here at all events was a scene of the purest and\nmost innocent rapture.  I went on my way full of wonder and even of\nhope.  I could not fathom the deep mystery of the failure, the\nsuffering, the weakness that runs across the world like an ugly crack\nacross the face of a fair building.  But then how tenderly and wisely\ndoes the great Artificer lend consolation and healing, repairing and\nfilling so far as he may, the sad fracture; he seems to know better\nthan we can divine the things that belong to our peace; so that as I\nlooked across the purple rolling plain, with all its wooded ridges, its\nrich pastures, the smoke going up from a hundred hamlets, a confidence,\na quiet trust seemed to rise in my mind, filling me with a strange\nyearning to know what were the thoughts of the vast Mind that makes us\nand sustains us, mingled with a faith in some large and far-off issue\nthat shall receive and enfold our little fretful spirits, as the sea\nreceives the troubled leaping streams, to move in slow unison with the\nwide and secret tides.\n\n\n\n\nXVI\n\nThe Cripple\n\nI went to-day to see an old friend whom I had not met for ten years.\nSome time ago he had a bad fall which for a time crippled him, but from\nwhich it was hoped he would recover; but he must have received some\nobscure and deep-seated injury, because after improving for a time, he\nbegan to go backwards, and has now to a great extent lost the use of\nhis limbs.  He was formerly a very active man, both intellectually and\nphysically.  He had a prosperous business in the country town on the\noutskirts of which he lives.  He was one of those tall spare men,\nblack-haired and black-eyed, capable of bearing great fatigue, full to\nthe brim of vitality.  He was a great reader, fond of music and art;\nmarried to a no less cultivated and active wife, but childless.  There\nnever was a man who had a keener enjoyment of existence in all its\naspects.  It used to be a marvel to me to see at how many points a man\ncould touch life, and the almost child-like zest which he threw into\neverything which he did.\n\nOn arriving at the house, a pleasant old-fashioned place with a big\nshady garden, I was shown into a large book-lined study, and there\npresently crept and tottered into the room, leaning on two sticks, a\nfigure which I can only say in no respect recalled to me the\nrecollection of my friend.  He was bent and wasted, his hair was white;\nand there was that sunken look about the temples, that tracery of lines\nabout the eyes that tells of constant suffering.  But the voice was\nunaltered, full, resonant, and distinct as ever.  He sat down and was\nsilent for a moment.  I think that the motion even from one room into\nanother caused him great pain.  Then he began to talk; first he told me\nof the accident, and his journeys in search of health.  \"But the\ncomfort is,\" he added, \"that the doctors have now decided that they can\ndo no more for me, and I need leave home no more.\"  He told me that he\nstill went to his business every day--and I found that it was\nprospering greatly--and that though he could not drive, he could get\nout in a wheeled chair; he said nothing of his sufferings, and\npresently began to talk of books and politics.  Gradually I realised\nthat I was in the company of a thoroughly cheerful man.  It was not the\ncheerfulness that comes of effort, of a determined attempt to be\ninterested in old pursuits, but the abundant and overflowing\ncheerfulness of a man who has still a firm grasp on life.  He argued,\nhe discussed with the same eager liveliness; and his laugh had the\ncareless and good-humoured ring of a man whose mind was entirely\ncontent.\n\nHis wife soon entered; and we sat for a long time talking.  I was\nkeenly moved by the relations between them; she displayed none of that\nminute attention to his needs, none of that watchful anxiety which I\nhave often thought, tenderly lavished as it is upon invalids, must\nbring home to them a painful sense of their dependence and\nhelplessness; and he too showed no trace of that fretful exigence which\nis too often the characteristic of those who cannot assist themselves,\nand which almost invariably arises in the case of eager and active\ntemperaments thus afflicted, those whose minds range quickly from\nsubject to subject, and who feel their disabilities at every turn.  At\none moment he wanted his glasses to read something from a book that lay\nbeside him.  He asked his wife with a gentle courtesy to find them.\nThey were discovered in his own breast-pocket, into which he could not\neven put his feeble hand, and he apologised for his stupidity with an\naffectionate humility which made me feel inclined to tears, especially\nwhen I saw the pleasure which the performance of this trifling service\nobviously caused her.  It was just the same, I afterwards noticed, with\na young attendant who waited on him at luncheon, an occasion which\nrevealed to me the full extent of his helplessness.\n\nI gathered from his wife in the course of the afternoon that though his\nlife was not threatened, yet that there was no doubt that his\nhelplessness was increasing.  He could still hold a book and turn the\npages; but it was improbable that he could do so for long, and he was\namusing himself by inventing a mechanical device for doing this.  But\nshe too talked of the prospect with a quiet tranquillity.  She said\nthat he was making arrangements to direct his business from his house,\nas it was becoming difficult for him to enter the office.\n\nHe himself showed the same unabated cheerfulness during the whole of my\nvisit, and spoke of the enjoyment it had brought him.  There was not\nthe slightest touch of self-pity about his talk.\n\nI should have admired and wondered at the fortitude of this gallant\npair, if I had seen signs of repression and self-conquest about them;\nif they had relapsed even momentarily into repining, if they had shown\nsigns of a faithful determination to make the best of a bad business.\nBut I could discern no trace of such a mood about either of them.\nWhether this kindly and sweet patience has been acquired, after hard\nand miserable wrestlings with despair and wretchedness, I cannot say,\nbut I am inclined to think that it is not so.  It seems to me rather to\nbe the display of perfect manliness and womanliness in the presence of\nan irreparable calamity, a wonderful and amazing compensation, sent\nquietly from the deepest fortress of Love to these simple and generous\nnatures, who live in each other's lives.  I tried to picture to myself\nwhat my own thoughts would be if condemned to this sad condition; I\ncould only foresee a fretful irritability, a wild anguish, alternating\nwith a torpid stupefaction.  \"I seem to love the old books better than\never,\" my friend had said, smiling softly, in the course of the\nafternoon; \"I used to read them hurriedly and greedily in the old days,\nbut now I have time to think over them--to reflect--I never knew what a\npleasure reflection was.\"  I could not help feeling as he said the\nwords that with me such a stroke as he had suffered would have dashed\nthe life, the colour, out of books, and left them faded and withered\nhusks.  Half the charm of books, I have always thought, is the\ninter-play of the commentary of life and experience.  I ventured to ask\nhim if this was not the case.  \"No,\" he said, \"I don't think it is--I\nseem more interested in people, in events, in thoughts than ever; and\none gets them from a purer spring--I don't know if I can explain,\" he\nadded, \"but I think that one sees it all from a different perspective,\nin a truer light, when one's own desires and possibilities are so much\nmore limited.\"  When I said good-bye to him, he smiled at me and hoped\nthat I should repeat my visit.  \"Don't think of me as unhappy,\" he\nadded, and his wife, who was standing by him, said, \"Indeed you need\nnot;\" and the two smiled at each other in a way which made me feel that\nthey were speaking the simple truth, and that they had found an\ninterpretation of life, a serene region to abide in, which I, with all\nmy activities, hopes, fears, businesses, had somehow missed.  The pity\nof it! and yet the beauty of it! as I went away I felt that I had\nindeed trodden on holy ground, and seen the transfiguration of humanity\nand pain into something august, tranquil, and divine.\n\n\n\n\nXVII\n\nOxford\n\nThere are certain things in the world that are so praiseworthy that it\nseems a needless, indeed an almost laughable thing to praise them; such\nthings are love and friendship, food and sleep, spring and summer; such\nthings, too, are the wisest books, the greatest pictures, the noblest\ncities.  But for all that I mean to try and make a little hymn in prose\nin honour of Oxford, a city I have seen but seldom, and which yet\nappears to me one of the most beautiful things in the world.\n\nI do not wish to single out particular buildings, but to praise the\nwhole effect of the place, such as it seemed to me on a day of bright\nsun and cool air, when I wandered hour after hour among the streets,\nbewildered and almost intoxicated with beauty, feeling as a poor man\nmight who has pinched all his life, and made the most of single coins,\nand who is brought into the presence of a heap of piled-up gold, and\ntold that it is all his own.\n\nI have seen it said in foolish books that it is a misfortune to Oxford\nthat so many of the buildings have been built out of so perishable a\nvein of stone.  It is indeed a misfortune in one respect, that it\ntempts men of dull and precise minds to restore and replace buildings\nof incomparable grace, because their outline is so exquisitely blurred\nby time and decay.  I remember myself, as a child, visiting Oxford, and\nthinking that some of the buildings were almost shamefully ruinous of\naspect; now that I am wiser I know that we have in these battered and\nfretted palace-fronts a kind of beauty that fills the mind with an\nalmost despairing sense of loveliness, till the heart aches with\ngratitude, and thrills with the desire to proclaim the glory of the\nsight aloud.\n\nThese black-fronted blistered facades, so threatening, so sombre, yet\nscreening so bright and clear a current of life; with the tender green\nof budding spring trees, chestnuts full of silvery spires,\nglossy-leaved creepers clinging, with tiny hands, to cornice and\nparapet, give surely the sharpest and most delicate sense that it is\npossible to conceive of the contrast on which the essence of so much\nbeauty depends.  To pass through one of these dark and smoke-stained\ncourts, with every line mellowed and harmonised, as if it had grown up\nso out of the earth; to find oneself in a sunny pleasaunce, carpeted\nwith velvet turf, and set thick with flowers, makes the spirit sigh\nwith delight.  Nowhere in the world can one see such a thing as those\ngreat gate-piers, with a cognisance a-top, with a grille of iron-work\nbetween them, all sweetly entwined with some slim vagrant creeper, that\ngive a glimpse and a hint--no more--of a fairy-land of shelter and\nfountains within.  I have seen such palaces stand in quiet and stately\nparks, as old, as majestic, as finely proportioned as the buildings of\nOxford; but the very blackness of the city air, and the drifting smoke\nof the town, gives that added touch of grimness and mystery that the\ncountry airs cannot communicate.  And even fairer sights are contained\nwithin; those panelled, dark-roofed halls, with their array of\nportraits gravely and intently regarding the stranger; the chapels,\nwith their splendid classical screens and stalls, rich and dim with\nancient glass.  The towers, domes, and steeples; and all set not in a\nmere paradise of lawns and glades, but in the very heart of a city,\nitself full of quaint and ancient houses, but busy with all the\nactivity of a brisk and prosperous town; thereby again giving the\nstrong and satisfying sense of contrast, the sense of eager and\nevery-day cares and pleasures, side by side with these secluded havens\nof peace, the courts and cloister, where men may yet live a life of\ngentle thought and quiet contemplation, untroubled, nay, even\nstimulated, by the presence of a bustling life so near at hand, which\nyet may not intrude upon the older dream.\n\nI do not know whether my taste is entirely trustworthy, but I confess\nthat I find the Italianate and classical buildings of Oxford finer than\nthe Gothic buildings.  The Gothic buildings are quainter, perhaps, more\npicturesque, but there is an air of solemn pomp and sober dignity about\nthe classical buildings that harmonises better with the sense of wealth\nand grave security that is so characteristic of the place.  The Gothic\nbuildings seem a survival, and have thus a more romantic interest, a\nmore poetical kind of association.  But the classical porticos and\nfacades seem to possess a nobler dignity, and to provide a more\nappropriate setting for modern Oxford; because the spirit of Oxford is\nmore the spirit of the Renaissance than the spirit of the Schoolmen;\nand personally I prefer that ecclesiasticism should be more of a\nflavour than a temper; I mean that though I rejoice to think that sober\necclesiastical influences contribute a serious grace to the life of\nOxford, yet I am glad to feel that the spirit of the place is liberal\nrather than ecclesiastical.  Such traces as one sees in the chapels of\nthe Oxford Movement, in the shape of paltry stained glass, starved\nreredoses, modern Gothic woodwork, would be purely deplorable from the\nartistic point of view, if they did not possess a historical interest.\nThey speak of interrupted development, an attempt to put back the\nshadow on the dial, to return to a narrower and more rigid tone, to put\nold wine into new bottles, which betrays a want of confidence in the\nexpansive power of God.  I hate with a deep-seated hatred all such\nattempts to bind and confine the rising tide of thought.  I want to see\nreligion vital and not formal, elastic and not cramped by precedent and\ntradition.  And thus I love to see worship enshrined in noble classical\nbuildings, which seem to me to speak of a desire to infuse the\nintellectual spirit of Greece, the dignified imperialism of Rome into\nthe more timid and secluded ecclesiastical life, making it fuller,\nlarger, more free, more deliberate.\n\nBut even apart from the buildings, which are after all but the body of\nthe place, the soul of Oxford, its inner spirit, is what lends it its\nsatisfying charm.  On the one hand, it gives the sense of the dignity\nof the intellect; one reflects that here can be lived lives of stately\nsimplicity, of high enthusiasm, apart from personal wealth, and yet\nsurrounded by enough of seemly dignity to give life the charm of grave\norder and quiet solemnity.  Here are opportunities for peaceful and\ncongenial work, to the sound of mellodious bells; uninterrupted hours,\nas much society of a simple kind as a man can desire, and the whole\nwith a background of exquisite buildings and rich gardens.  And then,\ntoo, there is the tide of youthful life that floods every corner of the\nplace.  It is an endless pleasure to see the troops of slim and alert\nyoung figures, full of enjoyment and life, with all the best gifts of\nlife, health, work, amusement, society, friendship, lying ready to\ntheir hand.  The sense of this beating and thrilling pulse of life\ncirculating through these sombre and splendid buildings is what gives\nthe place its inner glow; this life full of hope, of sensation, of\nemotion, not yet shadowed or disillusioned or weary, seems to be as the\nfire on the altar, throwing up its sharp darting tongues of flame, its\nclouds of fragrant smoke, giving warmth and significance and a fiery\nheart to a sombre shrine.\n\nAnd so it is that Oxford is in a sort a magnetic pole for England; a\npole not, perhaps, of intellectual energy, or strenuous liberalism, or\nclamorous aims, or political ideas; few, perhaps, of the sturdy forces\nthat make England potently great, centre there.  The greatness of\nEngland is, I suppose, made up by her breezy, loud-voiced sailors, her\nlively, plucky soldiers, her ardent, undefeated merchants, her tranquil\nadministrators; by the stubborn adventurous spirit that makes itself at\nhome everywhere, and finds it natural to assume responsibilities.  But\nto Oxford set the currents of what may be called intellectual emotion,\nthe ideals that may not make for immediate national greatness, but\nwhich, if delicately and faithfully nurtured, hold out at least a hope\nof affecting the intellectual and spiritual life of the world.  There\nis something about Oxford which is not in the least typical of England,\nbut typical of the larger brotherhood that is independent of\nnationalities; that is akin to the spirit which in any land and in\nevery age has produced imperishable monuments of the ardent human soul.\nThe tribe of Oxford is the tribe from whose heart sprang the Psalms of\nDavid; Homer and Sophocles, Plato and Virgil, Dante and Goethe are all\nof the same divine company.  It may be said that John Bull, the sturdy\nangel of England, turns his back slightingly upon such influences; that\nhe regards Oxford as an incidental ornament of his person, like a seal\nthat jingles at his fob.  But all generous and delicate spirits do her\na secret homage, as a place where the seeds of beauty and emotion, of\nwisdom and understanding, are sown, as in a secret garden.  Hearts such\nas these, even whirling past that celestial city, among her poor\nsuburbs, feel an inexpressible thrill at the sight of her towers and\ndomes, her walls and groves.  _Quam dilecta sunt tabernacula_, they\nwill say; and they will breathe a reverent prayer that there may be no\nleading into captivity and no complaining in her streets.\n\n\n\n\nXVIII\n\nAuthorship\n\nI found myself at dinner the other day next to an old friend, whom I\nsee but seldom; a quiet, laborious, able man, with the charm of perfect\nmodesty and candour, who, moreover, writes a very beautiful and lucid\nstyle.  I said to him that I conceived it to be my mission, whenever I\nmet him, to enquire what he was writing, and to beg him to write more.\nHe said smilingly that he was very much occupied in his work, which is\nteaching, and found little time to write; \"besides,\" he said, \"I think\nthat one writes too much.\"  He went on to say that though he loved\nwriting well enough when he was in the mood for it, yet that the labour\nof shaping sentences, and lifting them to their places, was very severe.\n\nI felt myself a little rebuked by this, for I will here confess that\nwriting is the one pleasure and preoccupation of my own life, though I\ndo not publish a half of what I write.  It set me wondering whether I\ndid indeed write too much; and so I said to him: \"You mean, I suppose,\nthat one gets into the habit of serving up the same ideas over and over\nagain, with a different sauce, perhaps; but still the same ideas?\"\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"that is what I mean.  When I have written anything\nthat I care about, I feel that I must wait a long time before the\ncistern fills again.\"\n\nWe went on to talk of other things; but I have since been reflecting\nwhether there is truth in what my friend said.  If his view is true of\nwriting, then it is surely the only art that is so hampered.  We should\nnever think that an artist worked too much; we might feel that he did\nnot perhaps finish his big pictures sufficiently; but if he did not\nspare labour in finishing his pictures, we should never find fault with\nhim for doing, say, as Turner did, and making endless studies and\nsketches, day after day, of all that struck him as being beautiful.  We\nshould feel indeed that some of these unconsidered and rapid sketches\nhad a charm and a grace that the more elaborate pictures might miss;\nand in any case we should feel that the more that he worked, the firmer\nand easier would become his sweep of hand, the more deft his power of\nindicating a large effect by an economy of resource.  The musician,\ntoo: no one would think of finding fault with him for working every day\nat his art; and it is the same with all craftsmen; the more they\nworked, the surer would their touch be.\n\nNow I am inclined to believe that what makes writing good is not so\nmuch the pains taken with a particular piece of work, the retouching,\nthe corrections, the dear delays.  Still more fruitful than this labour\nis the labour spent on work that is never used, that never sees the\nlight.  Writing is to me the simplest and best pleasure in the world;\nthe mere shaping of an idea in words is the occupation of all others I\nmost love; indeed, to speak frankly, I plan and arrange all my days\nthat I may secure a space for writing, not from a sense of duty, but\nmerely from a sense of delight.  The whole world teems with subjects\nand thoughts, sights of beauty and images of joy and sorrow, that I\ndesire to put into words; and to forbid myself to write would be to\nexercise the strongest self-denial of which I am capable.  Of course I\ndo not mean that I can always please myself.  I have piles of\nmanuscripts laid aside which fail either in conception or expression,\nor in both.  But there are a dozen books I would like to write if I had\nthe time.\n\nTo be honest, I do not believe in fretting too much over a piece of\nwriting.  Writing, laboriously constructed, painfully ornamented, is\noften, I think, both laborious and painful to read; there is a sense of\nstrain about it.  It is like those uneasy figures that one sees in the\ncarved gargoyles of old churches, crushed and writhing for ever under a\nsense of weight painfully sustained, or holding a gaping mouth open,\nfor the water-pipe to discharge its contents therethrough.  However\ningenious these carvings are, they always give a sense of tension and\noppression to the mind; and it is the same with laboured writers; my\ntheory of writing rather is that the conception should be as clear as\npossible, and then that the words should flow like a transparent\nstream, following as simply as possible the shape and outline of the\nthought within, like a waterbreak over a boulder in a stream's bed.\nThis, I think, is best attained by infinite practice.  If a piece of\nwork seems to be heavy and muddy, let it be thrown aside ungrudgingly;\nbut the attempt, even though it be a failure, makes the next attempt\neasier.\n\nI do not think that one can write for very long at a time to much\npurpose; I take the two or three hours when the mind is clearest and\nfreshest, and write as rapidly as I can; this secures, it seems to me,\na clearness and a unity which cannot be attained by fretful labour, by\npoking and pinching at one's work.  One avoids by rapidity and ardour\nthe dangerous defect of repetition; a big task must be divided into\nsmall sharp episodes to be thus swiftly treated.  The thought of such a\nwriter as Flaubert lying on his couch or pacing his room, the racked\nand tortured medium of his art, spending hours in selecting the one\nperfect word for his purpose, is a noble and inspiring picture; but\nsuch a process does not, I fear, always end in producing the effect at\nwhich it aims; it improves the texture at a minute point; it sacrifices\nwidth and freedom.\n\nTogether with clearness of conception and resource of vocabulary must\ncome a certain eagerness of mood.  When all three qualities are\npresent, the result is good work, however rapidly it may be produced.\nIf one of the three is lacking, the work sticks, hangs, and grates; and\nthus what I feel that the word-artist ought to do is to aim at working\non these lines, but to be very strict and severe about the ultimate\nselection of his work.  If, for instance, in a big task, a section has\nbeen dully and impotently written, let him put the manuscript aside,\nand think no more of it for a while; let him not spend labour in\nattempting to mend bad work; then, on some later occasion, let him\nagain get his conception clear, and write the whole section again; if\nhe loves writing for itself he will not care how often this process is\nrepeated.\n\nI am speaking here very frankly; and I will own that for myself, when\nthe day has rolled past and when the sacred hour comes, I sit down to\nwrite with an appetite, a keen rapture, such as a hungry man may feel\nwhen he sits down to a savoury meal.  There is a real physical emotion\nthat accompanies the process; and it is a deep and lively distress that\nI feel when I am living under conditions that do not allow me to\nexercise my craft, at being compelled to waste the appropriate hours in\nother occupations.\n\nIt may be fairly urged that with this intense impulse to write, I ought\nto have contrived to make myself into a better writer; and it might be\nthought that there is something either grotesque or pathetic in so much\nemotional enjoyment issuing in so slender a performance.  But the\nessence of the happiness is that the joy resides in the doing of the\nwork and not in the giving it to the world; and though I do not pretend\nnot to be fully alive to the delight of having my work praised and\nappreciated, that is altogether a secondary pleasure which in no way\ncompetes with the luxury of expression.\n\nI am not ungrateful for this delight; it may, I know, be withdrawn from\nme; but meanwhile the world seems to be full to the brim of expressive\nand significant things.  There is a beautiful old story of a saint who\nsaw in a vision a shining figure approaching him, holding in his hand a\ndark and cloudy globe.  He held it out, and the saint looking\nattentively upon it, saw that it appeared to represent the earth in\nminiature; there were the continents and seas, with clouds sweeping\nover them; and, for all that it was so minute, he could see cities and\nplains, and little figures moving to and fro.  The angel laid his\nfinger on a part of the globe, and detached from it a small cluster of\nislands, drawing them out of the sea; and the saint saw that they were\npeopled by a folk, whom he knew, in some way that he could not wholly\nunderstand, to be dreary and uncomforted.  He heard a voice saying,\n\"_He taketh up the isles as a very small thing_\"; and it darted into\nhis mind that his work lay with the people of those sad islands; that\nhe was to go thither, and speak to them a message of hope.\n\nIt is a beautiful story; and it has always seemed to me that the work\nof the artist is like that.  He is to detach from the great peopled\nglobe what little portion seems to appeal to him most; and he must then\nsay what he can to encourage and sustain men, whatever thoughts of joy\nand hope come most home to him in his long and eager pilgrimage.\n\n\n\n\nXIX\n\nHamlet\n\nWe were talking yesterday about the stage, a subject in which I am\nashamed to confess I take but a feeble interest, though I fully\nrecognise the appeal of the drama to certain minds, and its\npossibilities.  One of the party, who had all his life been a great\nfrequenter of theatres, turned to me and said: \"After all, there is one\nplay which seems to be always popular, and to affect all audiences, the\npoor, the middle-class, the cultivated, alike--_Hamlet_.\"  \"Yes,\" I\nsaid, \"and I wonder why that is?\"  \"Well,\" he said, \"it is this, I\nthink: that beneath all its subtleties, all its intellectual force, it\nhas an emotional appeal to every one who has lived in the world; every\none sees himself more or less in Hamlet; every one has been in a\nsituation in which he felt that circumstances were too strong for him;\nand then, too,\" he added, \"there is always a deep and romantic interest\nabout the case of a man who has every possible external advantage,\nyouth, health, wealth, rank, love, ardour, and zest, who is yet utterly\nmiserable, and moves to a dark end under a shadow of doom.\"\n\nI thought, and think this a profound and delicate criticism.  There is,\nof course, a great deal more in _Hamlet_; there is its high poetry, its\nmournful dwelling upon deep mysteries, its supernatural terrors, its\nworldly wisdom, its penetrating insight; but these are all accessories\nto the central thought; the conception is absolutely firm throughout.\nThe hunted soul of Hamlet, after a pleasant and easy drifting upon the\nstream of happy events, finds a sombre curtain suddenly twitched aside,\nand is confronted with a tragedy so dark, a choice so desperate, that\nthe reeling brain staggers, and can hardly keep its hold upon the\nevents and habits of life.  Day by day the shadow flits beside him;\nmorning after morning he uncloses his sad eyes upon a world, which he\nhad found so sweet, and which he now sees to be so terrible; the\ninsistent horror breeds a whole troop of spectres, so that all the\nquiet experiences of life, friendship, love, nature, art, become big\nwith uneasy speculations and surmises; from the rampart-platform by the\nsea until the peal of ordnance is shot off, as the poor bodies are\ncarried out, every moment brings with it some shocking or brooding\nexperience.  Hamlet is not strong enough to close his eyes to these\nthings; if for a moment he attempts this, some tragic thought plucks at\nhis shoulder, and bids the awakened sleeper look out into the\nstruggling light.  Neither is he strong enough to face the situation\nwith resolution and courage.  He turns and doubles before the pursuing\nFury; he hopes against hope that a door of escape may be opened.  He\npoisons the air with gloom and suspicion; he feeds with wilful sadness\nupon the most melancholy images of death and despair.  And though the\ngreat creator of this mournful labyrinth, this atrocious dilemma, can\ninvolve the sad spirit with an art that thrills all the most delicate\nfibres of the human spirit, he cannot stammer out even the most\nfaltering solution, the smallest word of comfort or hope.  He leaves\nthe problem, where he took it up, in the mighty hands of God.\n\nAnd thus the play stands as the supreme memorial of the tortured\nspirit.  The sad soul of the prince seems like an orange-banded bee,\nbuzzing against the glass of some closed chamber-window, wondering\nheavily what is the clear yet palpable medium that keeps it, in spite\nof all its efforts, from re-entering the sunny paradise of tree and\nflower, that lies so close at hand, and that is yet unattainable; until\none wonders why the supreme Lord of the place cannot put forth a\nfinger, and release the ineffectual spirit from its fruitless pain.  As\nthe play gathers and thickens to its crisis, one experiences--and this\nis surely a test of the highest art--the poignant desire to explain, to\nreason, to comfort, to relieve; even if one cannot help, one longs at\nleast to utter the yearning of the heart, the intense sympathy that one\nfeels for the multitude of sorrows that oppress this laden spirit; to\nassuage if only for a moment, by an answering glance of love, the fire\nthat burns in those stricken eyes.  And one must bear away from the\nstory not only the intellectual satisfaction, the emotional excitement,\nbut a deep desire to help, as far as a man can, the woes of spirits\nwho, all the world over, are in the grip of these dreary agonies.\n\nAnd that, after all, is the secret of the art that deals with the\npresentment of sorrow; with the art that deals with pure beauty the end\nis plain enough; we may stay our hearts upon it, plunge with gratitude\ninto the pure stream, and recognise it for a sweet and wholesome gift\nof God; but the art that makes sorrow beautiful, what are we to do with\nthat?  We may learn to bear, we may learn to hope that there is, in the\nmind of God, if we could but read it, a region where both beauty and\nsadness are one; and meanwhile it may teach us to let our heart go out,\nin love and pity, to all who are bound upon their pilgrimage in\nheaviness, and passing uncomforted through the dark valley.\n\n\n\n\nXX\n\nA Sealed Spirit\n\nA few weeks ago I was staying with a friend of mine, a clergyman in the\ncountry.  He told me one evening a very sad story about one of his\nparishioners.  This was a man who had been a clerk in a London Bank,\nwhose eyesight had failed, and who had at last become totally blind.\nHe was, at the time when this calamity fell upon him, about forty years\nof age.  The Directors of the Bank gave him a small pension, and he had\na very small income of his own; he was married, with one son, who was\nshortly after taken into the Bank as a clerk.  The man and his wife\ncame into the parish, and took a tiny cottage, where they lived very\nsimply and frugally.  But within a year or two his hearing had also\nfailed, and he had since become totally deaf.  It is almost appalling\nto reflect upon the condition of helplessness to which this double\ncalamity can reduce a man.  To be cut off from the sights and sounds of\nthe world, with these two avenues of perception closed, so as to be\nable to take cognisance of external things only through scent and\ntouch!  It would seem to be well-nigh unendurable!  He had learnt to\nread raised type with his fingers, and had been presented by some\nfriends with two or three books of this kind.  His speech was, as is\nalways the case, affected, but still intelligible.  Only the simplest\nfacts could be communicated to him, by means of a set of cards, with\nwords in raised type, out of which a few sentences could be arranged.\nBut he and his wife had invented a code of touch, by means of which she\nwas able to a certain extent, though of course very inadequately, to\ncommunicate with him.  I asked how he employed himself, and I was told\nthat he wrote a good deal,--curious, rhapsodical compositions, dwelling\nmuch on his own thoughts and fancies.  \"He sits,\" said the Vicar, \"for\nhours together on a bench in his garden, and walks about, guided by his\nwife.  His sense of both smell and touch have become extraordinarily\nacute; and, afflicted as he is, I am sure he is not at all an unhappy\nman.\"  He produced some of the writings of which he had spoken.  They\nwere written in a big, clear hand.  I read them with intense interest.\nSome of them were recollections of his childish days, set in a somewhat\nantique and biblical phraseology.  Some of them were curious reveries,\ndwelling much upon the perception of natural things through scent.  He\ncomplained, I remember, that life was so much less interesting in\nwinter because scents were so much less sweet and less complex than in\nsummer.  But the whole of the writings showed a serene exaltation of\nmind.  There was not a touch of repining or resignation about them.  He\nspoke much of the aesthetic pleasure that he received from an increased\npower of disentangling the component elements of a scent, such as came\nfrom his garden on a warm summer day.  Some of the writings that were\nshown me were religious in character, in which the man spoke of a\nconstant sense of the nearness of God's presence, and of a strange joy\nthat filled his heart.\n\nOn the following day the Vicar suggested that we should go to see him;\nwe turned out of a lane, and found a little cottage with a thatched\nroof, standing in a small orchard, bright with flowers.  On a bench we\nsaw the man sitting, entirely unconscious of our presence.  He was a\ntall, strongly-built fellow with a beard, bronzed and healthy in\nappearance.  His eyes were wide open, and, but for a curious fixity of\ngaze, I should not have suspected that he was blind.  His hands were\nfolded on his knee, and he was smiling; once or twice I saw his lips\nmove as if he was talking to himself.  \"We won't go up to him,\" said\nthe Vicar, \"as it might startle him; we will find his wife.\"  So we\nwent up to the cottage door, and knocked.  It was opened to us by a\nsmall elderly woman, with a grave, simple look, and a very pleasant\nsmile.  The little place was wonderfully clean and neat.  The Vicar\nintroduced me, saying that I had been much interested in her husband's\nwritings, and had come to call on him.  She smiled briskly, and said\nthat he would be much pleased.  We walked down the path; when we were\nwithin a few feet of him, he became aware of our presence, and turned\nhis head with a quiet, expectant air.  His wife went up to him, took\nhis hand, and seemed to beat on it softly with her fingers; he smiled,\nand presently raised his hat, as if to greet us, and then took up a\nlittle writing-pad which lay beside him, and began to write.  A little\nconversation followed, his wife reading out what he had written, and\nthen interpreting our remarks to him.  What struck me most was the\nabsence of egotism in what he wrote.  He asked the Vicar one or two\nquestions, and desired to know who I was.  I went and sate down beside\nhim; he wrote in his book that it was a pleasure to him to meet a\nstranger.  Might he take the liberty of seeing him in his own way?  \"He\nmeans,\" said the wife, smiling, \"might he put his hand on your\nface--some people do not like it,\" she added apologetically, \"and he\nwill quite understand if you do not.\"  I said that I was delighted; and\nthe blind man thereupon laid his hand upon my sleeve, and with an\nincredible deftness and lightness of touch, so that I hardly felt it,\npassed his finger-tips over my coat and waistcoat, lingered for a\nmoment over my watch-chain, then over my tie and collar, and then very\ngently over my face and hair; it did not last half a minute, and there\nwas something curiously magnetic in the touch of the slim firm fingers.\n\"Now I see him,\" he wrote; \"please thank him.\"  \"It will please him,\"\nsaid the Vicar, \"if we ask him to describe you.\"  In a moment, after a\nfew touches of his wife's hand, he smiled, and wrote down a really\nremarkably accurate picture of my appearance.  We then asked him a few\nquestions about himself.  \"Very well and very happy,\" he wrote, \"full\nof the love of God;\" and then added, \"You will perhaps think that I get\ntired of doing nothing, but the time is too short for all I want to\ndo.\"  \"It is quite true,\" said his wife, smiling as she read it.  \"He\nis as pleased as a child with everything, and every one is so good to\nhim.\"  Presently she asked him to read aloud to us; and in a voice of\ngreat distinctness, he read a few verses of the Book of Job from a big\nvolume.  The voice was high and resonant, but varied strangely in\npitch.  He asked at the end whether we had heard every word, and being\ntold that we had, smiled very sweetly and frankly, like a boy who has\nperformed a task well.  The Vicar suggested that he should come for a\nturn with us, at which he visibly brightened, and said he would like to\nwalk through the village.  He took our arms, walking between us; and\nwith a delicate courtesy, knowing that we could not communicate with\nhim, talked himself, very quietly and simply, almost all the way,\npartly of what he was convinced we were passing,--guessing, I imagine,\nmainly by a sense of smell, and interpreting it all with astonishing\naccuracy, though I confess I was often unable even to detect the scents\nwhich guided him.  We walked thus for half an hour, listening to his\nquiet talk.  Two or three people came up to us.  Each time the Vicar\nchecked him, and he held out his hand to be shaken; in each case he\nrecognised the person by the mere touch of the hand.  \"Mrs Purvis,\nisn't it?  Well, you see me in very good company this morning, don't\nyou?  It is so kind of the Vicar and his friend to take me out, and it\nis pleasant to meet friends in the village.\"  He seemed to know all\nabout the affairs of the place, and made enquiries after various people.\n\nIt was a very strange experience to walk thus with a fellow-creature\nsuffering from these sad limitations, and yet to be conscious of being\nin the presence of so perfectly contented and cheerful a spirit.\nBefore we parted, he wrote on his pad that he was working hard.  \"I am\ntrying to write a little book; of course I know that I can never see\nit, but I should like to tell people that it is possible to live a life\nlike mine, and to be full of happiness; that God sends me abundance of\njoy, so that I can say with truth that I am happier now than ever I was\nin the old days.  Such peace and joy, with so many to love me; so\nlittle that I can do for others, except to speak of the marvellous\ngoodness of God, and of the beautiful thoughts he gives me.\"  \"Yes, he\nhas written some chapters,\" said the faithful wife; \"but he does not\nwant any one to see them till they are done.\"\n\nI shall never forget the sight of the two as we went away: he stood,\nsmiling and waving his hand, under an apple-tree in full bloom, with\nthe sun shining on the flowers.  It gave me the sense of a pure and\nsimple content such as I have rarely experienced.  The beauty and\nstrength of the picture have dwelt with me ever since, showing me that\na soul can be thus shut up in what would seem to be so dark a prison,\nwith the windows, through which most of us look upon the world, closed\nand shuttered; and yet not only not losing the joy of life, but seeming\nto taste it in fullest measure.  If one could but accept thus one's own\nlimitations, viewing them not as sources of pleasure closed, but as\nopening the door more wide to what remains; the very simplicity and\nrarity of the perceptions that are left, gaining in depth and quality\nfrom their isolation.  But beyond all this lies that well-spring of\ninner joy, which seems to be withheld from so many of us.  Is it indeed\nwithheld?  Is it conferred upon this poor soul simply as a tender\ncompensation?  Can we not by quiet passivity, rather than by resolute\neffort, learn the secret of it?  I believe myself that the source is\nthere in many hearts, but that we visit it too rarely, and forget it in\nthe multitude of little cares and businesses, which seem so important,\nso absorbing.  It is like a hidden treasure, which we go so far abroad\nto seek, and for which we endure much weariness of wandering; while all\nthe while it is buried in our own garden-ground; we have paced to and\nfro above it many times, never dreaming that the bright thing lay\nbeneath our feet, and within reach of our forgetful hand.\n\n\n\n\nXXI\n\nLeisure\n\nIt was a bright day in early spring; large, fleecy clouds floated in a\nblue sky; the wind was cool, but the sun lay hot in sheltered places.\n\nI was spending a few days with an old friend, at a little house he\ncalls his Hermitage, in a Western valley; we had walked out, had passed\nthe bridge, and had stood awhile to see the clear stream flowing, a\nvein of reflected sapphire, among the green water-meadows; we had\nclimbed up among the beech-woods, through copses full of primroses, to\na large heathery hill, where a clump of old pines stood inside an\nancient earth-work.  The forest lay at our feet, and the doves cooed\nlazily among the tree-tops; beyond lay the plain, with a long range of\nsmooth downs behind, where the river broadened to the sea-pool, which\nnarrowed again to the little harbour; and, across the clustered\nhouse-roofs and the lonely church tower of the port, we could see a\nglint of the sea.\n\nWe sat awhile in silence; then \"Come,\" I said, \"I am going to be\nimpertinent!  I am in a mood to ask questions, and to have full\nanswers.\"\n\n\"And I,\" said my host placidly, \"am always in the mood to answer\nquestions.\"\n\nI would call my friend a poet, because he is sealed of the tribe, if\never man was; yet he has never written verses to my knowledge.  He is a\nbig, burly, quiet man, gentle and meditative of aspect; shy before\ncompany, voluble in private.  Half-humorous, half melancholy.  He has\nbeen a man of affairs, prosperous, too, and shrewd.  But nothing in his\nlife was ever so poetical as the way in which, to the surprise and even\nconsternation of all his friends, he announced one day, when he was\nturned of forty, that he had had enough of work, and that he would do\nno more.  Well, he had no one to say him nay; he has but few relations,\nnone in any way dependent on him; he has a modest competence; and,\nbeing fond of all leisurely things--books, music, the open air, the\ncountry, flowers, and the like--he has no need to fear that his time\nwill be unoccupied.\n\nHe looked lazily at me, biting a straw.  \"Come,\" said I again, \"here is\nthe time for a catechism.  I have reason to think you are over forty?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said he, \"the more's the pity!\"\n\n\"And you have given up regular work,\" I said, \"for over a year; and how\ndo you like that?\"\n\n\"Like it?\" he said.  \"Well, so much that I can never work again; and\nwhat is stranger still is that I never knew what it was to be really\nbusy till I gave up work.  Before, I was often bored; now, the day is\nnever long enough for all I have to do.\"\n\n\"But that is a dreadful confession,\" I said; \"and how do you justify\nyourself for this miserable indifference to all that is held to be of\nimportance?\"\n\n\"Listen!\" he said, smiling and holding up his hand.  There floated up\nout of the wood the soft crooning of a dove, like the over-brimming of\na tide of content.  \"There's the answer,\" he added.  \"How does that\ndove justify his existence? and yet he has not much on his mind.\"\n\n\"I have no answer ready,\" I said, \"though there is one, I am sure, if\nyou will only give me time; but let that come later: more questions\nfirst, and then I will deliver judgment.  Now, attend to this\nseriously,\" I said.  \"How do you justify it that you are alone in the\nworld, not mated, not a good husband and father?  The dove has not got\nthat on his conscience.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said my friend, \"I have often asked myself that.  But for many\nyears I had not the time to fall in love; if I had been an idle man it\nwould have been different, and now that I am free--well, I regard it\nas, on the whole, a wise dispensation.  I have no domestic virtues; I\nam a pretty commonplace person, and I think there is no reason why I\nshould perpetuate my own feeble qualities, bind my dull qualities up\ncloser with the life of the world.  Besides, I have a theory that the\nworld is made now very much as it was in the Middle Ages.  There was\nbut one choice then--a soldier or a monk.  Now, I have no combative\nblood in me; I hate a row; I am a monk to the marrow of my bones, and\nthe monks are the failures from the point of view of race.  No monk\nshould breed monks; there are enough of his kind in the hive already.\"\n\n\"You a monk?\" said I, laughing.  \"Why, you are nothing of the kind; you\nare just the sort of man for an adoring wife and a handful of big\nchildren.  I must have a better answer.\"\n\n\"Well, then,\" said he, rather seriously, \"I will give you a better\nanswer.  There are some people whose affections are made to run, strong\nand straight, in a narrow channel.  The world holds but one woman for a\nman of that type, and it is his business to find her; but there are\nothers, and I am one, who dribble away their love in a hundred\nchannels--in art, in nature, among friends.  To speak frankly, I have\nhad a hundred such passions.  I made friends as a boy, quickly and\nromantically, with all kinds of people--some old, some young.  Then I\nhave loved books, and music, and, above all, the earth and the things\nof the earth.  To the wholesome, normal man these things are but an\nagreeable background, and the real business of life lies with wife and\nchild and work.  But to me the real things have been the beautiful\nthings--sunrise and sunset, streams and woods, old houses, talk,\npoetry, pictures, ideas.  And I always liked my work, too.\"\n\n\"And you did it well?\" I said.\n\n\"Oh, yes, well enough,\" he replied.  \"I have a clear head, and I am\nconscientious; and then there was some fun to be got out of it at\ntimes.  But it was never a part of myself for all that.  And the reason\nwhy I gave it up was not because I was tired of it, but because I was\ngetting to depend too much upon it.  I should very soon have been\nunable to do without it.\"\n\n\"But what is your programme?\" I said, rather urgently.  \"Don't you want\nto be of some use in the world?  To make other people better and\nhappier, for instance.\"\n\n\"My dear boy,\" said my companion, with a smile, \"do you know that you\nare talking in a very conventional way?  Of course, I desire that\npeople should be better and happier, myself among the number; but how\nam I to set about it?  Most people's idea of being better and happier\nis to make other people subscribe to make them richer.  They want more\nthings to eat and drink and wear; they want success and respectability,\nto be sidesmen and town councillors, and even Members of Parliament.\nNothing is more hopelessly unimaginative than ordinary people's aims\nand ideas, and the aims and ideas, too, that are propounded from\npulpits.  I don't want people to be richer and more prosperous; I want\nthem to be poorer and simpler.  Which is the better man, the shepherd\nthere on the down, out all day in the air, seeing a thousand pretty\nthings, or the grocer behind his counter, living in an odour of lard\nand cheese, bowing and fussing, and drinking spirits in the evening?\nOf course, a wholesome-minded man may be wholesome-minded everywhere\nand anywhere; but prosperity, which is the Englishman's idea of\nrighteousness, is a very dangerous thing, and has very little of what\nis divine about it.  If I had stuck to my work, as all my friends\nadvised me, what would have been the result?  I should have had more\nmoney than I want, and nothing in the world to live for but my work.\nOf course, I know that I run the risk of being thought indolent and\nunpractical.  If I were a prophet, I should find it easy enough to\nscold everybody, and find fault with the poor, peaceful world.  But as\nI am not, I can only follow my own line of life, and try to see and\nlove as many as I can of the beautiful things that God flings down all\nround us.  I am not a philanthropist, I suppose; but most of the\nphilanthropists I have known have seemed to me tiresome, self-seeking\npeople, with a taste for trying to take everything out of God's hands.\nI am an individualist, I imagine.  I think that most of us have to find\nour way, and to find it alone.  I do try to help a few quiet people at\nthe right moment; but I believe that every one has his own circle--some\nlarger, some smaller--and that one does little good outside it.  If\nevery one would be content with that, the world would be mended in a\ntrice.\"\n\n\"I am glad that you, at least, admit that there is something to be\nmended,\" I said.\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" said he, \"the general conditions seem to me to want mending;\nbut that, I humbly think, is God's matter, and not mine.  The world is\nslowly broadening and improving, I believe.  In these days, when we\nshoot our enemies and then nurse them, we are coming, I believe, to see\neven the gigantic absurdity of war; but all that side of it is too big\nfor me.  I am no philosopher!  What I believe we ought to do is to be\npatient, kind, and courageous in a corner.  Now, I will give you an\ninstance.  I had a friend who was a good, hard-working clergyman; a\nbrave, genial, courageous creature; he had a town parish not far from\nhere; he liked his work, and he did it well.  He was the friend of all\nthe boys and girls in the parish; he worked a hundred useful, humble\ninstitutions.  He was nothing of a preacher, and a poor speaker; but\nsomething generous, honest, happy seemed to radiate from the man.  Of\ncourse, they could not let him alone.  They offered him a Bishopric.\nAll his friends said he was bound to take it; the poor fellow wrote to\nme, and said that he dared not refuse a sphere of wider influence, and\nall that.  I wrote and told him my mind--namely, that he was doing a\nsplendid piece of quiet, sober work, and that he had better stick to\nit.  But, of course, he didn't.  Well, what is the result?  He is\nworried to death.  He has a big house and a big household; he is a\nwelcome guest in country-houses and vicarages; he opens churches, he\nconfirms; he makes endless poor speeches, and preaches weak sermons.\nHis time is all frittered away in directing the elaborate machinery of\na diocese; and all his personal work is gone.  I don't say he doesn't\nimpress people.  But his strength lay in his personal work, his work as\na neighbour and a friend.  He is not a clever man; he never says a\nsuggestive thing--he is not a sower of thoughts, but a simple pastor.\nWell, I regard it as a huge and lamentable mistake that he should ever\nhave changed his course; and the motive that made him do it was a bad\none, only disguised as an angel of light.  Instead of being the stoker\nof the train, he is now a distinguished passenger in a first-class\ncarriage.\"\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"I admit that there is a good deal in what you say.\nBut if such a summons comes to a man, is it not more simple-minded to\nfollow it dutifully?  Is it not, after all, part of the guiding of God?\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said my host, \"that is a hard question, I admit.  But a man must\nlook deep into his heart, and face a situation of the kind bravely and\nsimply.  He must be quite sure that it is a summons from God, and not a\ntemptation from the world.  I admit that it may be the former.  But in\nthe case of which I have just spoken, my friend ought to have seen that\nit was the latter.  He was made for the work he was doing; he was\nobviously not made for the other.  And to sum it up, I think that God\nputs us into the world to live, not necessarily to get influence over\nother people.  If a man is worth anything, the influence comes; and I\ndon't call it living to attend public luncheons, and to write\nunnecessary letters, because public luncheons are things which need not\nexist, and are only amusements invented by fussy and idle people.  I am\nnot at all against people amusing themselves.  But they ought to do it\nquietly and inexpensively, and not elaborately and noisily.  The only\nthing that is certain is that men must work and eat and sleep and die.\nWell, I want them to enjoy their work, their food, their rest; and then\nI should like them to enjoy their leisure hours peacefully and quietly.\nI have done as much in my twenty years of business as a man in a\nwell-regulated state ought to do in the whole of his life; and the rest\nI shall give, God willing, to leisure--not eating my cake in a corner,\nbut in quiet good fellowship, with an eye and an ear for this wonderful\nand beautiful world.\"  And my companion smiled upon me a large, gentle,\nengaging smile.\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, \"you have answered well, and you have given me plenty to\nthink about.  And at all events you have a point of view, and that is a\ngreat thing.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said he, \"a great thing, as long as one is not sure one is\nright, but ready to learn, and not desirous to teach.  That is the\nmistake.  We are children at school--we ought not to forget that; but\nmany of us want to sit in the master's chair, and rap the desk, and\ncane the other children.\"\n\nAnd so our talk wandered to other things; then we were silent for a\nlittle, while the birds came home to their roosts, and the trees\nshivered in the breeze of sunset; till at last the golden glow gathered\nin the west, and the sun went down in state behind the crimson line of\nsea.\n\n\n\n\nXXII\n\nThe Pleasures of Work\n\nI desire to do a very sacred thing to-day: to enunciate a couple of\nplatitudes and attest them.  It is always a solemn moment in life when\none can sincerely subscribe to a platitude.  Platitudes are the things\nwhich people of plain minds shout from the steps of the staircase of\nlife as they ascend; and to discover the truth of a platitude by\nexperience means that you have climbed a step higher.\n\nThe first enunciation is, that in this world we most of us do what we\nlike.  And the corollary to that is, that we most of us like what we do.\n\nOf course, we must begin by taking for granted that we most of us are\nobliged to do something.  But that granted, it seems to me that it is\nvery rare to find people who do not take a certain pleasure in their\nwork, and even secretly congratulate themselves on doing it with a\ncertain style and efficiency.  To find a person who has not some\nspecies of pride of this nature is very rare.  Other people may not\nshare our opinion of our own work.  But even in the case of those whose\nwork is most open to criticism, it is almost invariable to find that\nthey resent criticism, and are very ready to appropriate praise.  I had\na curiously complete instance of this the other day.  In a parish which\nI often visit, the organ in the church is what is called presided over\nby the most infamous executant I have ever heard--an elderly man, who\nseldom plays a single chord correctly, and whose attempts to use the\npedals are of the nature of tentative and unsuccessful experiments.\nHis performance has lately caused a considerable amount of indignation\nin the parish, for a new organ has been placed in the church, of far\nlouder tone than the old instrument, and my friend the organist is\nhopelessly adrift upon it.  The residents in the place have almost made\nup their minds to send a round-robin to the Vicar to ask that the\n_pulsator organorum_, the beater of the organ, as old Cathedral\nstatutes term him, may be deposed.  The last time I attended service,\none of those strangely appropriate verses came up in the course of the\nPsalms, which make troubled spirits feel that the Psalter does indeed\nutter a message to faithful individual hearts.  \"_I have desired that\nthey, even my enemies,_\" ran the verse, \"_should not triumph over me;\nfor when my foot slipped, they rejoiced greatly against me._\"  In the\ncourse of the verse the unhappy performer executed a perfect fandango\non the pedals.  I looked guiltily at the senior churchwarden, and saw\nhis mouth twitch.\n\nIn the same afternoon I fell in with the organist, in the course of a\nstroll, and discoursed to him in a tone of gentle condolence about the\ndifficulties of a new instrument.  He looked blankly at me, and then\nsaid that he supposed that some people might find a change of\ninstrument bewildering, but that for himself he felt equally at home on\nany instrument.  He went on to relate a series of compliments that\nwell-known musicians had paid him, which I felt must either have been\nimperfectly recollected, or else must have been of a consolatory or\neven ironical nature.  In five minutes, I discovered that my friend was\nthe victim of an abundant vanity, and that he believed that his\nvocation in life was organ-playing.\n\nAgain, I remember that, when I was a schoolmaster, one of my colleagues\nwas a perfect byword for the disorder and noise that prevailed in his\nform.  I happened once to hold a conversation with him on disciplinary\ndifficulties, thinking that he might have the relief of confiding his\ntroubles to a sympathising friend.  What was my amazement when I\ndiscovered that his view of the situation was, that every one was\nconfronted with the same difficulties as himself, and that he obviously\nbelieved that he was rather more successful than most of us in dealing\nwith them tactfully and strictly.\n\nI believe my principle to be of almost universal application; and that\nif one could see into the heart of the people who are accounted, and\nrightly accounted, to be gross and conspicuous failures, we should find\nthat they were not free from a certain pleasant vanity about their own\nqualifications and efficiency.  The few people whom I have met who are\napt to despond over their work are generally people who do it\nremarkably well, and whose ideal of efficiency is so high that they\ncriticise severely in themselves any deviation from their standard.\nMoreover, if one goes a little deeper--if, for instance, one cordially\nre-echoes their own criticisms upon their work--such criticisms are apt\nto be deeply resented.\n\nI will go further, and say that only once in the course of my life have\nI found a man who did his work really well, without any particular\npride and pleasure in it.  To do that implies an extraordinary degree\nof will-power and self-command.\n\nI do not mean to say that, if any professional person found himself\nsuddenly placed in the possession of an independent income, greater\nthan he had ever derived from his professional work, his pleasure in\nhis work would be sufficient to retain him in the exercise of it.  We\nhave most of us an unhappy belief in our power of living a pleasurable\nand virtuous life of leisure; and the desire to live what is called the\nlife of a gentleman, which character has lately been defined as a\nperson who has no professional occupation, is very strong in the hearts\nof most of us.\n\nBut, for all that, we most of us enjoy our work; the mere fact that one\ngains facility, and improves from day to day, is a source of sincere\npleasure, however far short of perfection our attempts may fall; and,\ngenerally speaking, our choice of a profession is mainly dictated by a\ncertain feeling of aptitude for and interest in what we propose to\nundertake.\n\nIt is, then, a happy and merciful delusion by which we are bound.  We\ngrow, I think, to love our work, and we grow, too, to believe in our\nmethod of doing it.  We cannot, a great preacher once said, all delude\nourselves into believing that we are richer, handsomer, braver, more\ndistinguished than others; but there are few of us who do not cherish a\nsecret belief that, if only the truth were known, we should prove to be\nmore interesting than others.\n\nTo leave our work for a moment, and to turn to ordinary social\nintercourse.  I am convinced that the only thing that can account for\nthe large number of bad talkers in the world is the wide-spread belief\nthat prevails among individuals as to their power of contributing\ninterest and amusement to a circle.  One ought to keep this in mind,\nand bear faithfully and patiently the stream of tiresome talk that\npours, as from a hose, from the lips of diffuse and lengthy\nconversationalists.  I once made a terrible mistake.  I complimented,\nfrom the mere desire of saying something agreeable, and finding my\nchoice of praiseworthy qualities limited, an elderly, garrulous\nacquaintance on his geniality, on an evening when I had writhed\nuneasily under a steady downpour of talk.  I have bitterly rued my\ninsincerity.  Not only have I received innumerable invitations from the\nman whom the Americans would call my complimentee, but when I am in his\ncompany I see him making heroic attempts to make his conversation\npractically continuous.  How often since that day have I sympathised\nwith St James in his eloquent description of the deadly and poisonous\npower of the tongue!  A bore is not, as is often believed, a merely\nselfish and uninteresting person.  He is often a man who labours\nconscientiously and faithfully at an accomplishment, the exercise of\nwhich has become pleasurable to him.  And thus a bore is the hardest of\nall people to convert, because he is, as a rule, conscious of virtue\nand beneficence.\n\nOn the whole, it is better not to disturb the amiable delusions of our\nfellow-men, unless we are certain that we can improve them.  To break\nthe spring of happiness in a virtuous bore is a serious responsibility.\nIt is better, perhaps, both in matters of work and in matters of social\nlife, to encourage our friends to believe in themselves.  We must not,\nof course, encourage them in vicious and hurtful enjoyment, and there\nare, of course, bores whose tediousness is not only not harmless, but a\npositively noxious and injurious quality.  There are bores who have but\nto lay a finger upon a subject of universal or special interest, to\nmake one feel that under no circumstances will one ever be able to\nallow one's thoughts to dwell on the subject again; and such a person\nshould be, as far as possible, isolated from human intercourse, like a\nsufferer from a contagious malady.  But this extremity of noxiousness\nis rare.  And it may be said that, as a rule, one does more to increase\nhappiness by a due amount of recognition and praise, even when one is\nrecognising rather the spirit of a performance than the actual result;\nand such a course of action has the additional advantage of making one\ninto a person who is eagerly welcomed and sought after in all kinds of\nsociety.\n\n\n\n\nXXIII\n\nThe Abbey\n\nThe fresh wind blew cheerily as we raced, my friend and I, across a\nlong stretch of rich fen-land.  The sunlight, falling somewhat dimly\nthrough a golden haze, lay very pleasantly on the large pasture-fields.\nThere are few things more beautiful, I think, than these great level\nplains; they give one a delightful sense of space and repose.  The\ndistant lines of trees, the far-off church towers, the long dykes, the\nhamlets half-hidden in orchards, the \"sky-space and field-silence,\"\ngive one a feeling of quiet rustic life lived on a large and simple\nscale, which seems the natural life of the world.\n\nOur goal was the remains of an old religious house, now a farm.  We\nwere soon at the place; it stood on a very gentle rising ground, once\nan island above the fen.  Two great columns of the Abbey Church served\nas gate-posts.  The house itself lay a little back from the road, a\ncomfortable cluster of big barns and outhouses, with great walnut trees\nall about, in the middle of an ancient tract of pasture, full of\ndimpled excavations, in which the turf grew greener and more compact.\nThe farm-house itself, a large irregular Georgian building covered with\nrough orange plaster, showed a pleasant tiled roof among the barns,\nover a garden set with venerable sprawling box-trees.  We found a\nfriendly old labourer, full of simple talk, who showed us the orchard,\nwith its mouldering wall of stone, pierced with niches, the line of dry\nstew-ponds, the refectory, now a great barn, piled high with heaps of\ngrain and straw.  We walked through byres tenanted by comfortable pigs\nrouting in the dirt.  We hung over a paling to watch the creased and\ndiscontented face of an old hog, grunting in shrill anticipation of a\nmeal.  Our guide took us to the house, where we found a transept of the\nchurch, now used as a brew-house, with the line of the staircase still\nvisible, rising up to a door in the wall that led once to the\ndormitory, down the steps of which, night after night, the shivering\nand sleepy monks must have stumbled into their chilly church for\nprayers.  The hall of the house was magnificent with great Norman\narches, once the aisle of the nave.\n\nThe whole scene had the busy, comfortable air of a place full of\npatriarchal life, the dignity of a thing existing for use and not for\nshow, of quiet prosperity, of garnered provender and well-fed stock.\nThough it made no deliberate attempt at beauty, it was full of a seemly\nand homely charm.  The face of the old fellow that led us about,\nchirping fragments of local tradition, with a mild pride in the fact\nthat strangers cared to come and see the place, wore the contented,\nweather-beaten look that comes of a life of easy labour spent in the\nopen air.  His patched gaiters, the sacking tied round him with a cord\nto serve as an apron, had the same simple appropriateness.  We walked\nleisurely about, gathering a hundred pretty impressions,--as the old\nfilbert-trees that fringed the orchard, the wall-flowers, which our\nguide called the blood-warriors, on the ruined coping, a flight of\npigeons turning with a sharp clatter in the air.  At last he left us to\ngo about his little business; and we, sitting on a broken\nmounting-block in the sunshine, gazed lazily and contentedly at the\nscene.\n\nWe attempted to picture something of the life of the Benedictines who\nbuilt the house.  It must have been a life of much quiet happiness.  We\ntried to see in imagination the quaint clustered fabrics, the ancient\nchurch, the cloister, the barns, the out-buildings.  The brethren must\nhave suffered much from cold in winter.  The day divided by services,\nthe nights broken by prayers; probably the time was dull enough, but\npassed quickly, like all lives full of monotonous engagements.  They\nwere not particularly ascetic, these Benedictines, and insisted much on\nmanual labour in the open air.  Probably at first the monks did their\nfarm-work as well; but as they grew richer, they employed labourers,\nand themselves fell back on simpler and easier garden-work.  Perhaps\nsome few were truly devotional spirits, with a fire of prayer and\naspiration burning in their hearts; but the majority would be quiet\nmen, full of little gossip about possible promotions, about lands and\ncrops, about wayfarers and ecclesiastics who passed that way and were\nentertained.  Very few, except certain officials like the Cellarer, who\nwould have to ride to market, ever left the precincts of the place, but\nlaid their bones in the little graveyard east of the church.  We make a\nmistake in regarding the life and the buildings as having been so\npicturesque, as they now appear after the long lapse of time.  The\nchurch was more venerable than the rest; but the refectory, at the time\nof the dissolution, cannot have been long built; still, the old tiled\nplace, with its rough stone walls, must have always had a quaint and\nirregular air.\n\nProbably it was as a rule a contented and amiable society.  The regular\nhours, the wholesome fatigue which the rule entailed, must have tended\nto keep the inmates in health and good-humour.  But probably there was\nmuch tittle-tattle; and a disagreeable, jealous, or scheming inmate\nmust have been able to stir up a good deal of strife in a society\nliving at such close quarters.  One thinks loosely that it must have\nresembled the life of a college at the University, but that is an\nentire misapprehension; for the idea of a college is liberty with just\nenough discipline to hold it together, while the idea of a monastery\nwas discipline with just enough liberty to make life tolerable.\n\nWell, it is all over now! the idea of the monastic life, which was to\nmake a bulwark for quiet-minded people against the rougher world, is no\nlonger needed.  The work of the monks is done.  Yet I gave an\naffectionate thought across the ages to the old inmates of the place,\nwhose bones have mouldered into the dust of the yard where we sat.  It\nseemed half-pleasant, half-pathetic to think of them as they went about\ntheir work, sturdy, cheerful figures, looking out over the wide fen\nwith all its clear pools and reed-beds, growing old in the familiar\nscene, passing from the dormitory to the infirmary, and from the\ninfirmary to the graveyard, in a sure and certain hope.  They too\nenjoyed the first breaking of spring, the return of balmy winds, the\npushing up of the delicate flowers in orchard and close, with something\nof the same pleasure that I experience to-day.  The same wonder that I\nfeel, the same gentle thrill speaking of an unattainable peace, an\nunruffled serenity that lies so near me in the spring sunshine,\nflashed, no doubt, into those elder spirits.  Perhaps, indeed, their\nheart went out to the unborn that should come after them, as my heart\ngoes out to the dead to-day.\n\nAnd even the slow change that has dismantled that busy place, and\nestablished it as the quiet farmstead that I see, holds a hope within\nit.  There must indeed have been a sad time when the buildings were\nslipping into decay, and the church stood ruined and roofless.  But how\nsoon the scars are healed!  How calmly nature smiles at the eager\nschemes of men, breaks them short, and then sets herself to harmonise\nand adorn the ruin, till she makes it fairer than before, writing her\npatient lesson of beauty on broken choir and tottering wall, flinging\nher tide of fresh life over the rents, and tenderly drawing back the\nbroken fragments into her bosom.  If we could but learn from her not to\nfret or grieve, to gather up what remains, to wait patiently and wisely\nfor our change!\n\nSo I reasoned softly to myself in a train of gentle thought, till the\nplough-horses came clattering in, and the labourers plodded gratefully\nhome; and the sun went down over the flats in a great glory of orange\nlight.\n\n\n\n\nXXIV\n\nWordsworth\n\nI believe that I was once taken to Rydal Mount as a small boy, led\nthere meekly, no doubt, in a sort of dream; but I retain not the\nremotest recollection of the place, except of a small flight of stone\nsteps, which struck me as possessing some attractive quality or other.\nAnd I have since read, I suppose, a good many descriptions of the\nplace; but on visiting it, as I recently did, I discovered that I had\nnot the least idea of what it was like.  And I would here shortly speak\nof the extraordinary kindness which I received from the present\ntenants, who are indeed of the hallowed dynasty; it may suffice to say\nthat I could only admire the delicate courtesy which enabled people,\nwho must have done the same thing a hundred times before, to show me\nthe house with as much zest and interest, as if I was the first pilgrim\nthat had ever visited the place.\n\nIn the first place, the great simplicity of the whole struck me.  It is\nlike a little grange or farm.  The rooms are small and low, and of a\npleasant domesticity; it is a place apt for a patriarchal life, where\nsimple people might live at close quarters with each other.  The house\nis hardly visible from the gate.  You turn out of a steep lane,\nembowered by trees, into a little gravel sweep, approaching the house\nfrom the side.  But its position is selected with admirable art; the\nground falls steeply in front of it, and you look out over a wide\nvalley, at the end of which Windermere lies, a tract of sapphire blue,\namong wooded hills and dark ranges.  Behind, the ground rises still\nmore steeply, to the rocky, grassy heights of Nab Scar; and the road\nleads on to a high green valley among the hills, a place of unutterable\npeace.\n\nIn this warm, sheltered nook, hidden in woods, with its southerly\naspect, the vegetation grows with an almost tropical luxuriance, so\nthat the general impression of the place is by no means typically\nEnglish.  Laurels and rhododendrons grow in dense shrubberies; the\ntrees are full of leaf; flowers blossom profusely.  There is a little\norchard beneath the house, and everywhere there is the fragrant and\npungent smell of sun-warmed garden-walks and box-hedges.  There are\nlittle terraces everywhere, banked up with stone walls built into the\nsteep ground, where stonecrops grow richly.  One of these leads to a\nlittle thatched arbour, where the poet often sat; below it, the ground\nfalls very rapidly, among rocks and copse and fern, so that you look\nout on to the tree-tops below, and catch a glimpse of the steely waters\nof the hidden lake of Rydal.\n\nWordsworth lived there for more than thirty years; and half a century\nhas passed since he died.  He was a skilful landscape gardener; and I\nsuppose that in his lifetime, when the walks were being constructed and\nthe place laid out, it must have had a certain air of newness, of\ninterference with the old wild peace of the hillside, which it has\nsince parted with.  Now it is all as full of a quiet and settled order,\nas if it had been thus for ever.  One little detail deserves a special\nmention; just below the house, there is an odd, circular, low, grassy\nmound, said to be the old meeting-place for the village council, in\nprimitive and patriarchal days,--the Mount, from which the place has\nits name.\n\nI thought much of the stately, simple, self-absorbed poet, whom somehow\none never thinks of as having been young; the lines of Milton haunted\nme, as I moved about the rooms, the garden-terraces:--\n\n  \"_In this mount he appeared; under this tree\n  Stood visible; among these pines his voice\n  I heard; here with him at this fountain talked._\"\n\nThe place is all permeated with the thought of him, his deep and\ntranquil worship of natural beauty, his love of the kindly earth.\n\nI do not think that Wordsworth is one whose memory evokes a deep\npersonal attachment.  I doubt if any figures of bygone days do that,\nunless there is a certain wistful pathos about them; unless something\nof compassion, some wish to proffer sympathy or consolation, mingles\nwith one's reverence.  I have often, for instance, stayed at a house\nwhere Shelley spent a few half-rapturous, half-miserable months.\nThere, meditating about him, striving to reconstruct the picture of his\nlife, one felt that he suffered much and needlessly; one would have\nwished to shelter, to protect him if it had been possible, or at least\nto have proffered sympathy to that inconsolable spirit.  One's heart\ngoes out to those who suffered long years ago, whose love of the earth,\nof life, of beauty, was perpetually overshadowed by the pain that comes\nfrom realising transitoriness and decay.\n\nBut Wordsworth is touched by no such pathos.  He was extraordinarily\nprosperous and equable; he was undeniably self-sufficient.  Even the\nsorrows and bereavements that he had to bear were borne gently and\nphilosophically.  He knew exactly what he wanted to do, and did it.\nThose sturdy, useful legs of his bore him many a pleasant mile.  He\nalways had exactly as much money as he needed, in order to live his\nlife as he desired.  He chose precisely the abode he preferred; his\nfame grew slowly and solidly.  He became a great personage; he was\ntreated with immense deference and respect.  He neither claimed nor\ndesired sympathy; he was as strong and self-reliant as the old yeomen\nof the hills, of whom he indeed was one; his vocation was poetry, just\nas their vocation was agriculture; and this vocation he pursued in as\nbusiness-like and intent a spirit as they pursued their farming.\n\nWordsworth, indeed, was armed at all points by a strong and simple\npride, too strong to be vanity, too simple to be egotism.  He is one of\nthe few supremely fortunate men in the history of literature, because\nhe had none of the sensitiveness or indecision that are so often the\ncurse of the artistic temperament.  He never had the least misgivings\nabout the usefulness of his life; he wrote because he enjoyed it; he\nate and drank, he strolled and talked, with the same enjoyment.  He had\na perfect balance of physical health.  His dreams never left him cold;\nhis exaltations never plunged him into depression.  He felt the\nmysteries of the world with a solemn awe, but he had no uneasy\nquestionings, no remorse, no bewilderment, no fruitless melancholy.\n\nHe bore himself with the same homely dignity in all companies alike; he\nwas never particularly interested in any one; he never had any fear of\nbeing thought ridiculous or pompous.  His favourite reading was his own\npoetry; he wished every one to be interested in his work, because he\nwas conscious of its supreme importance.  He probably made the mistake\nof thinking that it was his sense of poetry and beauty that made him\nsimple and tranquil.  As a matter of fact, it was the simplicity and\ntranquillity of his temperament that gave him the power of enjoyment in\nso large a measure.  There is no growth or expansion about his life; he\ndid not learn his serene and impassioned attitude through failures and\nmistakes: it was his all along.\n\nAnd yet what a fine, pure, noble, gentle life it was!  The very thought\nof him, faring quietly about among his hills and lakes, murmuring his\ncalm verse, in a sober and temperate joy, looking everywhere for the\nsame grave qualities among quiet homekeeping folk, brings with it a\nhigh inspiration.  But we tend to think of Wordsworth as a father and a\npriest, rather than as a brother and a friend.  He is a leader and a\nguide, not a comrade.  We must learn that, though he can perhaps turn\nour heart the right way, towards the right things, we cannot\nnecessarily acquire that pure peace, that solemn serenity, by obeying\nhis precepts, unless we too have something of the same strong calmness\nof soul.  In some moods, far from sustaining and encouraging us, the\nthought of his equable, impassioned life may only fill us with\nunutterable envy.  But still to have sat in his homely rooms, to have\npaced his little terraces, does bring a certain imagined peace into the\nmind, a noble shame for all that is sordid or mean, a hatred for the\nconventional aims, the pitiful ambitions of the world.\n\nAlas, that the only sound from the little hill-platform, the embowered\nwalks, should be the dull rolling of wheels--motors, coaches,\nomnibuses--in the road below!  That is the shadow of his greatness.  It\nis a pitiable thought that one of the fruits of his genius is that it\nhas made his holy retreat fashionable.  The villas rise in rows along\nthe edges of the clear lakes, under the craggy fell-sides, where the\nfeathery ashes root among the mimic precipices.  A stream of\nchattering, vacuous, indifferent tourists pours listlessly along the\nroad from _table-d'hote_ to _table-d'hote_.  The turbid outflow of the\nvulgar world seems a profanation of these august haunts.  One hopes\ndespairingly that something of the spirit of lonely beauty speaks to\nthese trivial heads and hearts.  But is there consolation in this?\nWhat would the poet himself have felt if he could have foreseen it all?\n\nI descended the hill-road and crossed the valley highway; it was full\nof dust; the vehicles rolled along, crowded with men smoking cigars and\nreading newspapers, tired women, children whose idea of pleasure had\nbeen to fill their hands with ferns and flowers torn from cranny and\ncovert.  I climbed the little hill opposite the great Scar; its green\ntowering head, with its feet buried in wood, the hardy trees straggling\nup the front wherever they could get a hold among the grey crags, rose\nin sweet grandeur opposite to me.  I threaded tracks of shimmering\nfern, out of which the buzzing flies rose round me; I went by silent,\nsolitary places where the springs soak out of the moorland, while I\npondered over the bewildering ways of the world.  The life, the ideals\nof the great poet, set in the splendid framework of the great hills,\nseemed so majestic and admirable a thing.  But the visible results--the\nhumming of silly strangers round his sacred solitudes, the\ncontaminating influence of commercial exploitation--made one\nfruitlessly and hopelessly melancholy.\n\nBut even so the hills were silent; the sun went down in a great glory\nof golden haze among the shadowy ridges.  The valleys lay out at my\nfeet, the rolling woodland, the dark fells.  There fell a mood of\nstrange yearning upon me, a yearning for the peaceful secret that, as\nthe orange sunset slowly waned, the great hills seemed to guard and\nhold.  What was it that was going on there, what solemn pageant, what\nsweet mystery, that I could only desire to behold and apprehend?  I\nknow not!  I only know that if I could discern it, if I could tell it,\nthe world would stand to listen; its littleness, its meanness, would\nfade in that august light; the peace of God would go swiftly and\nsecretly abroad.\n\n\n\n\nXXV\n\nDorsetshire\n\nI am travelling just now, and am this week at _Dorchester_, in the\ncompany of my oldest and best friend.  We like the same things; and I\ncan be silent if I will, while I can also say anything, however\nwhimsical, that comes into my mind; there are few things better than\nthat in the world, and I count the precious hours very gratefully;\n_appono lucro_.\n\nDorsetshire gives me the feeling of being a very old country.  The big\ndowns seem like the bases of great rocky hills which have through long\nages been smoothed and worn away, softened and mellowed, the rocks,\ngrain by grain, carried downwards into the flat alluvial meadowlands\nbeneath.  In these rich pastures, all intersected with clear streams,\nrunnels and water-courses, full at this season of rich water-plants,\nthe cattle graze peacefully.  The downs have been ploughed and sown up\nto the sky-line.  Then there are fine tracts of heather and pines in\nplaces.  And then, too, there is a sense of old humanity, of ancient\nwars about the land.  There are great camps and earthworks everywhere,\nwith ramparts and ditches, both British and Roman.  The wolds from\nwhich the sea is visible are thickly covered with barrows, each holding\nthe mouldering bones of some forgotten chieftain, laid to rest, how\nmany centuries ago, with the rude mourning of a savage clan.  I stood\non one of the highest of these the other day, on a great gorse-clad\nheadland, and sent my spirit out in quest of the old warrior that lay\nbelow--\"Audisne haec, Amphiaraee, sub terram condite?\"  But there was no\nanswer from the air; though in my sleep one night I saw a wild,\nred-bearded man, in a coat of skins, with rude gaiters, and a hat of\nfoxes' fur on his head; he carried a long staff in his hand, pointed\nwith iron, and looked mutely and sorrowfully upon me.  Who knows if it\nwas he?\n\nAnd then of later date are many ruinous strongholds, with Cyclopean\nwalls, like the huge shattered bulk of _Corfe_, upon its green hill,\nbetween the shoulders of great downs.  There are broken abbeys,\npinnacled church-towers in village after village.  And then, too, in\nhamlet after hamlet, rise quaint stone manors, high-gabled,\nmany-mullioned, in the midst of barns and byres.  One of the sweetest\nplaces I have seen is _Cerne Abbas_.  The road to it winds gently up\namong steep downs, a full stream gliding through flat pastures at the\nbottom.  The hamlet has a forgotten, wistful air; there are many houses\nin ruins.  Close to the street rises the church-tower, of rich and\nbeautiful design, with gurgoyles and pinnacles, cut out of a soft\norange stone and delicately weathered.  At the end of the village\nstands a big farm-house, built out of the abbey ruins, with a fine\noriel in one of the granaries.  In a little wilderness of trees, the\nground covered with primroses, stands the exquisite old gatehouse with\nmullioned windows.  I have had for years a poor little engraving of the\nplace, and it seemed to greet me like an old friend.  Then, in the\npasture above, you can see the old terraces and mounds of the monastic\ngarden, where the busy Benedictines worked day by day; further still,\non the side of the down itself, is cut a very strange and ancient\nmonument.  It is the rude and barbarous figure of a naked man, sixty\nyards long, as though moving northwards, and brandishing a huge knotted\nclub.  It is carved deep into the turf, and is overgrown with rough\ngrass.  No one can even guess at the antiquity of the figure, but it is\nprobably not less than three thousand years old.  Some say that it\nrecords the death of a monstrous giant of the valley.  The good monks\nChristianised it, and named it _Augustine_.  But it seems to be\ncertainly one of the frightful figures of which Caesar speaks, on which\ncaptives were bound with twisted osiers, and burnt to death for a\nDruidical sacrifice.  The thing is grotesque, vile, horrible; the very\nstones of the place seemed soaked with terror, cruelty and death.  Even\nrecently foul and barbarous traditions were practised there, it is\nsaid, by villagers, who were Christian only in name.  Yet it lay\npeacefully enough to-day, the shadows of the clouds racing over it, the\nwind rustling in the grass, with nothing to break the silence but the\ntwitter of birds, the bleat of sheep on the down, and the crying of\ncocks in the straw-thatched village below.\n\nWhat a strange fabric of history, memory, and tradition is here\nunrolled, of old unhappy far-off things!  How bewildering to think of\nthe horrible agonies of fear, the helpless, stupefied creatures lying\nbound there, the smoke sweeping over them and the flames crackling\nnearer, while their victorious foes laughed and exulted round them, and\nthe priests performed the last hideous rites.  And all the while God\nwatched the slow march of days from the silent heaven, and worked out\nhis mysterious purposes!  And yet, surveying the quiet valley to-day,\nit seems as though there were no memory of suffering or sorrow in it at\nall.\n\nWe climbed the down; and there at our feet the world lay like a map,\nwith its fields, woods, hamlets and church-towers, the great rich plain\nrolling to the horizon, till it was lost in haze.  How infinitely\nminute and unimportant seemed one's own life, one's own thoughts, the\nschemes of one tiny moving atom on the broad back of the hills.  And\nyet my own small restless identity is almost the only thing in the\nworld of which I am assured!\n\nThere came to me at that moment a thrill of the spirit which comes but\nrarely; a deep hope, the sense of a secret lying very near, if one\ncould only grasp it; an assurance that we are safe and secure in the\nhand of God, and a certainty that there is a vast reality behind,\nveiled from us only by the shadows of fears, ambitions, and desires.\nAnd the thought, too, came that all the tiny human beings that move\nabout their tasks in the plain beneath--nay, the animals, the trees,\nthe flowers, every blade of grass, every pebble--each has its place in\nthe great and awful mystery.  Then came the sense of the vast\nfellowship of created things, the tender Fatherhood of the God who made\nus all.  I can hardly put the thought into words; but it was one of\nthose sudden intuitions that seem to lie deeper even than the mind and\nthe soul, a message from the heart of the world, bidding one wait and\nwonder, rest and be still.\n\n\n\n\nXXVI\n\nPortland\n\nI will put another little sketch side by side with the last, for the\nsake of contrast; I think it is hardly possible within the compass of a\nfew days to have seen two scenes of such minute and essential\ndifference.  At _Cerne_ I had the tranquil loneliness of the\ncountryside, the silent valley, the long faintly-tinted lines of\npasture, space and stillness; the hamlets nestled among trees in the\ndingles of the down.  To-day I went south along a dusty road; at first\nthere were quiet ancient sights enough, such as the huge grass-grown\nencampment of _Maiden Castle_, now a space of pasture, but still\nguarded by vast ramparts and ditches, dug in the chalk, and for a\nthousand years or more deserted.  The downs, where they faced the sea,\nwere dotted with grassy barrows, air-swept and silent.  We topped the\nhill, and in a moment there was a change; through the haze we saw the\nroofs of _Weymouth_ laid out like a map before us, with the smoke\ndrifting west from innumerable chimneys; in the harbour, guarded by the\nslender breakwaters, floated great ironclads, black and sinister bulks;\nand beyond them frowned the dark front of _Portland_.  Very soon the\nhouses began to close in upon the road,--brick-built, pretentious,\nbow-windowed villas; then we were in the streets, showing a wholesome\nantiquity in the broad-windowed mansions of mellow brick, which sprang\ninto life when the honest king George III. made the quiet port\nfashionable by spending his simple summers there.  There was the king's\nlodging itself, Gloucester House, now embedded in a hotel, with the big\npilastered windows of its saloons giving it a faded courtly air.  Soon\nwe were by the quays, with black red-funnelled steamers unloading, and\nall the quaint and pretty bustle of a port.  We went out to a\npromontory guarded by an old stone fort, and watched a red merchant\nsteamer roll merrily in, blowing a loud sea-horn.  Then over a\nlow-shouldered ridge, and we were by the great inner roads, full of\nshipping; we sat for a while by the melancholy walls of an ancient\nTudor castle, now crumbling into the sea; and then across the narrow\ncauseway that leads on to _Portland_.  On our right rose the _Chesil\nBank_, that mysterious mole of orange shingle, which the sea, for some\nstrange purpose of its own, has piled up, century after century, for\neighteen miles along the western coast.  And then the grim front of\n_Portland Island_ itself loomed out above us.  The road ran up steeply\namong the bluffs, through line upon line of grey-slated houses; to the\nleft, at the top of the cliff, were the sunken lines of the huge fort,\nwith the long slopes of its earthworks, the glacis overgrown with\ngrass, and the guns peeping from their embrasures; to the left, dipping\nto the south, the steep grey crags, curve after curve.  The streets\nwere alive with an abundance of merry young sailors and soldiers,\nbrisk, handsome boys, with the quiet air of discipline that converts a\ncountry lout into a self-respecting citizen.  An old bronzed sergeant\nled a child with one hand, and with the other tried to obey her shrill\ndirections about whirling a skipping-rope, so that she might skip\nbeside him; he looked at us with a half-proud, half-shamefaced smile,\ncalling down a rebuke for his inattention from the girl.\n\nWe wound slowly up the steep roads smothered in dust; landwards the\nview was all drowned in a pale haze, but the steep grey cliffs by\n_Lulworth_ gleamed with a tinge of gold across the sea.\n\nAt the top, one of the dreariest landscapes I have ever seen met the\nsight.  The island lies, so to speak, like a stranded whale, the great\nhead and shoulders northwards to the land.  The moment you surmount the\ntop, the huge, flat side of the monster is extended before you,\nshelving to the sea.  Hardly a tree grows there; there is nothing but a\nlong perspective of fields, divided here and there by stone walls, with\nscattered grey houses at intervals.  There is not a feature of any kind\non which the eye can rest.  In the foreground the earth is all\ntunnelled and tumbled; quarries stretch in every direction, with huge,\ngaunt, straddling, gallows-like structures emerging, a wheel spinning\nat the top, and ropes travelling into the abyss; heaps of grey\n_debris_, interspersed with stunted grass, huge excavations, ugly\nravines with a spout of grim stone at the seaward opening, like the\nburrowings of some huge mole.  The placid green slopes of the fort give\nan impression of secret strength, even grandeur.  Otherwise it is but a\nragged, splashed aquarelle of grey and green.  Over the _debris_ appear\nat a distance the blunt ominous chimneys of the convict prison, which\nseems to put the finishing touch on the forbidding character of the\nscene.\n\nTo-day the landward view was all veiled in haze, which seemed to shut\noff the sad island from the world.  On a clear day, no doubt, the view\nmust be full of grandeur, the inland downs, edged everywhere with the\ntall scarped cliffs, headland after headland, with the long soft line\nof the _Chesil Bank_ below them.  But on a day of sea mist, it must be,\nI felt, one of the saddest and most mournful regions in the world, with\nno sound but the wail of gulls, and the chafing of the surge below.\n\n\n\n\nXXVII\n\nCanterbury Tower\n\nTo-day I had a singular pleasure heightened by an intermingled\nstrangeness and even terror--qualities which bring out the quality of\npleasure in the same way that a bourdon in a pedal-point passage brings\nout the quality of what a German would, I think, call the _over-work_.\nI was at _Canterbury_, where the great central tower is wreathed with\nscaffolding, and has a dim, blurred outline from a distance, as though\nit were being rapidly shaken to and fro.  I found a friendly and\ncommunicable man who offered to take me over it; we climbed a dizzy\nlittle winding stair, with bright glimpses at intervals, through\nloop-holes, of sunlight and wheeling birds; then we crept along the top\nof a vaulted space with great pockets of darkness to right and left.\nSoon we were in the gallery of the lantern, from which we could see the\nlittle people crawling on the floor beneath, like slow insects.  And\nthen we mounted a short ladder which took us out of one of the great\nbelfry windows, on to the lowest of the planked galleries.  What a\nfrail and precarious structure it seemed: the planks bent beneath our\nfeet.  And here came the first exquisite delight--that of being close\nto the precipitous face of the tower, of seeing the carved work which\nhad never been seen close at hand since its erection except by the\njackdaws and pigeons.  I was moved and touched by observing how fine\nand delicate all the sculpture was.  There were rows and rows of little\nheraldic devices, which from below could appear only as tiny fretted\npoints; yet every petal of rose or _fleur-de-lys_ was as scrupulously\nand cleanly cut as if it had been meant to be seen close at hand; a\nwaste of power, I suppose; but what a pretty and delicate waste! and\ndone, I felt, in faithful days, when the carving was done as much to\ndelight, if possible, the eye of God, as to please the eye of man.\nHigher and higher we went, till at last we reached the parapet.  And\nthen by a dizzy perpendicular ladder to which I committed myself in\nfaith, we reached a little platform on the very top of one of the\npinnacles.  The vane had just been fixed, and the stone was splashed\nwith the oozing solder.  And now came the delight of the huge view all\nround: the wooden heights, the rolling hills; old church towers rose\nfrom flowering orchards; a mansion peeped through immemorial trees; and\nfar to the north-east we could see the white cliff of _Pegwell Bay_;\nendeared to me through the beautiful picture by Dyce, where the pale\ncrags rise from the reefs green with untorn weeds.  There on the\nhorizon I could see shadowy sails on the steely sea-line.\n\nNear at hand there were the streets, and then the Close, with its\ncomfortable canonical houses, in green trim gardens, spread out like a\nmap at my feet.  We looked down on to the tops of tall elm-trees, and\nsaw the rooks walking and sitting on the grey-splashed platforms of\ntwigs, that swayed horribly in the breeze.  It was pleasant to see, as\nI did, the tiny figure of my reverend host walking, a dot of black, in\nhis garden beneath, reading in a book.  The long grey-leaded roof ran\nbroad and straight, a hundred feet below.  One felt for a moment as a\nGod might feel, looking on a corner of his created world, and seeing\nthat it was good.  One seemed to have surmounted the earth, and to\nwatch the little creeping orbits of men with a benevolent compassion,\nperceiving how strait they were.  The large air hissed briskly in the\npinnacles, and roared through the belfry windows beneath.  I cannot\ndescribe the eager exhilaration which filled me; but I guessed that the\nimpulse which bids men fling themselves from such heights is not a\nmorbid prepossession, not a physical dizziness, but an intemperate and\noverwhelming joy.  It seems at such a moment so easy to float and swim\nthrough the viewless air, as if one would be borne up on the wings of\nangels.\n\nBut, alas! the hour warned us to return.  On our way down we disturbed\na peevish jackdaw from her nest; she had dragged up to that intolerable\nheight a pile of boughs that would have made a dozen nests; she had\ninterwoven for the cup to hold her eggs a number of strips of purloined\ncanvas.  There lay the three speckled eggs, the hope of the race, while\nthe chiding mother stood on a pinnacle hard by, waiting for the\nintruder to begone.\n\nA strange sense of humiliation and smallness came upon me as we emerged\nat last into the nave; the people that had seemed so small and\ninsignificant, were, alas! as big and as important as myself; I felt as\nan exile from the porches of heaven, a fallen spirit.\n\n\n\n\nXXVIII\n\nPrayer\n\nI am often baffled when I try to think what prayer is; if our thoughts\ndo indeed lie open before the eyes of the Father, like a little clear\nglobe of water which a man may hold in his hand--and I am sure they\ndo--it certainly seems hardly worth while to put those desires into\nwords.  Many good Christians seem to me to conceive of prayers partly\nas a kind of tribute they are bound to pay, and partly as requests that\nare almost certain to be refused.  With such people religion, then,\nmeans the effort which they make to trust a Father who hears prayers,\nand very seldom answers them.  But this does not seem to be a very\nreasonable attitude.\n\nI confess that liturgical prayer does not very much appeal to me.  It\ndoes not seem to me to correspond to any particular need in my mind.\nIt seems to me to sacrifice almost all the things that I mean by\nprayer--the sustained intention of soul, the laying of one's own\nproblems before the Father, the expression of one's hopes for others,\nthe desire that the sorrows of the world should be lightened.  Of\ncourse, a liturgy touches these thoughts at many points; but the\nexercise of one's own liberty of aspiration and wonder, the pursuing of\na train of thought, the quiet dwelling upon mysteries, are all lost if\none has to stumble and run in a prescribed track.  To follow a service\nwith uplifted attention requires more mental agility than I possess;\npoint after point is raised, and yet, if one pauses to meditate, to\nwonder, to aspire, one is lost, and misses the thread of the service.\nI suppose that there is or ought to be something in the united act of\nintercession.  But I dislike all public meetings, and think them a\nwaste of time.  I should make an exception in favour of the Sacrament,\nbut the rapid disappearance of the majority of a congregation before\nthe solemn act seems to me to destroy the sense of unity with singular\nrapidity.  As to the old theory that God requires of his followers that\nthey should unite at intervals in presenting him with a certain amount\nof complimentary effusion, I cannot even approach the idea.  The\nholiest, simplest, most benevolent being of whom I can conceive would\nbe inexpressibly pained and distressed by such an intention on the part\nof the objects of his care; and to conceive of God as greedy of\nrecognition seems to me to be one of the conceptions which insult the\ndignity of the soul.\n\nI have heard lately one or two mediaeval stories which illustrate what\nI mean.  There is a story of a pious monk, who, worn out by long\nvigils, fell asleep, as he was saying his prayers before a crucifix.\nHe was awakened by a buffet on the head, and heard a stern voice\nsaying, \"Is this an oratory or a dormitory?\"  I cannot conceive of any\nstory more grotesquely human than the above, or more out of keeping\nwith one's best thoughts about God.  Again, there is a story which is\ntold, I think, of one of the first monasteries of the Benedictine\norder.  One of the monks was a lay brother, who had many little menial\ntasks to fulfil; he was a well-meaning man, but extremely forgetful,\nand he was often forced to retire from some service in which he was\ntaking part, because he had forgotten to put the vegetables on to boil,\nor omitted other duties which would lead to the discomfort of the\nbrethren.  Another monk, who was fond of more secular occupations, such\nas wood-carving and garden-work, and not at all attached to habits of\nprayer, seeing this, thought that he would do the same; and he too used\nto slip away from a service, in order to return to the business that he\nloved better.  The Prior of the monastery, an anxious, humble man, was\nat a loss how to act; so he called in a very holy hermit, who lived in\na cell hard by, that he might have the benefit of his advice.  The\nhermit came and attended an Office.  Presently the lay brother rose\nfrom his knees and slipped out.  The hermit looked up, followed him\nwith his eyes, and appeared to be greatly moved.  But he took no\naction, and only addressed himself more assiduously to his prayers.\nShortly after, the other brother rose and went out.  The hermit looked\nup, and seeing him go, rose too, and followed him to the door, where he\nfetched him a great blow upon the head that nearly brought him to the\nground.  Thereupon the stricken man went humbly back to his place and\naddressed himself to his prayers; and the hermit did the same.\n\nThe Office was soon over, and the hermit went to the Prior's room to\ntalk the matter over.  The hermit said: \"I bore in my mind what you\ntold me, dear Father, and when I saw one of the brethren rise from his\nprayers, I asked God to show me what I should do; but I saw a wonderful\nthing; there was a shining figure with our brother, his hand upon the\nother's sleeve; and this fair comrade, I have no doubt, was an angel of\nGod, that led the brother forth, that he might be about his Father's\nbusiness.  So I prayed the more earnestly.  But when our other brother\nrose, I looked up; and I saw that he had been plucked by the sleeve by\na little naked, comely boy, very swarthy of hue, that I saw had no\nbusiness among our holy prayers; he wore a mocking smile on his face,\nas though he prevailed in evil.  So I rose and followed; and just as\nthey came to the door, I aimed a shrewd blow, for it was told me what\nto do, at the boy, and struck him on the head, so that he fell to the\nground, and presently went to his own place; and then our brother came\nback to his prayers.\"\n\nThe Prior mused a little over this wonder, and then he said, smiling:\n\"It seemed to me that it was our brother that was smitten.\"  \"Very\nlike,\" said the hermit, \"for the two were close together, and I think\nthe boy was whispering in the brother's ear; but give God the glory;\nfor the dear brother will not offend again.\"\n\nThere is an abundance of truth in this wholesome ancient tale; but I\nwill not draw the morals out here.  All I will say is that the old\ntheory of prayer, simple and childlike as it is, seems to have a\ncurious vitality even nowadays.  It presupposes that the act of prayer\nis in itself pleasing to God; and that is what I am not satisfied of.\n\nThat theory seems to prevail even more strongly in the Roman Church of\nto-day than in our own.  The Roman priest is not a man occupied\nprimarily with pastoral duties; his business is the business of prayer.\nTo neglect his daily offices is a mortal sin, and when he has said\nthem, his priestly duty is at an end.  This does not seem to me to bear\nany relation to the theory of prayer as enunciated in the Gospel.\nThere the practice of constant and secret prayer, of a direct and\ninformal kind, is enjoined upon all followers of Christ; but Our Lord\nseems to be very hard upon the lengthy and public prayers of the\nPharisees, and indeed against all formality in the matter at all.  The\nonly united service that he enjoined upon his followers was the\nSacrament of the common meal; and I confess that the saying of formal\nliturgies in an ornate building seems to me to be a practice which has\ndrifted very far away from the simplicity of individual religion which\nChrist appears to have aimed at.\n\nMy own feeling about prayer is that it should not be relegated to\ncertain seasons, or attended by certain postures, or even couched in\ndefinite language; it should rather be a constant uplifting of the\nheart, a stretching out of the hands to God.  I do not think we should\nask for definite things that we desire; I am sure that our definite\ndesires, our fears, our plans, our schemes, the hope that visits one a\nhundred times a day, our cravings for wealth or success or influence,\nare as easily read by God, as a man can discern the tiny atoms and\nfilaments that swim in his crystal globe.  But I think we may ask to be\nled, to be guided, to be helped; we may put our anxious little\ndecisions before God; we may ask for strength to fulfil hard duties; we\nmay put our desires for others' happiness, our hopes for our country,\nour compassion for sorrowing or afflicted persons, our horror of\ncruelty and tyranny before him; and here I believe lies the force of\nprayer; that by practising this sense of aspiration in his presence, we\ngain a strength to do our own part.  If we abstain from prayer, if we\nlimit our prayers to our own small desires, we grow, I know, petty and\nself-absorbed and feeble.  We can leave the fulfilment of our concrete\naims to God; but we ought to be always stretching out our hands and\nopening our hearts to the high and gracious mysteries that lie all\nabout us.\n\nA friend of mine told me that a little Russian peasant, whom he had\nvisited often in a military hospital, told him, at their last\ninterview, that he would tell him a prayer that was always effective,\nand had never failed of being answered.  \"But you must not use it,\" he\nsaid, \"unless you are in a great difficulty, and there seems no way\nout.\"  The prayer which he then repeated was this: \"Lord, remember King\nDavid, and all his grace.\"\n\nI have never tested the efficacy of this prayer, but I have a thousand\ntimes tested the efficacy of sudden prayer in moments of difficulty,\nwhen confronted with a little temptation, when overwhelmed with\nirritation, before an anxious interview, before writing a difficult\npassage.  How often has the temptation floated away, the irritation\nmastered itself, the right word been said, the right sentence written!\nTo do all we are capable of, and then to commit the matter to the hand\nof the Father, that is the best that we can do.\n\nOf course, I am well aware that there are many who find this kind of\nhelp in liturgical prayer; and I am thankful that it is so.  But for\nmyself, I can only say that as long as I pursued the customary path,\nand confined myself to fixed moments of prayer, I gained very little\nbenefit.  I do not forego the practice of liturgical attendance even\nnow; for a solemn service, with all the majesty of an old and beautiful\nbuilding full of countless associations, with all the resources of\nmusical sound and ceremonial movement, does uplift and rejoice the\nsoul.  And even with simpler services, there is often something vaguely\nsustaining and tranquillising in the act.  But the deeper secret lies\nin the fact that prayer is an attitude of soul, and not a ceremony;\nthat it is an individual mystery, and not a piece of venerable pomp.  I\nwould have every one adopt his own method in the matter.  I would not\nfor an instant discourage those who find that liturgical usage uplifts\nthem; but neither would I have those to be discouraged who find that it\nhas no meaning for them.  The secret lies in the fact that our aim\nshould be a relation with the Father, a frank and reverent confidence,\na humble waiting upon God.  That the Father loves all his children with\nan equal love I doubt not.  But he is nearest to those who turn to him\nat every moment, and speak to him with a quiet trustfulness.  He alone\nknows why he has set us in the middle of such a bewildering world,\nwhere joy and sorrow, darkness and light, are so strangely\nintermingled; and all that we can do is to follow wisely and patiently\nsuch clues as he gives us, into the cloudy darkness in which he seems\nto dwell.\n\n\n\n\nXXIX\n\nThe Death-bed of Jacob\n\nI heard read the other morning, in a quiet house-chapel, a chapter\nwhich has always seemed to me one of the most perfectly beautiful\nthings in the Bible.  And as it was read, I felt, what is always a test\nof the highest kind of beauty, that I had never known before how\nperfect it was.  It was the 48th chapter of Genesis, the blessing of\nEphraim and Manasses.  Jacob, feeble and spent, is lying in the quiet,\ntranquil passiveness of old age, with bygone things passing like dreams\nbefore the inner eye of the spirit--in that mood, I think, when one\nhardly knows where the imagined begins or the real ends.  He is told\nthat his son Joseph is coming, and he strengthens himself for an\neffort.  Joseph enters, and, in a strain of high solemnity, Jacob\nspeaks of the promise made long before on the stone-strewn hills of\nBethel, and its fulfilment; but even so he seems to wander in his\nthought, the recollection of his Rachel comes over him, and he cannot\nforbear to speak of her: \"_And as for me, when I came from Padan,\nRachel died by me in the land of Canaan, in the way, and when yet there\nwas but a little way to come unto Ephrath; and I buried her there in\nthe way of Ephrath; the same is Bethlehem._\"\n\nCould there be anything more human, more tender than that?  The memory\nof the sad day of loss and mourning, and then the gentle, aged\nprecision about names and places, the details that add nothing, and yet\nare so natural, so sweet an echo of the old tale, the symbols of the\nstory, that stand for so much and mean so little,--\"_the same is\nBethlehem_.\"  Who has not heard an old man thus tracing out the\nparticulars of some remote recollected incident, dwelling for the\nhundredth time on the unimportant detail, the side-issue, so needlessly\nanxious to avoid confusion, so bent on useless accuracy.\n\nThen, as he wanders thus, he becomes aware of the two boys, standing in\nwonder and awe beside him; and even so he cannot at once piece together\nthe facts, but asks, with a sudden curiosity, \"_Who are these?_\"  Then\nit is explained very gently by the dear son whom he had lost, and who\nstands for a parable of tranquil wisdom and loyal love.  The old man\nkisses and embraces the boys, and with a full heart says, \"_I had not\nthought to see thy face; and lo, God hath showed me also thy seed._\"\nAnd at this Joseph can bear it no more, puts the boys forward, who seem\nto be clinging shyly to him, and bows himself down with his face to the\nearth, in a passion of grief and awe.\n\nAnd then the old man will not bless them as intended, but gives the\nricher blessing to the younger; with those words which haunt the memory\nand sink into the heart: \"_The angel which redeemed me from all evil,\nbless the lads._\"  And Joseph is moved by what he thinks to be a\nmistake, and would correct it, so as to give the larger blessing to his\nfirstborn.  But Jacob refuses.  \"_I know it, my son, I know it ... he\nalso shall be great, but truly his younger brother shall be greater\nthan he._\"\n\nAnd so he adds a further blessing; and even then, at that deep moment,\nthe old man cannot refrain from one flash of pride in his old prowess,\nand speaks, in his closing words, of the inheritance he won from the\nAmorite with his sword and bow; and this is all the more human because\nthere is no trace in the records of his ever having done anything of\nthe kind.  He seems to have been always a man of peace.  And so the\nsweet story remains human to the very end.  I care very little what the\ncritics may have to say on the matter.  They may call it legendary if\nthey will, they may say that it is the work of an Ephraimite scribe,\nbent on consecrating the Ephraimite supremacy by the aid of tradition.\nBut the incident appears to me to be of a reality, a force, a\ntenderness, that is above historical criticism.  Whatever else may be\ntrue, there is a breathing reality in the picture of the old weak\npatriarch making his last conscious effort; Joseph, that wise and\nprudent servant, whose activities have never clouded his clear natural\naffections; the boys, the mute and awed actors in the scene, not made\nto utter any precocious phrases, and yet centring the tenderness of\nhope and joy upon themselves.  If it is art, it is the perfection of\nart, which touches the very heart-strings into a passion of sweetness\nand wonder.\n\nCompare this ancient story with other achievements of the human mind\nand soul: with Homer, with Virgil, with Shakespeare.  I think they pale\nbeside it, because with no sense of effort or construction, with all\nthe homely air of a simple record, the perfectly natural, the perfectly\npathetic, the perfectly beautiful, is here achieved.  There is no\npainting of effects, no dwelling on accessories, no consciousness of\nbeauty; and yet the heart is fed, the imagination touched, the spirit\nsatisfied.  For here one has set foot in the very shrine of truth and\nbeauty, and the wise hand that wrote it has just opened the door of the\nheart, and stands back, claiming no reward, desiring no praise.\n\n\n\n\nXXX\n\nBy the Sea of Galilee\n\nI have often thought that the last chapter of St John's Gospel is one\nof the most bewildering and enchanting pieces of literature I know.  I\nsuppose Robert Browning must have thought so, because he makes the\nreading of it, in that odd rich poem, _Bishop Blougram's Apology_, the\nsign, together with testing a plough, of a man's conversion, from the\nunreal life of talk and words, to the realities of life; though I have\nnever divined why he used this particular chapter as a symbol; and\nindeed I hope no one will ever make it clear to me, though I daresay\nthe connection is plain enough.\n\nIt is bewildering, because it is a postscript, added, with a singular\nartlessness, after the Gospel has come to a full close.  Perhaps St\nJohn did not even write it, though the pretty childlike conclusion\nabout the world itself not being able to contain the books that might\nbe written about Christ has always seemed to me to be in his spirit,\nthe words of a very simple-minded and aged man.  It is enchanting,\nbecause it contains two of the most beautiful episodes in the whole of\nthe Gospel History, the charge to St Peter to feed the lambs and sheep\nof the fold, where one of the most delicate nuances of language is lost\nin the English translation, and the appearance of Jesus beside the sea\nof Galilee.  I must not here discuss the story of the charge to St\nPeter, though I once heard it read, with exquisite pathos, when an\narchbishop of Canterbury was being enthroned with all the pomp and\ncircumstance of ecclesiastical ceremony, in such a way that it brought\nout, by a flash of revelation, the true spirit of the scene we were\nattending; we were simple Christians, it seemed, assembled only to set\na shepherd over a fold, that he might lead a flock in green pastures\nand by waters of comfort.\n\nBut a man must not tell two tales at once, or he loses the savour of\nboth.  Let us take the other story.\n\nThe dreadful incidents of the Passion are over; the shame, the horror,\nthe humiliation, the disappointment.  The hearts of the Apostles must\nhave been sore indeed at the thought that they had deserted their\nfriend and Master.  Then followed the mysterious incidents of the\nResurrection, about which I will only say that it is plain from the\ndocuments, if they are accepted as a record at all, from the\nastonishing change which seems to have passed over the Apostles,\nconverting their timid faithfulness into a tranquil boldness, that\nthey, at all events, believed that some incredibly momentous thing had\nhappened, and that their Master was among them again, returning through\nthe gates of Death.\n\nThey go back, like men wearied of inaction, tired of agitated thought,\nto their homely trade.  All night the boat sways in the quiet tide, but\nthey catch nothing.  Then, as the morning begins to come in about the\npromontories and shores of the lake, they see the figure of one moving\non the bank, who hails them with a familiar heartiness, as a man might\ndo who had to provide for unexpected guests, and had nothing to give\nthem to eat.  I fancy, I know not whether rightly, that they see in him\na purchaser, and answer sullenly that they have nothing to sell.  Then\nfollows a direction, which they obey, to cast the net on the right side\nof the boat.  Perhaps they thought the stranger--for it is clear that\nas yet they had no suspicion of his identity--had seen some sign of a\nmoving shoal which had escaped them.  They secure a great haul of fish.\nThen John has an inkling of the truth; and I know no words which thrill\nme more strangely than the simple expression that bursts from his lips:\n_It is the Lord!_  With characteristic impetuosity Peter leaps into the\nwater, and wades or swims ashore.\n\nAnd then comes another of the surprising touches of the story.  As a\nmother might tenderly provide a meal for her husband and sons who have\nbeen out all night, they find that their visitant has made and lit a\nlittle fire, and is broiling fish, how obtained one knows not; then the\nhaul is dragged ashore, the big shoal leaping in the net; and then\nfollows the simple invitation and the distribution of the food.  It\nseems as though that memorable meal, by the shore of the lake, with the\nfresh brightness of the morning breaking all about them, must have been\npartaken of in silence; one can almost hear the soft crackling of the\nfire, and the waves breaking on the shingle.  They dared not ask him\nwho he was: they knew; and yet, considering that they had only parted\nfrom him a few days before, the narrative implies that some mysterious\nchange must have passed over him.  Perhaps they were wondering, as we\nmay wonder, how he was spending those days.  He was seen only in sudden\nand unexpected glimpses; where was he living, what was he doing through\nthose long nights and days in which they saw him not?  I can only say\nthat for me a deep mystery broods over the record.  The glimpses of\nhim, and even more his absences, seem to me to transcend the powers of\nhuman invention.  That these men lived, that they believed they saw the\nLord, seems to me the only possible explanation, though I admit to the\nfull the baffling mystery of it all.\n\nAnd then the scene closes with absolute suddenness; there is no attempt\nto describe, to amplify, to analyse.  There follows the charge to\nPeter, the strange prophecy of his death, and the still stranger\nrepression of curiosity as to what should be the fate of St John.\n\nBut the whole incident, coming to us as it does out of the hidden\nancient world, defying investigation, provoking the deepest wonder,\nremains as faint and sweet as the incense of the morning, as the cool\nbreeze that played about the weary brows of the sleepless fishermen,\nand stirred the long ripple of the clear lake.\n\n\n\n\nXXXI\n\nThe Apocalypse\n\nI think that there are few verses of the Bible that give one a more\nsudden and startling thrill than the verse at the beginning of the\nviiith chapter of the Revelation.  _And when he had opened the seventh\nseal there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour_.  The\nvery simplicity of the words, the homely note of specified time, is in\nitself deeply impressive.  But further, it gives the dim sense of some\nawful and unseen preparation going forward, a period allowed in which\nthose that stood by, august and majestic as they were, should collect\ntheir courage, should make themselves ready with bated breath for some\ndire pageant.  Up to that moment the vision had followed hard on the\nopening of each seal.  Upon the opening of the first, had resounded a\npeal of thunder, and the voice of the first beast had called the\nawestruck eyes and the failing heart to look upon the sight: _Come and\nsee_!  Then the white horse with the crowned conqueror had ridden\njoyfully forth.  At the opening of the second seal, had sprung forth\nthe red horse, and the rider with the great sword.  When the third was\nopened, the black horse had gone forth, the rider bearing the balances;\nand then had followed the strange and naive charge by the unknown\nvoice, which gives one so strong a sense that the vision was being\nfaithfully recorded rather than originated, the voice that quoted a\nprice for the grain of wheat and barley, and directed the protection of\nthe vineyard and olive-yard.  This homely reference to the simple food\nof earth keeps the mind intent upon the actual realities and needs of\nlife in the midst of these bewildering sights.  Then at the fourth\nopening, the pale horse, bestridden by Death, went mournfully abroad.\nAt the fifth seal, the crowded souls beneath the altar cry out for\nrestlessness; they are clothed in white robes, and bidden to be patient\nfor a while.  Then, at the sixth seal, falls the earthquake, the\nconfusion of nature, the dismay of men, before the terror of the anger\nof God; and the very words _the wrath of the Lamb_, have a marvellous\nsignificance; the wrath of the Most Merciful, the wrath of one whose\nvery symbol is that of a blithe and meek innocence.  Then the earth is\nguarded from harm, and the faithful are sealed; and in words of the\nsublimest pathos, the end of pain and sorrow is proclaimed, and the\npromise that the redeemed shall be fed and led forth by fountains of\nliving waters.  And then, at the very moment of calm and peace, the\nseventh seal is opened,--and nothing follows! the very angels of heaven\nseem to stand with closed eyes, compressed lips, and beating heart,\nwaiting for what shall be.\n\nAnd then at last the visions come crowding before the gaze again--the\nseven trumpets are sounded, the bitter, burning stars fall, the locusts\nswarm out from the smoking pit, and death and woe begin their work;\ntill at last the book is delivered to the prophet, and his heart is\nfilled with the sweetness of the truth.\n\nI have no desire to trace the precise significance of these things.  I\ndo not wish that these tapestries of wrought mysteries should be\nsuspended upon the walls of history.  I do not think that they can be\nso suspended; nor have I the least hope that these strange sights, so\nfull both of brightness and of horror, should ever be seen by mortal\neye.  But that a human soul should have lost itself in these august\ndreams, that the book of visions should have been thus strangely\nguarded through the ages, and at last, clothed in the sweet cadences of\nour English tongue, should be read in our ears, till the words are\nsoaked through and through with rich wonder and tender\nassociations--that is, I think, a very wonderful and divine thing.  The\nlives of all men that have an inner eye for beauty are full of such\nmysteries, and surely there is no one, of those that strive to pierce\nbelow the dark experiences of life, who is not aware, as he reckons\nback the days of his life, of hours when the seals of the book have\nbeen opened.  It has been so, I know, in my own life.  Sometimes, at\nthe rending of the seal, a gracious thing has gone forth, bearing\nvictory and prosperity.  Sometimes a dark figure has ridden away,\nchanging the very face of the earth for a season.  Sometimes a thunder\nof dismay has followed, or a vision of sweet peace and comfort; and\nsometimes one has assuredly known that a seal has been broken, to be\nfollowed by a silence in heaven and earth.\n\nAnd thus these solemn and mournful visions retain a great hold over the\nmind; it is, with myself, partly the childish associations of wonder\nand delight.  One recurred so eagerly to the book, because, instead of\nmere thought and argument, earthly events, wars and dynasties, here was\na gallery of mysterious pictures, things seen out of the body, scenes\nof bright colour and monstrous forms, enacted on the stage of heaven.\nThat is entrancing still; but beyond and above these strange forms and\npictured fancies, I now discern a deeper mystery of thought; not pure\nand abstract thought, flashes of insight, comforting grace, kindled\ndesires, but rather that more complex thought that, through a\nperception of strange forms, a waving robe of scarlet, a pavement\nbright with jewels, a burning star, a bird of sombre plumage, a dark\ngrove, breathes a subtle insight, like a strain of unearthly music,\ninterpreting the hopes and fears of the heart by haunted glimpses and\nobscure signs.  I do not know in what shadowy region of the soul these\nthings draw near, but it is in a region which is distinct and apart, a\nregion where the dreaming mind projects upon the dark its dimly-woven\nvisions; a region where it is not wise to wander too eagerly and\ncarelessly, but into which one may look warily and intently at seasons,\nstanding upon the dizzy edge of time, and gazing out beyond the flaming\nramparts of the world.\n\n\n\n\nXXXII\n\nThe Statue\n\nI saw a strange and moving thing to-day.  I went with a friend to visit\na great house in the neighbourhood.  The owner was away, but my friend\nenjoyed the right of leisurely access to the place, and we thought we\nwould take the opportunity of seeing it.\n\nWe entered at the lodge, and walked through the old deer-park with its\nhuge knotted oaks, its wide expanse of grass.  The deer were feeding\nquietly in a long herd.  The great house itself came in sight, with its\nportico and pavilions staring at us, so it seemed, blankly and\nseriously, with shuttered eyes.  The whole place unutterably still and\ndeserted, like a house seen in a dream.\n\nThere was one particular thing that we came to visit; we left the house\non the left, and turned through a little iron gate into a thick grove\nof trees.  We soon became aware that there was open ground before us,\nand presently we came to a space in the heart of the wood, where there\nwas a silent pool all overgrown with water-lilies; the bushes grew\nthickly round the edge.  The pool was full of water-birds, coots, and\nmoor-hens, sailing aimlessly about, and uttering strange, melancholy\ncries at intervals.  On the edge of the water stood a small marble\ntemple, streaked and stained by the weather.  As we approached it, my\nfriend told me something of the builder of the little shrine.  He was a\nformer owner of the place, a singular man, who in his later days had\nlived a very solitary life here.  He was a man of wild and wayward\nimpulses, who had drunk deeply in youth of pleasure and excitement.  He\nhad married a beautiful young wife, who had died childless in the first\nyear of their marriage, and he had abandoned himself after this event\nto a despairing seclusion, devoted to art and music.  He had filled the\ngreat house with fine pictures, he had written a book of poems, and\nsome curious stilted volumes of autobiographical prose; but he had no\nart of expression, and his books had seemed like a powerless attempt to\ngive utterance to wild and melancholy musings; they were written in a\npompous and elaborate style, which divested the thoughts of such charm\nas they might have possessed.\n\nHe had lived thus to a considerable age in a wilful sadness, unloving\nand unloved.  He had cared nothing for the people of the place,\nentertained no visitors; rambling, a proud solitary figure, about the\ndemesne, or immured for days together in his library.  Had the story\nnot been true, it would have appeared like some elaborate fiction.\n\nHe built this little temple in memory of the wife whom he had lost, and\noften visited it, spending hours on hot summer days wandering about the\nlittle lake, or sitting silent in the portico.  We went up to the\nbuilding.  It was a mere alcove, open to the air.  But what arrested my\nattention was a marble figure of a young man, in a sitting position,\nlightly clad in a tunic, the neck, arms, and knees bare; one knee was\nflung over the other, and the chin was propped on an arm, the elbow of\nwhich rested on the knee.  The face was a wonderful and expressive\npiece of work.  The boy seemed to be staring out, not seeing what he\nlooked upon, but lost in a deep agony of thought.  The face was\nwonderfully pure and beautiful; and the anguish seemed not the anguish\nof remorse, but the pain of looking upon things both sweet and\nbeautiful, and of yet being unable to take a share in them.  The whole\nfigure denoted a listless melancholy.  It was the work of a famous\nFrench sculptor, who seemed to have worked under close and minute\ndirection; and my friend told me that no less than three statues had\nbeen completed before the owner was satisfied.\n\nOn the pedestal were sculptured the pathetic words, _Oimoi mal authis_.\nThere was a look of revolt of dumb anger upon the face that lay behind\nits utter and hopeless sadness.  I knew too well, by a swift instinct,\nwhat the statue stood for.  Here was one, made for life, activity, and\njoy, who yet found himself baffled, thwarted, shut out from the\nparadise that seemed to open all about him; it was the face of one who\nhad found satiety in pleasure, and sorrow in the very heart of joy.\nThere was no taint of grossness or of luxury in the face, but rather a\nstrength, an intellectual force, a firm lucidity of thought.  I confess\nthat the sight moved me very strangely.  I felt a thrill of the deepest\ncompassion, a desire to do something that might help or comfort, a\nyearning wish to aid, to explain, to cheer.  The silence, the\nstillness, the hopelessness of the pathetic figure woke in me the\nintensest desire to give I knew not what--an overwhelming impulse of\npity.  It seemed a parable of all the joy that is so sternly checked,\nall the hopes made vain, the promise disappointed, the very death of\nthe soul.  It seemed infinitely pathetic that God should have made so\nfair a thing, and then withheld joy.  And it seemed as though I had\nlooked into the very soul of the unhappy man who had set up so strange\nand pathetic an allegory of his sufferings.  The boy seemed as though\nhe would have welcomed death--anything that brought an end; yet the\nhealth and suppleness of the bright figure held out no hope of that.\nIt was the very type of unutterable sorrow, and that not in an outworn\nbody, and reflected in a face dim with sad experience, but in a\nperfectly fresh and strong frame, built for action and life.  I cannot\nsay what remote thoughts, what dark communings, visited me at the\nsight.  I seemed confronted all at once with the deepest sadness of the\nworld, as though an unerring arrow had pierced my very heart--an arrow\nwinged by beauty, and shot on a summer day of sunshine and song.\n\nIs there any faith that is strong enough and deep enough to overcome\nsuch questionings?  It seemed to bring me near to all those pale and\nhopeless agonies of the world; all the snapping short of joy, the\nconfronting of life with death--those dreadful moments when the heart\nasks itself, in a kind of furious horror, \"How can it be that I am\nfilled so full of all the instinct of joy and life, and yet bidden to\nsuffer and to die?\"\n\nThe only hope is in an utter and silent resignation; in the belief\nthat, if there is a purpose in the gift of joy, there is a purpose in\nthe gift of suffering.  And as thus, in that calm afternoon, in the\nsilent wood, by the shining pool, I lifted up my heart to God to be\nconsoled, I felt a great hope draw near, as when the vast tide flows\nlandward, and fills the dry, solitary sand-pools with the leaping\nbrine.  \"Only wait,\" said the deep and tender voice, \"only endure, only\nbelieve; and a sweetness, a beauty, a truth beyond your utmost dreams\nshall be revealed.\"\n\n\n\n\nXXXIII\n\nThe Mystery of Suffering\n\nHere is a story which has much occupied my thoughts lately.  A man in\nmiddle life, with a widowed sister and her children depending on him,\nliving by professional exertions, is suddenly attacked by a painful,\nhorrible, and fatal complaint.  He goes through a terrible operation,\nand then struggles back to his work again, with the utmost courage and\ngallantry.  Again the complaint returns, and the operation is repeated.\nAfter this he returns again to his work, but at last, after enduring\nuntold agonies, he is forced to retire into an invalid life, after a\nfew months of which he dies in terrible suffering, and leaves his\nsister and the children nearly penniless.\n\nThe man was a quiet, simple-minded person, fond of his work, fond of\nhis home, conventional and not remarkable except for the simply heroic\nquality he displayed, smiling and joking up to the moment of the\nadministering of anaesthetics for his operations, and bearing his\nsufferings with perfect patience and fortitude, never saying an\nimpatient word, grateful for the smallest services.\n\nHis sister, a simple, active woman, with much tender affection and\nconsiderable shrewdness, finding that the fear of incurring needless\nexpense distressed her brother, devoted herself to the ghastly and\nterrible task of nursing him through his illnesses.  The children\nbehaved with the same straightforward affection and goodness.  None of\nthe circle ever complained, ever said a word which would lead one to\nsuppose that they had any feeling of resentment or cowardice.  They\nsimply received the blows of fate humbly, resignedly, and cheerfully,\nand made the best of the situation.\n\nNow, let us look this sad story in the face, and see if we can derive\nany hope or comfort from it.  In the first place, there was nothing in\nthe man's life which would lead one to suppose that he deserved or\nneeded this special chastening, this crucifixion of the body.  He was\nby instinct humble, laborious, unselfish, and good, all of which\nqualities came out in his illness.  Neither was there anything in the\nlife or character of the sister which seemed to need this stern and\nsevere trial.  The household had lived a very quiet, active, useful\nlife, models of good citizens--religious, contented, drawing great\nhappiness from very simple resources.\n\nOne's belief in the goodness, the justice, the patience of the Father\nand Maker of men forbids one to believe that he can ever be wantonly\ncruel, unjust, or unloving.  Yet it is impossible to see the mercy or\njustice of his actions in this case.  And the misery is that, if it\ncould be proved that in one single case, however small, God's goodness\nhad, so to speak, broken down; if there were evidence of neglect or\ncarelessness or indifference, in the case of one single child of his,\none single sentient thing that he has created, it would be impossible\nto believe in his omnipotence any more.  Either one would feel that he\nwas unjust and cruel, or that there was some evil power at work in the\nworld which he could not overcome.\n\nFor there is nothing remedial in this suffering.  The man's useful,\ngentle life is over, the sister is broken down, unhappy, a second time\nmade desolate; the children's education has suffered, their home is\nmade miserable.  The only thing that one can see, that is in any degree\na compensation, is the extraordinary kindness displayed by friends,\nrelations, and employers in making things easy for the afflicted\nhousehold.  And then, too, there is the heroic quality of soul\ndisplayed by the sufferer himself and his sister--a heroism which is\nennobling to think of, and yet humiliating too, because it seems to be\nso far out of one's own reach.\n\nThis is a very dark abyss of the world into which we are looking.  The\ncase is an extreme one perhaps, but similar things happen every day, in\nthis sad and wonderful and bewildering world.  Of course, one may take\nrefuge in a gloomy acquiescence, saying that such things seem to be\npart of the world as it is made, and we cannot explain them, while we\ndumbly hope that we may be spared such woes.  But that is a dark and\ndespairing attitude, and, for one, I cannot live at all, unless I feel\nthat God is indeed more upon our side than that.  I cannot live at all,\nI say.  And yet I must live; I must endure the Will of God in whatever\nform it is laid upon me--in joy or in pain, in contentment or sick\ndespair.  Why am I at one with the Will of God when it gives me\nstrength, and hope, and delight?  Why am I so averse to it when it\nbrings me languor, and sorrow, and despair?  That I cannot tell; and\nthat is the enigma which has confronted men from generation to\ngeneration.\n\nBut I still believe that there is a Will of God; and, more than that, I\ncan still believe that a day comes for all of us, however far off it\nmay be, when we shall understand; when these tragedies, that now\nblacken and darken the very air of Heaven for us, will sink into their\nplaces in a scheme so august, so magnificent, so joyful, that we shall\nlaugh for wonder and delight; when we shall think not more sorrowfully\nover these sufferings, these agonies, than we think now of the sad days\nin our childhood when we sat with a passion of tears over a broken toy\nor a dead bird, feeling that we could not be comforted.  We smile as we\nremember such things--we smile at our blindness, our limitations.  We\nsmile to reflect at the great range and panorama of the world that has\nopened upon us since, and of which, in our childish grief, we were so\nignorant.  Under what conditions the glory will be revealed to us I\ncannot guess.  But I do not doubt that it will be revealed; for we\nforget sorrow, but we do not forget joy.\n\n\n\n\nXXXIV\n\nMusic\n\nI have just come back from hearing a great violinist, who played, with\nthree other professors, in two quartettes, Mozart and Beethoven.  I\nknow little of the technicalities of music, but I know that the Mozart\nwas full to me of air and sunlight, and a joy which was not the\nlight-hearted gaiety of earth, but the untainted and unwearying joy of\nheaven; the Beethoven I do not think I understood, but there was a\ngrave minor movement, with pizzicato passages for the violoncello,\nwhich seemed to consecrate and dignify the sorrow of the heart.\n\nBut apart from the technical merits of the music--and the performance,\nindeed, seemed to me to lie as near the thought and the conception as\nthe translation of music into sound can go--the sight of these four big\nmen, serious and grave, as though neither pursuing nor creating\npleasure, but as though interpreting and giving expression to some\nweighty secret, had an inspiring and solemnising effect.  The sight of\nthe great violinist himself was full of awe; his big head, the full\ngrey beard which lay over the top of the violin, his calm, set brows,\nhis weary eyes with their heavy lids, had a profound dignity and\nseriousness; and to see his wonderful hands, not delicate or slender,\nbut full, strong, and muscular, moving neither lingeringly nor hastily,\nbut with a firm and easy deliberation upon the strings, was deeply\nimpressive.  It all seemed so easy, so inevitable, so utterly without\ndisplay, so simple and great.  It gave one a sense of mingled fire and\nquietude, which is the end of art,--one may almost say the end of life;\nit was no leaping and fitful flame, but a calm and steady glow; not a\nconsuming fire, but like the strength of a mighty furnace; and then the\npeace of it!  The great man did not stand before us as a performer; he\nseemed utterly indifferent to praise or applause, and he had rather a\ngrave, pontifical air, as of a priest, divinely called to minister,\ncelebrating a divine mystery, calling down the strength of heaven to\nearth.  Neither was there the least sense of one conferring a favour;\nhe rather appeared to recognise that we were there in the same spirit\nas himself, the worshippers in some high solemnity, and his own skill\nnot a thing to be shown or gloried in, but a mere ministering of a\nsacred gift.  He seemed, indeed, to be like one who distributed a\nsacramental meat to an intent throng; not a giver of pleasure, but a\nchannel of secret grace.\n\nFrom such art as this one comes away not only with a thrill of mortal\nrapture, but with a real and deep faith in art, having bowed the head\nbefore a shrine, and having tasted the food of the spirit.  When, at\nthe end of a sweet and profound movement, the player raised his great\nhead and looked round tenderly and gently on the crowd, one felt as\nthough, like Moses, he had struck the rock, and the streams had gushed\nout, _ut bibat populus_.  And there fell an even deeper awe, which\nseemed to say, \"God was in this place ... and I knew it not.\"  The\nworld of movement, of talk, of work, of conflicting interests, into\nwhich one must return, seemed all a fantastic noise, a shadowy\nstriving; the only real thing seemed the presence-chamber from which we\nhad gone out, the chamber in which music had uttered its voice at the\nbidding of some sacred spell, the voice of an infinite Spirit, the\nSpirit that had brooded upon the deep, evoking order out of chaos and\nlight out of darkness; with no eager and dusty manoeuvrings, no clink\nand clatter of human toil, but gliding resistlessly and largely upon\nthe world, as the sun by silent degrees detaches himself from the dark\nrim of the world, and climbs in stately progress into the unclouded\nheaven.\n\n\n\n\nXXXV\n\nThe Faith of Christ\n\nI read a terrible letter in the newspaper this morning, a letter from a\nclergyman of high position, finding fault with a manifesto put out by\ncertain other clergymen; the letter had a certain volubility about it,\nand the writer seemed to me to pull out rather adroitly one or two\nloose sticks in his opponents' bundle, and to lay them vehemently about\ntheir backs.  But, alas! the acrimony, the positiveness, the arrogance\nof it!\n\nI do not know that I admired the manifesto very much myself; it was a\ntimid and half-hearted document, but it was at least sympathetic and\ntender.  The purport of it was to say that, just as historical\ncriticism has shown that some of the Old Testament must be regarded as\nfabulous, so we must be prepared for a possible loss of certitude in\nsome of the details of the New Testament.  It is conceivable, for\ninstance, that without sacrificing the least portion of the essential\nteaching of Christ, men may come to feel justified in a certain\nsuspension of judgment with regard to some of the miraculous\noccurrences there related; may even grow to believe that an element of\nexaggeration is there, that element of exaggeration which is never\nabsent from the writings of any age in which scientific historical\nmethods had no existence.  A suspension of judgment, say: because in\nthe absence of any converging historical testimony to the events of the\nNew Testament, it will never be possible either to affirm or to deny\nhistorically that the facts took place exactly as related; though,\nindeed, the probability of their having so occurred may seem to be\ndiminished.\n\nThe controversialist, whose letter I read with bewilderment and pain,\ninvolved his real belief in ingenious sentences, so that one would\nthink that he accepted the statements of the Old Testament, such as the\naccount of the Creation and the Fall, the speaking of Balaam's Ass, the\nswallowing of Jonah by the whale, as historical facts.  He went on to\nsay that the miraculous element of the New Testament is accredited by\nthe Revelation of God, as though some definite revelation of truth had\ntaken place at some time or other, which all rational men recognised.\nBut the only objective process which has ever taken place is, that at\ncertain Councils of the Church, certain books of Scripture were\nselected as essential documents, and the previous selection of the Old\nTestament books was confirmed.  But would the controversialist say that\nthese Councils were infallible?  It must surely be clear to all\nrational people that the members of these Councils were merely doing\ntheir best, under the conditions that then prevailed, to select the\nbooks that seemed to them to contain the truth.  It is impossible to\nbelieve that if the majority at these Councils had supposed that such\nan account as the account in Genesis of the Creation was mythological,\nthey would thus have attested its literal truth.  It never occurred to\nthem to doubt it, because they did not understand the principle that,\nwhile a normal event can be accepted, if it is fairly well confirmed,\nan abnormal event requires a far greater amount of converging testimony\nto confirm it.\n\nIf only the clergy could realise that what ordinary laymen like myself\nwant is a greater elasticity instead of an irrational certainty! if\nonly instead of feebly trying to save the outworks, which are already\nin the hands of the enemy, they would man the walls of the central\nfortress!  If only they would say plainly that a man could remain a\nconvinced Christian, and yet not be bound to hold to the literal\naccuracy of the account of miraculous incidents recorded in the Bible,\nit would be a great relief.\n\nI am myself in the position of thousands of other laymen.  I am a\nsincere Christian; and yet I regard the Old Testament and the New\nTestament alike as the work of fallible men and of poetical minds.  I\nregard the Old Testament as a noble collection of ancient writings,\ncontaining myths, chronicles, fables, poems, and dramas, the value of\nwhich consists in the intense faith in a personal God and Father with\nwhich it is penetrated.\n\nWhen I come to the New Testament, I feel myself, in the Gospels,\nconfronted by the most wonderful personality which has ever drawn\nbreath upon the earth.  I am not in a position to affirm or to deny the\nexact truth of the miraculous occurrences there related; but the more\nconscious I am of the fallibility, the lack of subtlety, the absence of\ntrained historical method that the writers display, the more convinced\nI am of the essential truth of the Person and teaching of Christ,\nbecause he seems to me a figure so infinitely beyond the intellectual\npower of those who described him to have invented or created.\n\nIf the authors of the Gospels had been men of delicate literary skill,\nof acute philosophical or poetical insight, like Plato or Shakespeare,\nthen I should be far less convinced of the integral truth of the\nrecord.  But the words and sayings of Christ, the ideas which he\ndisseminated, seem to me so infinitely above the highest achievements\nof the human spirit, that I have no difficulty in confessing, humbly\nand reverently, that I am in the presence of one who seems to me to be\nabove humanity, and not only of it.  If all the miraculous events of\nthe Gospels could be proved never to have occurred, it would not\ndisturb my faith in Christ for an instant.  But I am content, as it is,\nto believe in the possibility of so abnormal a personality being\nsurrounded by abnormal events, though I am not in a position to\ndisentangle the actual truth from the possibilities of\nmisrepresentation and exaggeration.\n\nDealing with the rest of the New Testament, I see in the Acts of the\nApostles a deeply interesting record of the first ripples of the faith\nin the world.  In the Pauline and other epistles I see the words of\nfervent primitive Christians, men of real and untutored genius, in\nwhich one has amazing instances of the effect produced, on contemporary\nor nearly contemporary persons, of the same overwhelming personality,\nthe personality of Christ.  In the Apocalypse I see a vision of deep\npoetical force and insight.\n\nBut in none of these compositions, though they reveal a glow and\nfervour of conviction that places them high among the memorials of the\nhuman spirit, do I recognise anything which is beyond human\npossibilities.  I observe, indeed, that St Paul's method of argument is\nnot always perfectly consistent, nor his conclusions absolutely cogent.\nSuch inspiration as they contain they draw from their nearness to and\ntheir close apprehension of the dim and awe-inspiring presence of\nChrist Himself.\n\nIf, as I say, the Church would concentrate her forces in this inner\nfortress, the personality of Christ, and quit the debatable ground of\nhistorical enquiry, it would be to me and to many an unfeigned relief;\nbut meanwhile, neither scientific critics nor irrational pedants shall\ninvalidate my claim to be of the number of believing Christians.  I\nclaim a Christian liberty of thought, while I acknowledge, with bowed\nhead, my belief in God the Father of men, in a Divine Christ, the\nRedeemer and Saviour, and in the presence in the hearts of men of a\nDivine spirit, leading humanity tenderly forward.  I can neither affirm\nnor deny the literal accuracy of Scripture records; I am not in a\nposition to deny the superstructure of definite dogma raised by the\ntradition of the Church about the central truths of its teaching, but\nneither can I deny the possibility of an admixture of human error in\nthe fabric.  I claim my right to receive the Sacraments of my Church,\nbelieving as I do that they invigorate the soul, bring the presence of\nits Redeemer near, and constitute a bond of Christian unity.  But I\nhave no reason to believe that any human pronouncement whatever, the\npronouncements of men of science as well as the pronouncements of\ntheologians, are not liable to error.  There is indeed no fact in the\nworld except the fact of my own existence of which I am absolutely\ncertain.  And thus I can accept no system of religion which is based\nupon deductions, however subtle, from isolated texts, because I cannot\nbe sure of the infallibility of any form of human expression.  Yet, on\nthe other hand, I seem to discern with as much certainty as I can\ndiscern anything in this world, where all is so dark, the presence upon\nearth at a certain date of a personality which commands my homage and\nallegiance.  And upon this I build my trust.\n\n\n\n\nXXXVI\n\nThe Mystery of Evil\n\nI was staying the other day in a large old country-house.  One morning,\nmy host came to me and said: \"I should like to show you a curious\nthing.  We have just discovered a cellar here that seems never to have\nbeen visited or used since the house was built, and there is the\nstrangest fungoid growth in it I have ever seen.\"  He took a big bunch\nof keys, rang the bell, gave an order for lights to be brought, and we\nwent together to the place.  There were ranges of brick-built, vaulted\nchambers, through which we passed, pleasant, cool places, with no\nplaster to conceal the native brick, with great wine-bins on either\nhand.  It all gave one an inkling of the change in material conditions\nwhich must have taken place since they were built; the quantity of wine\nconsumed in eighteenth-century days must have been so enormous, and the\ndifficulty of conveyance so great, that every great householder must\nhave felt like the Rich Fool of the parable, with much goods laid up\nfor many years.  In the corner of one of the great vaults was a low\narched door, and my friend explained that some panelling which had been\ntaken out of an older house, demolished to make room for the present\nmansion, had been piled up here, and thus the entrance had been hidden.\nHe unlocked the door, and a strange scent came out.  An abundance of\nlights were lit, and we went into the vault.  It was the strangest\nscene I have ever beheld; the end of the vault seemed like a great bed,\nhung with brown velvet curtains, through the gaps of which were visible\nwhat seemed like white velvet pillows, strange humped conglomerations.\nMy friend explained to me that there had been a bin at the end of the\nvault, out of the wood of which these singular fungi had sprouted.  The\nwhole place was uncanny and horrible.  The great velvet curtains swayed\nin the current of air, and it seemed as though at any moment some\nmysterious sleeper might be awakened, might peer forth from his dark\ncurtains, with a fretful enquiry as to why he was disturbed.\n\nThe scene dwelt in my mind for many days, and aroused in me a strange\ntrain of thought; these dim vegetable forms, with their rich\nluxuriance, their sinister beauty, awoke a curious repugnance in the\nmind.  They seemed unholy and evil.  And yet it is all part of the life\nof nature; it is just as natural, just as beautiful to find life at\nwork in this gloomy and unvisited place, wreathing the bare walls with\nthese dark, soft fabrics.  It was impossible not to feel that there was\na certain joy of life in these growths, sprouting with such security\nand luxuriance in a place so precisely adapted to their well-being; and\nyet there was the shadow of death and darkness about them, to us whose\nhome is the free air and the sun.  It seemed to me to make a curious\nparable of the baffling mystery of evil, the luxuriant growth of sin in\nthe dark soul.  I have always felt that the reason why the mystery of\nevil is so baffling is because we so resolutely think of evil as of\nsomething inimical to the nature of God; and yet evil must derive its\nvitality from him.  The one thing that it is impossible to believe is\nthat, in a world ruled by an all-powerful God, anything should come\ninto existence which is in opposition to his Will.  It is impossible to\narrive at any solution of the difficulty, unless we either adopt the\nbelief that God is not all-powerful, and that there is a real dualism\nin nature, two powers in eternal opposition; or else realise that evil\nis in some way a manifestation of God.  If we adopt the first theory,\nwe may conceive of the stationary tendency in nature, its inertness,\nthe force that tends to bring motion to a standstill, as one power, the\npower of Death; and we may conceive of all motion and force as the\nother power, the quickening spirit, the power of life.  But even here\nwe are met with a difficulty, for when we try to transfer this dualism\nto the region of humanity, we see that in the phenomena of disease we\nare confronted, not with inertness fighting against motion, but with\none kind of life, which is inimical to human life, fighting with\nanother kind of life which is favourable to health.  I mean that when a\nfever or a cancer lays hold of a human frame, it is nothing but the\nlodging inside the body of a bacterial and an infusorial life which\nfights against the healthy native life of the human organism.  There\nmust be, I will not say a consciousness, but a sense of triumphant\nlife, in the cancer which feeds upon the limb, in spite of all efforts\nto dislodge it; and it is impossible to me to believe that the vitality\nof those parasitical organisms, which prey upon the human frame, is not\nderived from the vital impulse of God.  We, who live in the free air\nand the sun, have a way of thinking and speaking as if the plants and\nanimals which develop under the same conditions were of a healthy type,\nwhile the organisms which flourish in decay and darkness, such as the\nfungi of which I saw so strange an example, the larva; which prey on\ndecaying matter, the soft and pallid worm-like forms that tunnel in\nvegetable ooze, were of an unhealthy type.  But yet these creatures are\nas much the work of God as the flowers and trees, the brisk animals\nwhich we love to see about us.  We are obliged in self-defence to do\nbattle with the creatures which menace our health; we do not question\nour right to deprive them of life for our own comfort; but surely with\nthis analogy before us, we are equally compelled to think of the forms\nof moral evil, with all their dark vitality, as the work of God's hand.\nIt is a sad conclusion to be obliged to draw, but I can have no doubt\nthat no comprehensive system of philosophy can ever be framed, which\ndoes not trace the vitality of what we call evil to the same hand as\nthe vitality of what we call good.  I have no doubt myself of the\nsupremacy of a single power; but the explanation that evil came into\nthe world by the institution of free-will, and that suffering is the\nresult of sin, seems to me to be wholly inadequate, because the mystery\nof strife and pain and death is \"far older than any history which is\nwritten in any book.\"  The mistake that we make is to count up all the\nqualities which seem to promote our health and happiness, and to invent\nan anthropomorphic figure of God, whom we array upon the side which we\nwish to prevail.  The truth is far darker, far sterner, far more\nmysterious.  The darkness is his not less than the light; selfishness\nand sin are the work of his hand, as much as unselfishness and\nholiness.  To call this attitude of mind pessimism, and to say that it\ncan only end in acquiescence or despair, is a sin against truth.  A\ncreed that does not take this thought into account is nothing but a\ndelusion, with which we try to beguile the seriousness of the truth\nwhich we dread; but such a stern belief does not forbid us to struggle\nand to strive; it rather bids us believe that effort is a law of our\nnatures, that we are bound to be enlisted for the fight, and that the\nonly natures that fail are those that refuse to take a side at all.\n\nThere is no indecision in nature, though there is some illusion.  The\nvery star that rises, pale and serene, above the darkening thicket, is\nin reality a globe wreathed in fiery vapour, the centre of a throng of\nwhirling planets.  What we have to do is to see as deep as we can into\nthe truth of things, not to invent paradises of thought, sheltered\ngardens, from which grief and suffering shall tear us, naked and\nprotesting; but to gaze into the heart of God, and then to follow as\nfaithfully as we can the imperative voice that speaks within the soul.\n\n\n\n\nXXXVII\n\nRenewal\n\nThere sometimes falls upon me a great hunger of heart, a sad desire to\nbuild up and renew something--a broken building it may be, a fading\nflower, a failing institution, a ruinous character.  I feel a great and\nvivid pity for a thing which sets out to be so bright and beautiful,\nand lapses into shapeless and uncomely neglect.  Sometimes, indeed, it\nmust be a desolate grief, a fruitless sorrow: as when a flower that has\nstood on one's table, and cheered the air with its freshness and\nfragrance, begins to droop, and to grow stained and sordid.  Or I see\nsome dying creature, a wounded animal; or even some well-loved friend\nunder the shadow of death, with the hue of health fading, the dear\nfeatures sharpening for the last change; and then one can only bow,\nwith such resignation as one can muster, before the dreadful law of\ndeath, pray that the passage may not be long or dark, and try to dream\nof the bright secrets that may be waiting on the other side.\n\nBut sometimes it is a more fruitful sadness, when one feels that decay\ncan be arrested, that new life can be infused; that a fresh start may\nbe taken, and a life may be beautifully renewed, and be even the\nbrighter, one dares to hope, for a lapse into the dreary ways of\nbitterness.\n\nThis sadness is most apt to beset those who have anything to do with\nthe work of education.  One feels sometimes, with a sudden shiver, as\nwhen the shadow of a cloud passes over a sunlit garden, that many\nelements are at work in a small society; that an evil secret is\nspreading over lives that were peaceful and contented, that suspicion\nand disunion and misunderstanding are springing up, like poisonous\nweeds, in the quiet corner that God has given one to dress and keep.\nThen perhaps one tries to put one's hand on what is amiss; sometimes\none does too much, and in the wrong way; one has not enough faith, one\ndares not leave enough to God.  Or from timidity or diffidence, or from\nthe base desire not to be troubled, from the poor hope that perhaps\nthings will straighten themselves out, one does too little; and that is\nthe worst shadow of all, the shadow of cowardice or sloth.\n\nSometimes, too, one has the grief of seeing a slow and subtle change\npassing over the manner and face of one for whom one cares--not the\nchange of languor or physical weakness; that can be pityingly borne;\nbut one sees innocence withering, indifference to things wholesome and\nfair creeping on, even sometimes a ripe and evil sort of beauty\nmaturing, such as comes of looking at evil unashamed, and seeing its\nstrong seductiveness.  One feels instinctively that the door which had\nbeen open before between such a soul and one's own spirit is being\nslowly and firmly closed, or even, if one attempts to open it, pulled\nto with a swift motion; and then one may hear sounds within, and even\nsee, in that moment, a rush of gliding forms, that makes one sure that\na visitant is there, who has brought with him a wicked company; and\nthen one has to wait in sadness, with now and then a timid knocking,\neven happy, it may be, if the soul sometimes call fretfully within, to\nsay that it is occupied and cannot come forth.\n\nBut sometimes, God be praised, it is the other way.  A year ago a man\ncame at his own request to see me.  I hardly knew him; but I could see\nat once that he was in the grip of some hard conflict, which withered\nhis natural bloom.  I do not know how all came to be revealed; but in a\nlittle while he was speaking with simple frankness and naturalness of\nall his troubles, and they were many.  What was the most touching thing\nof all was that he spoke as if he were quite alone in his experience,\nisolated and shut off from his kind, in a peculiar horror of darkness\nand doubt; as if the thoughts and difficulties at which he stumbled had\nnever strewn a human path before.  I said but little to him; and,\nindeed, there was but little to say.  It was enough that he should\n\"cleanse the stuff'd bosom of the perilous stuff that weighs upon the\nheart.\"  I tried to make him feel that he was not alone in the matter,\nand that other feet had trodden the dark path before him.  No advice is\npossible in such cases; \"therein the patient must minister to himself\";\nthe solution lies in the mind of the sufferer.  He knows what he ought\nto do; the difficulty is for him sufficiently to desire to do it; yet\neven to speak frankly of cares and troubles is very often to melt and\ndisperse the morbid mist that gathers round them, which grows in\nsolitude.  To state them makes them plain and simple; and, indeed, it\nis more than that; for I have often noticed that the mere act of\nformulating one's difficulties in the hearing of one who sympathises\nand feels, often brings the solution with it.  One finds, like\nChristian in Doubting Castle, the key which has lain in one's bosom all\nthe time--the key of Promise; and when one has finished the recital,\none is lost in bewilderment that one ever was in any doubt at all.\n\nA year has passed since that date, and I have had the happiness of\nseeing health and contentment stream back into the man's face.  He has\nnot overcome, he has not won an easy triumph; but he is in the way now,\nnot wandering on trackless hills.\n\nSo, in the mood of which I spoke at first--the mood in which one\ndesires to build up and renew--one must not yield oneself to luxurious\nand pathetic reveries, or allow oneself to muse and wonder in the\nhalf-lit region in which one may beat one's wings in vain--the region,\nI mean, of sad stupefaction as to why the world is so full of broken\ndreams, shattered hopes, and unfulfilled possibilities.  One must\nrather look round for some little definite failure that is within the\ncircle of one's vision.  And even so, there sometimes comes what is the\nmost evil and subtle temptation of all, which creeps upon the mind in\nlowly guise, and preaches inaction.  What concern have you, says the\ntempting voice, to meddle with the lives and characters of others--to\nguide, to direct, to help--when there is so much that is bitterly amiss\nwith your own heart and life?  How will you dare to preach what you do\nnot practice?  The answer of the brave heart is that, if one is aware\nof failure, if one has suffered, if one has gathered experience, one\nmust be ready to share it.  If I falter and stumble under my own heavy\nload, which I have borne so querulously, so clumsily, shall not I say a\nword which can help a fellow-sufferer to bear his load more easily,\nhelp him to avoid the mistakes, the falls into which my own perversity\nhas betrayed me?  To make another's burden lighter is to lighten one's\nown burden; and, sinful as it may be to err, it is still more sinful to\nsee another err, and be silent, to withhold the word that might save\nhim.  Perhaps no one can help so much as one that has suffered himself,\nwho knows the turns of the sad road, and the trenches which beset the\nway.\n\nFor thus comes most truly the joy of repentance; it is joy to feel that\none's own lesson is learnt, and that the feeble feet are a little\nstronger; but if one may also feel that another has taken heed, has\nbeen saved the fall that must have come if he had not been warned, one\ndoes not grudge one's own pain, that has brought a blessing with it,\nthat is outside of one's own blessing; one hardly even grudges the sin.\n\n\n\n\nXXXVIII\n\nThe Secret\n\nI have been away from my books lately, in a land of downs and valleys;\nI have walked much alone, or with a silent companion--that greatest of\nall luxuries.  And, as is always the case when I get out of the reach\nof books, I feel that I read a great deal too much, and do not meditate\nenough.  It sounds indolent advice to say that one ought to meditate;\nbut I cannot help feeling that reading is often a still more indolent\naffair.  When I am alone, or at leisure among my books, I take a volume\ndown; and the result is that another man does my thinking for me.  It\nis like putting oneself in a comfortable railway carriage; one runs\nsmoothly along the iron track, one stops at specified stations, one\nsees a certain range of country, and an abundance of pretty things in\nflashes--too many, indeed, for the mind to digest; and that is the\nreason, I think, why a modern journey, even with all the luxuries that\nsurround it, is so tiring a thing.  But to meditate is to take one's\nown path among the hills; one turns off the track to examine anything\nthat attracts the attention; one makes the most of the few things that\none sees.\n\nReading is often a mere saving of trouble, a soporific for a restless\nbrain.  This last week, as I say, I have had very few books with me.\nOne of the few has been Milton's _Paradise Lost_, and I have read it\nfrom end to end.  I want to say a few words about the book first, and\nthen to diverge, to a larger question.  I have read the poem with a\ncertain admiration; it is a large, strong, rugged, violent thing.  I\nhave, however, read it without emotion, except that a few of the\nsimiles in it, which lie like shells on a beach of sand, have pleased\nme.  Yet it is not true to say that I have read it without emotion,\nbecause I have read it with anger and indignation.  I have come to the\nconclusion that the book has done a great deal of harm.  It is\nresponsible, I think, for a great many of the harsh, business-like,\ndismal views of religion that prevail among us.  Milton treated God,\nthe Saviour, and the angels, from the point of view of a scholar who\nhad read the _Iliad_.  I declare that I think that the passages where\nGod the Father speaks, discusses the situation of affairs, and arranges\nmatters with the Saviour, are some of the most profane and vicious\npassages in English literature.  I do not want to be profane myself,\nbecause it is a disgusting fault; but the passage where the scheme of\nRedemption is arranged, where God enquires whether any of the angels\nwill undergo death in order to satisfy his sense of injured justice, is\na passage of what I can only call stupid brutality, disguised, alas, in\nthe solemn and majestic robe of sonorous language.  The angels timidly\ndecline, and the Saviour volunteers, which saves the shameful\nsituation.  The character of God, as displayed by Milton, is that of a\ncommercial, complacent, irritable Puritan.  There is no largeness or\ngraciousness about it, no wistful love.  He keeps his purposes to\nhimself, and when his arrangements break down, as indeed they deserve\nto do, some one has got to be punished.  If the guilty ones cannot, so\nmuch the worse; an innocent victim will do, but a victim there must be.\nIt is a wicked, an abominable passage, and I would no more allow an\nintelligent child to read it than I would allow him to read an obscene\nbook.\n\nThen, again, the passage where the rebel angels cast cannon, make\ngunpowder, and mow the good angels down in rows, is incredibly puerile\nand ridiculous.  The hateful materialism of the whole thing is patent.\nI wish that the English Church could have an Index, and put _Paradise\nLost_ upon it, and allow no one to read it until he had reached years\nof discretion, and then only with a certificate, and for purely\nliterary purposes.\n\nIt is a terrible instance how strong a thing Art is; the grim old\nauthor, master of every form of ugly vituperation, had drifted\nmiserably away from his beautiful youth, when he wrote the sweet poems\nand sonnets that make the pedestal for his fame; and on that delicate\npedestal stands this hideous iron figure, with its angry gestures, its\nsickening strength.\n\nI could pile up indignant instances of the further harm the book has\ndone.  Who but Milton is responsible for the hard and shameful view of\nthe position of women?  He represents her as a clinging, soft,\ncompliant creature, whose only ideal is to be to make things\ncomfortable for her husband, and to submit to his embraces.  Milton\nspoilt the lives of all the women he had to do with, by making them\ninto slaves, with the same consciousness of rectitude with which he\nwhipped his nephews, the sound of whose cries made his poor girl-wife\nso miserable.  But I do not want to go further into the question of\nMilton himself.  I want to follow out a wider thought which came to me\namong the downs to-day.\n\nThere seems to me to be in art, to take the metaphor of the temple at\nJerusalem, three gradations or regions, which may be typified by the\nCourt, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies.  Into the Court many\nhave admittance, both writers and readers; it is just shut off from the\nworld, but admittance is easy and common.  All who are moved and\nstirred by ideas and images can enter here.  Then there is the Holy\nPlace, dark and glorious, where the candlestick glimmers and the altar\ngleams.  And to this place the priests of art have access.  Here are to\nbe found all delicate and strenuous craftsmen, all who understand that\nthere are secrets and mysteries in art.  They can please and thrill the\nmind and ear; they can offer up a fragrant incense; but the full\nmystery is not revealed to them.  Here are to be found many graceful\nand soulless poets, many writers of moving tales, and discriminating\ncritics, who are satisfied, but cannot satisfy.  Those who frequent\nthis place are generally of opinion that they know all that is to be\nknown; they talk much of form and colour, of values and order.  They\ncan make the most of their materials; and indeed their skill outruns\ntheir emotion.\n\nBut there is the inmost shrine of all within, where the darkness\nbroods, lit at intervals by the shining of a divine light, that\nglimmers on the ark and touches the taper wings of the adoring angels.\nThe contents indeed of the sacred chest are of the simplest; a withered\nbranch, a pot of food, two slabs of grey stone, obscurely engraved.\nNothing rich or rare.  But those who have access to the inner shrine\nare face to face with the mystery.  Some have the skill to hint it,\nnone to describe it.  And there are some, too, who have no skill to\nexpress themselves, but who have visited the place, and bring back some\ntouch of radiance gushing from their brows.\n\nMilton, in his youth, had looked within the shrine, but he forgot, in\nthe clamorous and sordid world, what he had seen.  Only those who have\nvisited the Holiest place know those others who have set foot there,\nand they cannot err.  I cannot define exactly what it is that makes the\ndifference.  It cannot be seen in performance; for here I will humbly\nand sincerely make the avowal that I have been within the veil myself,\nthough I know not when or how.  I learnt there no perfection of skill,\nno methods of expression.  But ever since, I have looked out for the\nsigns that tell me whether another has set foot there or no.  I\nsometimes see the sign in a book, or a picture; sometimes it comes out\nin talk; and sometimes I discern it in the glance of an eye, for all\nthe silence of the lips.  It is not knowledge, it is not pride that the\naccess confers.  Indeed it is often a sweet humility of soul.  It is\nnothing definite; but it is a certain attitude of mind, a certain\nquality of thought.  Some of those who have been within are very sinful\npersons, very unhappy, very unsatisfactory, as the world would say.\nBut they are never perverse or wilful natures; they are never cold or\nmean.  Those in whom coldness and meanness are found are of necessity\nexcluded from the Presence.  But though the power to step behind the\nveil seldom brings serenity, or strength, or confidence, yet it is the\nbest thing that can happen to a man in the world.\n\nSome perhaps of those who read these words will think that it is all a\nvain shadow, and that I am but wrapping up an empty thought in veils of\nwords.  But though I cannot explain, though I cannot say what the\nsecret is, I can claim to be able to say almost without hesitation\nwhether a human spirit has passed within; and more than that.  As I\nwrite these words, I know that if any who have set foot in the secret\nshrine reads them, they will understand, and recognise that I am\nspeaking a simple truth.\n\nSome, indeed, find their way thither through religion; but none whose\nreligion is like Milton's.  Indeed, part of the wonder of the secret is\nthe infinite number of paths that lead there; they are all lonely; the\nmoment is unexpected; indeed, as was the case with myself, it is\npossible to set foot within, and yet not to know it at the time.\n\nIt is this secret which constitutes the innermost brotherhood of the\nworld.  The innermost, I say, because neither creed, nor nationality,\nnor occupation, nor age, nor sex affects the matter.  It is difficult,\nor shall I say unusual, for the old to enter; and most find the way\nthere in youth, before habit and convention have become tyrannous, and\nhave fenced the path of life with hedges and walls.\n\nAgain it is the most secret brotherhood of the world; no one can dare\nto make public proclamation of it, no one can gather the saints\ntogether, for the essence of the brotherhood is its isolation.  One may\nindeed recognise a brother or a sister, and that is a blessed moment;\nbut one must not speak of it in words; and indeed there is no need of\nwords, where all that matters is known.  It may be asked what are the\nbenefits which this secret brings.  It does not bring laughter, or\nprosperity, or success, or even cheerfulness; but it brings a high,\nthough fitful, joy--a joy that can be captured, practised, retained.\nNo one can, I think, of set purpose, capture the secret.  No one can\nfind the way by desiring it.  And yet the desire to do so is the seed\nof hope.  And if it be asked, why I write and print these veiled words\nabout so deep and intimate a mystery, I would reply that it is because\nnot all who have found the way, know that they have found it; and my\nhope is that these words of mine may show some restless hearts that\nthey have found it.  For one may find the shrine in youth, and for want\nof knowing that one has found it, may forget it in middle age; and that\nis what I sorrowfully think that not a few of my brothers do.  And the\nsign of such a loss is that such persons speak contemptuously and\ndisdainfully of their visions, and try to laugh and deride the young\nand gracious out of such hopes; which is a sin that is hateful to God,\na kind of murder of souls.\n\nAnd now I have travelled a long way from where I began, but the path\nwas none of my own making.  It was Milton, that fierce and childish\npoet, that held open the door, and within I saw the ladder, at the\nfiery head of which is God Himself.  And like Jacob (who was indeed of\nour company) I made a pillow for my head of the stones of the place,\nthat I might dream more abundantly.\n\nAnd so, as I walked to-day among the green places of the down, I made a\nprayer in my heart to God, the matter of which I will now set down; and\nit was that all of us who have visited that most Holy Place may be true\nto the vision; and that God may reveal us to each other, as we go on\npilgrimage; and that as the world goes forward, he may lead more and\nmore souls to visit it, that bare and secret place, which yet holds\nmore beauty than the richest palace of the world.  For palaces but hold\nthe outer beauty, in types and glimpses and similitudes.  While in the\nsecret shrine we visit the central fountainhead, from which the water\nof life, clear as crystal, breaks in innumerable channels, and flows\nout from beneath the temple door, as Ezekiel saw it flow, lingering and\ndelaying, but surely coming to gladden the earth.  I could indeed go\nfurther, and speak many things out of a full heart about the matter.  I\ncould quote the names of many poets and artists, great and small; and I\ncould say which of them belongs to the inner company, and which of them\nis outside.  But I will not do this, because it would but set\ninquisitive people puzzling and wondering, and trying to guess the\nsecret; and that I have no desire to do; because these words are not\nwritten to make those who do not understand to be curious; but they are\nwritten to those who know, and, most of all, to those who know, but\nhave forgotten.  No one may traffic in these things; and indeed there\nis no opportunity to do so.  I could learn in a moment, from a sentence\nor a smile, if one had the secret; and I could spend a long summer day\ntrying to explain it to a learned and intelligent person, and yet give\nno hint of what I meant.  For the thing is not an intelligible process,\na matter of reasoning and logic; it is an intuition.  And therefore it\nis that those who cannot believe in anything that they do not\nunderstand, will think these words of mine to be folly and vanity.  The\nonly case where I have found a difficulty in deciding, is when I talk\nto one who has lived much with those who had the secret, and has\ncaught, by a kind of natural imitation, some of the accent and cadence\nof the truth.  An old friend of mine, a pious woman, used in her last\ndays to have prayers and hymns read much in her room; there was a\nparrot that sat there in his cage, very silent and attentive; and not\nlong after, when the parrot was ill, he used to mutter prayers and\nhymns aloud, with a devotion that would have deceived the very elect.\nAnd it is even so with the people of whom I have spoken.  Not long ago\nI had a long conversation with one, a clever woman, who had lived much\nin the house of a man who had seen the truth; and I was for a little\ndeceived, and thought that she also knew the truth.  But suddenly she\nmade a hard judgment of her own, and I knew in a moment that she had\nnever seen the shrine.\n\nAnd now I have said enough, and must make an end.  I remember that long\nago, when I was a boy, I painted a picture on a panel, and set it in my\nroom.  It was the figure of a kneeling youth on a hillock, looking\nupwards; and beyond the hillock came a burst of rays from a hidden sun.\nUnderneath it, for no reason that I can well explain, I painted the\nwords _phos etheasamen kai emphobos en_--_I beheld a light and was\nafraid_.  I was then very far indeed from the sight of the truth; but I\nknow now that I was prophesying of what should be; for the secret sign\nof the mystery is a fear, not a timid and shrinking fear, but a holy\nand transfiguring awe.  I little guessed what would some day befall me;\nbut now that I have seen, I can only say with all my heart that it is\nbetter to remember and be sad, than to forget and smile.\n\n\n\n\nXXXIX\n\nThe Message\n\nI was awakened this morning, at the old house where I am staying, by\nlow and sweet singing.  The soft murmur of an organ was audible, on\nwhich some clear trebles seemed to swim and float--one voice of great\nrichness and force seeming to utter the words, and to draw into itself\nthe other voices, appropriating their tone but lending them\npersonality.  These were the words I heard--\n\n  \"The High Priest once a year\n    Went in the Holy Place\n  With garments white and clear;\n    It was the day of Grace.\n\n  Without the people stood\n    While unseen and alone\n  With incense and with blood\n    He did for them atone.\n\n  \"So we without abide\n    A few short passing years,\n  While Christ who for us died\n    Before our God appears.\n\n  \"Before His Father there\n    His Sacrifice He pleads,\n  And with unceasing prayer\n    For us He intercedes.\"\n\n\nThe sweet sounds ceased; the organ lingered for an instant in a low\nchord of infinite sweetness, and then a voice was heard in prayer.\nThat there was a chapel in the house I knew, and that a brief morning\nprayer was read there.  But I could not help wondering at the\nremarkable distinctness with which I heard the words--they seemed close\nto my ear in the air beside me.  I got up, and drawing my curtains\nfound that it was day; and then I saw that a tiny window in the corner\nof my room, that gave on the gallery of the chapel, had been left open,\nby accident or design, and that thus I had been an auditor of the\nservice.\n\nI found myself pondering over the words of the hymn, which was familiar\nto me, though strangely enough is to be found in but few collections.\nIt is a perfect lyric, both in its grave language and its beautiful\nbalance; and it is too, so far as such a composition can be, or ought\nto be, intensely dramatic.  The thought is just touched, and stated\nwith exquisite brevity and restraint; there is not a word too much or\ntoo little; the image is swiftly presented, the inner meaning flashed\nupon the mind.  It seemed to me, too, a beautiful and desirable thing\nto begin the day thus, with a delicate hallowing of the hours; to put\none gentle thought into the heart, perfumed by the sweet music.  But\nthen my reflections took a further drift; beautiful as the little\nceremony was, noble and refined as the thought of the tender hymn was,\nI began to wonder whether we do well to confine our religious life to\nso restricted a range of ideas.  It seemed almost ungrateful to\nentertain the thought, but I felt a certain bewilderment as to whether\nthis remote image, drawn from the ancient sacrificial ceremony, was not\neven too definite a thought to feed the heart upon.  For strip the idea\nof its fair accessories, its delicate art, and what have we but the sad\nbelief, drawn from the dark ages of the world, that the wrathful\nCreator of men, full of gloomy indignation at their perverseness and\nwilfulness, needs the constant intercession of the Eternal Son, who is\ntoo, in a sense, Himself, to appease the anger with which he regards\nthe sheep of his hand.  I cannot really in the depths of my heart echo\nthat dark belief.  I do not indeed know why God permits such blindness\nand sinfulness among men, and why he allows suffering to cloud and\ndarken the world.  But it would cause me to despair of God and man\nalike, if I felt that he had flung our pitiful race into the world,\nsurrounded by temptation both within and without, and then abandoned\nhimself to anger at their miserable dalliance with evil.  I rather\nbelieve that we are rising and struggling to the light, and that his\nheart is with us, not against us in the battle.  It may of course be\nsaid that all that kind of Calvinism has disappeared; that no rational\nChristians believe it, but hold a larger and a wider faith.  I think\nthat this is true of a few intelligent Christians, as far as the\ndropping of Calvinism goes, though it seems to me that they find it\nsomewhat difficult to define their faith; but as to Calvinism having\ndied out in England, I do not think that there is any reason to suppose\nthat it has done so; I believe that a large majority of English\nChristians would believe the above-quoted hymn to be absolutely\njustified in its statements both by Scripture and reason, and that a\nconsiderable minority would hardly consider it definite enough.\n\nBut then came a larger and a wider thought.  We talk and think so\ncarelessly of the divine revelation; we, who have had a religious\nbringing up, who have been nurtured upon Israelite chronicles and\nprophecies, are inclined, or at least predisposed, to think that the\nknowledge of God is written larger and more directly in these records,\nthe words of anxious and troubled persons, than in the world which we\nsee about us.  Yet surely in field and wood, in sea and sky, we have a\nfar nearer and more instant revelation of God.  In these ancient\nrecords we have the thoughts of men, intent upon their own schemes and\nstruggles, and looking for the message of God, with a fixed belief that\nthe history of one family of the human race was his special and\nparticular prepossession.  Yet all the while his immediate Will was\nround them, written in a thousand forms, in bird and beast, in flower\nand tree.  He permits and tolerates life.  He deals out joy and sorrow,\nlife and death.  Science has at least revealed a far more vast and\ninscrutable force at work in the world, than the men of ancient days\never dreamed of.\n\nDo we do well to confine our religious life to these ancient\nconceptions?  They have no doubt a certain shadow of truth in them; but\nwhile I know for certain that the huge Will of God is indeed at work\naround me, in every field and wood, in every stream and pool, do I\n_really_ know, do I honestly believe that any such process as the hymn\nindicates, is going on in some distant region of heaven?  The hymn\npractically presupposes that our little planet is the only one in which\nthe work of God is going forward.  Science hints to me that probably\nevery star that hangs in the sky has its own ring of planets, and that\nin every one of these some strange drama of life and death is\nproceeding.  It is a dizzy thought!  But if it be true, is it not\nbetter to face it?  The mind shudders, appalled at the immensity of the\nprospect.  But do not such thoughts as these give us a truer picture of\nourselves, and of our own humble place in the vast complexity of\nthings, than the excessive dwelling upon the wistful dreams of ancient\nlaw-givers and prophets?  Or is it better to delude ourselves?\nDeliberately to limit our view to the history of a single race, to a\nfew centuries of records?  Perhaps that may be a more practical, a more\neffective view; but when once the larger thought has flashed into the\nmind, it is useless to try and drown it.\n\nEverything around me seems to cry aloud the warning, not to aim at a\nconceit of knowledge about these deep secrets, but to wait, to leave\nthe windows of the soul open for any glimpse of truth from without.\n\nTo beguile the time I took up a volume near me, the work of a much\ndecried poet, Walt Whitman.  Apart from the exquisite power of\nexpression that he possesses, he always seems to me to enter, more than\nmost poets, into the largeness of the world, to keep his heart fixed on\nthe vast wonder and joy of life.  I read that poem full of tender\npathos and suggestiveness, _A Word out of the Sea_, where the child,\nwith the wind in his hair, listens to the lament of the bird that has\nlost his mate, and tries to guide her wandering wings back to the\ndeserted nest.  While the bird sings, with ever fainter hope, its\nlittle heart aching with the pain of loss, the child hears the sea,\nwith its \"liquid rims and wet sands\" breathing out the low and\ndelicious word _death_.\n\nThe poet seems to think of death as the loving answer to the yearning\nof all hearts, the sleep that closes the weary eyes.  But I cannot rise\nto this thought, tender and gentle as it is.\n\nIf indeed there be another life beyond death, I can well believe that\ndeath is in truth an easier and simpler thing than one fears; only a\ncloud on the hill, a little darkness upon Nature.  But God has put it\ninto my heart to dread it; and he hides from me the knowledge of\nwhether indeed there be another side to it.  And while I do not even\nknow that, I can but love life, and be fain of the good days.  All the\nreligion in the world depends upon the belief that, set free from the\nbonds of the flesh, the spirit will rest and recollect.  But is that\nmore than a hope?  Is it more than the passionate instinct of the heart\nthat cannot bear the thought that it may cease to be?\n\nI seem to have travelled far away from the hymn that sounded so sweetly\nin my ears; but I return to the thought; is not, I will ask, the poet's\nreverie--the child with his wet hair floating in the sea-breeze, the\nwailing of the deserted bird, the waves that murmur that death is\nbeautiful--is not this all more truly and deeply religious than the\nhymn which speaks of things, that not only I cannot affirm to be true,\nbut which, if true, would plunge me into a deeper and darker\nhopelessness even than that in which my ignorance condemns me to live?\nOught we not, in fact, to try and make our religion a much wider,\nquieter thing?  Are we not exchanging the melodies of the free birds\nthat sing in the forest glade, for the melancholy chirping of the caged\nlinnet?  It seems to me often as though we had captured our religion\nfrom a multitude of fair hovering presences, that would speak to us of\nthe things of God, caged it in a tiny prison, and closed our ears to\nthe larger and wider voices?\n\nI walked to-day in sheltered wooded valleys; and at one point, in a\nvery lonely and secluded lane, leant long upon a gate that led into a\nlittle forest clearing, to watch the busy and intent life of the wood.\nThere were the trees extending their fresh leaves to the rain; the\nbirds slipped from tree to tree; a mouse frisked about the grassy road;\na hundred flowers raised their bright heads.  None of these little\nlives have, I suppose, any conception of the extent of life that lies\nabout them; each of them knows the secrets and instincts of its own\ntiny brain, and guesses perhaps at the thoughts of the little lives\nakin to it.  Yet every tiniest, shortest, most insignificant life has\nits place in the mind of God.  It seemed to me then such an amazing,\nsuch an arrogant thing to define, to describe, to limit the awful\nmystery of the Creator and his purpose.  Even to think of him, as he is\nspoken of in the Old Testament, with fierce and vindictive schemes,\nwith flagrant partialities, seemed to me nothing but a dreadful\nprofanation.  And yet these old writings do, in a degree, from old\nassociation, colour my thoughts about him.\n\nAnd then all these anxious visions left me; and I felt for awhile like\na tiny spray of sea-weed floating on an infinite sea, with the\nbrightness of the morning overhead.  I felt that I was indeed set where\nI found myself to be, and that if now my little heart and brain are too\nsmall to hold the truth, yet I thanked God for making even the\nconception of the mystery, the width, the depth, possible to me; and I\nprayed to him that he would give me as much of the truth as I could\nbear.  And I do not doubt that he gave me that; for I felt for an\ninstant that whatever befell me, I was indeed a part of Himself; not a\nthing outside and separate; not even his son and his child: but Himself.\n\n\n\n\nXL\n\nAfter Death\n\nI had so strange a dream or vision the other night, that I cannot\nrefrain from setting it down; because the strangeness and the wonder of\nit seem to make it impossible for me to have conceived of it myself; it\nwas suggested by nothing, originated by nothing that I can trace; it\nmerely came to me out of the void.\n\nAfter confused and troubled dreams of terror and bewilderment, enacted\nin blind passages and stifling glooms, with crowds of unknown figures\npassing rapidly to and fro, I seemed to grow suddenly light-hearted and\njoyful.  I next appeared to myself to be sitting or reclining on the\ngrassy top of a cliff, in bright sunlight.  The ground fell\nprecipitously in front of me, and I saw to left and right the sharp\ncrags and horns of the rock-face below me; behind me was a wide space\nof grassy down, with a fresh wind racing over it.  The sky was\ncloudless.  Far below I could see yellow sands, on which a blue sea\nbroke in crisp waves.  To the left a river flowed through a little\nhamlet, clustered round a church; I looked down on the roofs of the\nsmall houses, and saw people passing to and fro, like ants.  The river\nspread itself out in shallow shining channels over the sand, to join\nthe sea.  Further to the left rose shadowy headland after headland, and\nto the right lay a broad well-watered plain, full of trees and\nvillages, bounded by a range of blue hills.  On the sea moved ships,\nthe wind filling their sails, and the sun shining on them with a\npeculiar brightness.  The only sound in my ears was that of the whisper\nof the wind in the grass and stone crags.\n\nBut I soon became aware with a shock of pleasant surprise that my\nperception of the whole scene was of a different quality to any\nperception I had before experienced.  I have spoken of seeing and\nhearing: but I became aware that I was doing neither; the perceptions,\nso to speak, both of seeing and hearing were not distinct, but the\nsame.  I was aware, for instance, at the same moment, of the _whole_\nscene, both of what was behind me and what was in front of me.  I have\ndescribed what I saw successively, because there is no other way of\ndescribing it; but it was all present at once in my mind, and I had no\nneed to turn my attention to one point or another, but everything was\nthere before me, in a unity at which I cannot even hint in words.  I\nthen became aware too, that, though I have spoken of myself as seated\nor reclined, I had no body, but was merely, as it were, a sentient\npoint.  In a moment I became aware that to transfer that sentience to\nanother point was merely an act of will.  I was able to test this; in\nan instant I was close above the village, which a moment before was far\nbelow me, and I perceived the houses, the very faces of the people\nclose at hand; at another moment I was buried deep in the cliff, and\nfelt the rock with its fissures all about me; at another moment,\nfollowing my wish, I was beneath the sea, and saw the untrodden sands\nabout me, with the blue sunlit water over my head.  I saw the fish dart\nand poise above me, the ribbons of sea-weed floating up, just swayed by\nthe currents, shells crawling like great snails on the ooze, crabs\nhurrying about among piles of boulders.  But something drew me back to\nmy first station, I know not why; and there I poised, as a bird might\nhave poised, and lost myself in a blissful dream.  Then it darted into\nmy mind that I was what I had been accustomed to call dead.  So this\nwas what lay on the other side of the dark passage, this lightness,\nthis perfect freedom, this undreamed-of peace!  I had not a single care\nor anxiety.  It seemed as if nothing could trouble my repose and\nhappiness.  I could only think with a deep compassion of those who were\nstill pent in uneasy bodies, under strait and sad conditions, anxious,\nsad, troubled, and blind, not knowing that the shadow of death which\nencompassed them was but the cloud which veiled the gate of perfect and\nunutterable happiness.\n\nI felt rising in my mind a sense of all that lay before me, of all the\nmysteries that I would penetrate, all the unvisited places that I would\nsee.  But at present I was too full of peace and quiet happiness to do\nanything but stay in an infinite content where I was.  All sense of\n_ennui_ or restlessness had left me.  I was utterly free, utterly\nblest.  I did, indeed, once send my thought to the home which I loved,\nand saw a darkened house, and my dear ones moving about with grief\nwritten legibly on their faces.  I saw my mother sitting looking at\nsome letters which I perceived to be my own, and was aware that she\nwept.  But I could not even bring myself to grieve at that, because I\nknew that the same peace and joy that filled me was also surely\nawaiting them, and the darkest passage, the sharpest human suffering,\nseemed so utterly little and trifling in the light of my new knowledge;\nand I was soon back on my cliff-top again, content to wait, to rest, to\nluxuriate in a happiness which seemed to have nothing selfish about it,\nbecause the satisfaction was so perfectly pure and natural.\n\nWhile I thus waited I became aware, with the same sort of sudden\nperception, of a presence beside me.  It had no outward form; but I\nknew that it was a spirit full of love and kindness: it seemed to me to\nbe old; it was not divine, for it brought no awe with it; and yet it\nwas not quite human; it was a spirit that seemed to me to have been\nhuman, but to have risen into a higher sphere of perception.  I simply\nfelt a sense of deep and pure companionship.  And presently I became\naware that some communication was passing between my consciousness and\nthe consciousness of the newly-arrived spirit.  It did not take place\nin words, but in thought; though only by words can I now represent it.\n\n\"Yes,\" said the other, \"you do well to rest and to be happy: is it not\na wonderful experience? and yet you have been through it many times\nalready, and will pass through it many times again.\"\n\nI suppose that I did not wholly understand this, for I said: \"I do not\ngrasp that thought, though I am certain it is true: have I then died\nbefore?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the other, \"many times.  It is a long progress; you will\nremember soon, when you have had time to reflect, and when the sweet\nnovelty of the change has become more customary.  You have but returned\nto us again for a little; one needs that, you know, at first; one needs\nsome refreshment and repose after each one of our lives, to be renewed,\nto be strengthened for what comes after.\"\n\nAll at once I understood.  I knew that my last life had been one of\nmany lives lived at all sorts of times and dates, and under various\nconditions; that at the end of each I had returned to this joyful\nfreedom.\n\nIt was the first cloud that passed over my thought.  \"Must I return\nagain to life?\" I said.\n\n\"Oh yes,\" said the other; \"you see that; you will soon return\nagain--but never mind that now; you are here to drink your fill of the\nbeautiful things which you will only remember by glimpses and visions\nwhen you are back in the little life again.\"\n\nAnd then I had a sudden intuition.  I seemed to be suddenly in a small\nand ugly street of a dark town.  I saw slatternly women run in and out\nof the houses; I saw smoke-stained grimy children playing in the\ngutter.  Above the poor, ill-kept houses a factory poured its black\nsmoke into the air, and hummed behind its shuttered windows.  I knew in\na sad flash of thought that I was to be born there, to be brought up as\na wailing child, under sad and sordid conditions, to struggle into a\nlife of hard and hopeless labour, in the midst of vice, and poverty,\nand drunkenness, and hard usage.  It filled me for a moment with a sort\nof nauseous dread, remembering the free and liberal conditions of my\nlast life, the wealth and comfort I had enjoyed.\n\n\"No,\" said the other; for in a moment I was back again, \"that is an\nunworthy thought--it is but for a moment; and you will return to this\npeace again.\"\n\nBut the sad thought came down upon me like a cloud.  \"Is there no\nescape?\" I said; and at that, in a moment, the other spirit seemed to\nchide me, not angrily, but patiently and compassionately.  \"One\nsuffers,\" he said, \"but one gains experience; one rises,\" adding more\ngently: \"We do not know why it must be, of course--but it is the Will;\nand however much one may doubt and suffer in the dark world there, one\ndoes not doubt of the wisdom or the love of it here.\"  And I knew in a\nmoment that I did not doubt, but that I would go willingly wherever I\nshould be sent.\n\nAnd then my thought became concerned with the spirit that spoke with\nme, and I said, \"And what is your place and work? for I think you are\nlike me and yet unlike.\"  And he said: \"Yes, it is true; I have to\nreturn thither no more; that is finished for me, and I grudge no single\nstep of the dark road: I cannot explain to you what my work or place\nis; but I am old, and have seen many things; each of us has to return\nand return, not indeed till we are made perfect, but till we have\nfinished that part of our course; but the blessedness of this peace\ngrows and grows, while it becomes easier to bear what happens in that\nother place, for we grow strong and simple and sincere, and then the\nworld can hurt us but little.  We learn that we must not judge men; but\nwe know that when we see them cruel and vicious and selfish, they are\nthen but children learning their first lessons; and on each of our\nvisits to this place we see that the evil matters less and less, and\nthe hope becomes brighter and brighter; till at last we see.\"  And I\nthen seemed to turn to him in thought, for he said with a grave joy:\n\"Yes, I have seen.\"  And presently I was left alone to my happiness.\n\nHow long it lasted I cannot tell; but presently I seemed less free,\nless light of heart; and soon I knew that I was bound; and after a\nspace I woke into the world again, and took up my burden of cares.\n\nBut for all that I have a sense of hopefulness left which I think will\nnot quite desert me.  From what dim cell of the brain my vision rose, I\nknow not, but though it came to me in so precise and clear a form, yet\nI cannot help feeling that something deep and true has been revealed to\nme, some glimpse of pure heaven and bright air, that lies outside our\nlittle fretted lives.\n\n\n\n\nXLI\n\nThe Eternal Will\n\nI have spoken above, I know well, of things in which I have no skill to\nspeak; I know no philosophy or metaphysics; to look into a\nphilosophical book is to me like looking into a room piled up with\nbricks, the pure materials of thought; they have no meaning for me,\nuntil the beautiful mind of some literary architect has built them into\na house of life; but just as a shallow pool can reflect the dark and\ninfinite spaces of night, pierced with stars, so in my own shallow mind\nthese perennial difficulties, which lie behind all that we do and say,\ncan be for a moment mirrored.\n\nThe only value that such thoughts can have in life is that they should\nteach us to live in a frank and sincere mood, waiting patiently for the\nLord, as the old Psalmist said.  My own philosophy is a very simple\none, and, if I could only be truer to it, it would bring me the\nstrength which I lack.  It is this; that being what we are, such frail,\nmysterious, inexplicable beings, we should wait humbly and hopefully\nupon God, not attempting, nor even wishing, to make up our minds upon\nthese deep secrets, only determined that we will be true to the inner\nlight, and that we will not accept any solution which depends for its\nsuccess upon neglecting or overlooking any of the phenomena with which\nwe are confronted.  We find ourselves placed in the world, in definite\nrelations with certain people, endowed with certain qualities, with\nfaults and fears, with hopes and joys, with likes and dislikes.  Evil\nhaunts us like a shadow, and though it menaces our happiness, we fall\nagain and again under its dominion; in the depths of our spirit a voice\nspeaks, which assures us again and again that truth and purity and love\nare the best and dearest things that we can desire; and that voice,\nhowever imperfectly, I try to obey, because it seems the strongest and\nclearest of all the voices that call to me.  I try to regard all\nexperience, whether sweet or bitter, fair or foul, as sent me by the\ngreat and awful power that put me where I am.  The strongest and best\nthings in the world seem to me to be peace and tranquillity, and the\nsame hidden power seems to be leading me thither; and to lead me all\nthe faster whenever I try not to fret, not to grieve, not to despair.\n\"_Casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you,_\" says the\nDivine Word; and the more that I follow intuition rather than reason,\nthe nearer I seem to come to the truth.  I have lately wasted much\nfruitless thought over an anxious decision, weighing motives,\nforecasting possibilities.  I knew at the time how useless it all was,\nand that my course would be made clear at the right moment; and I will\ntell the story of how it was made clear, as testimony to the perfect\nguidance of the divine hand.  I was taking a journey, and the weary\nprocess was going on in my mind; every possible argument for and\nagainst the step was being reviewed and tested; I could not read, I\ncould not even look abroad upon the world.  The train drew up at a dull\nsuburban station, where our tickets were collected.  The signal was\ngiven, and we started.  It was at this moment that the conviction came,\nand I saw how I must act, with a certainty which I could not gainsay or\nresist.  My reason had anticipated the opposite decision, but I had no\nlonger any doubt or hesitation.  The only question was how and when to\nannounce the result; but when I returned home the same evening there\nwas the letter waiting for me which gave the very opportunity I\ndesired; and I have since learnt without surprise that the letter was\nbeing penned at the very moment when the conviction came to me.\n\nI have told this experience in detail, because it seems to me to be a\nvery perfect example of the suddenness with which conviction comes.\nBut neither do I grudge the anxious reveries which for many days had\npreceded that conviction, because through them I learnt something of\nthe inner weakness of my nature.  But the true secret of it all is that\nwe ought to live as far as we can in the day, the hour, the minute; to\nwaste no time in anxious forecasting and miserable regrets, but just do\nwhat lies before us as faithfully as possible.  Gradually, too, one\nlearns that the restricting of what is called religion to certain times\nof prayer and definite solemnities is the most pitiful of all mistakes;\nlife lived with the intuition that I have indicated is all religion.\nThe most trivial incident has to be interpreted; every word and deed\nand thought becomes full of a deep significance.  One has no longer any\nanxious sense of duty; one desires no longer either to impress or\ninfluence; one aims only at guarding the quality of all one does or\nsays--or rather the very word \"aims\" is a wrong one; there is no longer\nany aim or effort, except the effort to feel which way the gentle\nguiding hand would have us to go; the only sorrow that is possible is\nwhen we rather perversely follow our own will and pleasure.\n\nThe reason why I desire this book to say its few words to my brothers\nand sisters of this life, without any intrusion of personality, is that\nI am so sure of the truth of what I say, that I would not have any one\ndistracted from the principles I have tried to put into words, by being\nable to compare it with my own weak practice.  I am so far from having\nattained; I have, I know, so many weary leagues to traverse yet, that I\nwould not have my faithless and perverse wanderings known.  But the\nsecret waits for all who can throw aside convention and insincerity,\nwho can make the sacrifice with a humble heart, and throw themselves\nutterly and fearlessly into the hands of God.  Societies,\norganisations, ceremonies, forms, authority, dogma--they are all\noutside; silently and secretly, in the solitude of one's heart, must\nthe lonely path be found; but the slender track once beneath our feet,\nall the complicated relations of the world become clear and simple.  We\nhave no need to change our path in life, to seek for any human guide,\nto desire new conditions, because we have the one Guide close to us,\ncloser than friend or brother or lover, and we know that we are set\nwhere he would have us to be.  Such a belief destroys in a flash all\nour embarrassment in dealing with others, all our anxieties in dealing\nwith ourselves.  In dealing with ourselves we shall only desire to be\nfaithful, fearless and sincere; in dealing with others we shall try to\nbe patient, tender, appreciative, and hopeful.  If we have to blame, we\nshall blame without bitterness, without the outraged sense of personal\nvanity that brings anger with it.  If we can praise, we shall praise\nwith generous prodigality; we shall not think of ourselves as a centre\nof influence, as radiating example and precept; but we shall know our\nown failures and difficulties, and shall realise as strongly that\nothers are led likewise, and that each is the Father's peculiar care,\nas we realise it about ourselves.  There will be no thrusting of\nourselves to the front, nor an uneasy lingering upon the outskirts of\nthe crowd, because we shall know that our place and our course are\ndefined.  We may crave for happiness, but we shall not resent sorrow.\nThe dreariest and saddest day becomes the inevitable, the true setting\nfor our soul; we must drink the draught, and not fear to taste its\nbitterest savour; it is the Father's cup.  That a Christian, in such a\nmood, can concern himself with what is called the historical basis of\nthe Gospels, is a thought which can only be met by a smile; for there\nstands the record of perhaps the only life ever lived upon earth that\nconformed itself, at every moment, in the darkest experiences that life\ncould bring, entirely and utterly to the Divine Will.  One who walks in\nthe light that I have spoken of is as inevitably a Christian as he is a\nhuman being, and is as true to the spirit of Christ as he is\nindifferent to the human accretions that have gathered round the august\nmessage.\n\nThe possession of such a secret involves no retirement from the world,\nno breaking of ties, no ecclesiastical exercises, no endeavour to\npenetrate obscure ideas.  It is as simple as the sunlight and the air.\nIt involves no protest, no phrase, no renunciation.  Its protest will\nbe an unconcerned example, its phrase will be a perfect sincerity of\nspeech, its renunciation will be what it does, not what it abstains\nfrom doing.  It will go or stay as the inner voice bids it.  It will\nnot attempt the impossible nor the novel.  Very clearly, from hour to\nhour, the path will be made plain, the weakness fortified, the sin\npurged away.  It will judge no other life, it will seek no goal; it\nwill sometimes strive and cry, it will sometimes rest; it will move as\ngently and simply in unison with the one supreme will, as the tide\nmoves beneath the moon, piled in the central deep with all its noises,\nflooding the mud-stained waterway, where the ships ride together, or\ncreeping softly upon the pale sands of some sequestered bay.\n\n\n\n\nXLII\n\nUntil the Evening\n\nI stop sometimes on a landing in an old house, where I often stay, to\nlook at a dusky, faded water-colour that hangs upon the wall.  I do not\nthink its technical merit is great, but it somehow has the poetical\nquality.  It represents, or seems to represent, a piece of high open\nground, down-land or heath, with a few low bushes growing there,\nsprawling and wind-brushed; a road crosses the fore-ground, and dips\nover to the plain beyond, a forest tract full of dark woodland, dappled\nby open spaces.  There is a long faint distant line of hills on the\nhorizon.  The time appears to be just after sunset, when the sky is\nstill full of a pale liquid light, before objects have lost their\ncolour, but are just beginning to be tinged with dusk.  In the road\nstands the figure of a man, with his back turned, his hand shading his\neyes as he gazes out across the plain.  He appears to be a wayfarer,\nand to be weary but not dispirited.  There is a look of serene and\nsober content about him, how communicated I know not.  He would seem to\nhave far to go, but yet to be certainly drawing nearer to his home,\nwhich indeed he seems to discern afar off.  The picture bears the\nsimple legend, _Until the evening_.\n\nThis design seems always to be charged for me with a beautiful and\ngrave meaning.  Just so would I draw near to the end of my pilgrimage,\nwearied but tranquil, assured of rest and welcome.  The freshness and\nblithe eagerness of the morning are over, the solid hours of sturdy\nprogress are gone, the heat of the day is past, and only the gentle\ndescent among the shadows remains, with cool airs blowing from darkling\nthickets, laden with woodland scents, and the rich fragrance of rushy\ndingles.  Ere the night falls the wayfarer will push the familiar gate\nopen, and see the lamplit windows of home, with the dark chimneys and\ngables outlined against the green sky.  Those that love him are\nawaiting him, listening for the footfall to draw near.\n\nIs it not possible to attain this?  And yet how often does it seem to\nbe the fate of a human soul to stumble, like one chased and hunted,\nwith dazed and terrified air, and hurried piteous phrase, down the\ndarkening track.  Yet one should rather approach God, bearing in\ncareful hands the priceless and precious gift of life, ready to restore\nit if it be his will.  God grant us so to live, in courage and trust,\nthat, when he calls us, we may pass willingly and with a quiet\nconfidence to the gate that opens into tracts unknown!\n\n\n\n\nCONCLUSION\n\n_And now I will try if I can in a few words to sum up what the purpose\nof this little volume has been, these pages torn from my book of life,\nthough I hope that some of my readers may, before now, have discerned\nit for themselves.  _The Thread of Gold_ has two chief qualities.  It\nis bright, and it is strong; it gleams with a still and precious light\nin the darkness, glowing with the reflected radiance of the little lamp\nthat we carry to guide our feet, and adding to the ray some rich tinge\nfrom its own goodly heart; and it is strong too; it cannot easily be\nbroken; it leads a man faithfully through the dim passages of the cave\nin which he wanders, with the dark earth piled above his head._\n\n_The two qualities that we should keep with us in our journey through a\nworld where it seems that so much must be dark, are a certain rich\nfiery essence, a glowing ardour of spirit, a mind of lofty temper,\nathirst for all that is noble and beautiful.  That first; and to that\nwe must add a certain soberness and sedateness of mood, a smiling\ntranquillity, a true directness of aim, that should lead us not to form\nour ideas and opinions too swiftly and too firmly; for then we suffer\nfrom an anxious vexation when experience contradicts hope, when things\nturn out different from what we had desired and supposed.  We should\ndeal with life in a generous and high-hearted mood, giving men credit\nfor lofty aims and noble imaginings, and not be cast down if we do not\nsee these purposes blazing and glowing on the surface of things; we\nshould believe that such great motives are there even if we cannot see\nthem; and then we should sustain our lively expectations with a deep\nand faithful confidence, assured that we are being tenderly and wisely\nled, and that the things which the Father shows us by the way, if they\nbewilder, and disappoint, and even terrify us, have yet some great and\nwonderful meaning, if we can but interpret them rightly.  Nay, that the\nvery delaying of these secrets to draw near to our souls, holds within\nit a strong and temperate virtue for our spirits._\n\n_Neither of these great qualities, ardour and tranquillity, can stand\nalone; if we aim merely at enthusiasm, the fire grows cold, the world\ngrows dreary, and we lapse into a cynical mood of bitterness, as the\nmortal flame turns low._\n\n_Nor must we aim at mere tranquillity; for so we may fall into a mere\nplacid acquiescence, a selfish inaction; our peace must be heartened by\neagerness, our zest calmed by serenity.  If we follow the fire alone,\nwe become restless and dissatisfied; if we seek only for peace, we\nbecome like the patient beasts of the field._\n\n_I would wish, though I grow old and grey-haired, a hundred times a day\nto ask why things are as they are, and to desire that they were\notherwise; and again a hundred times a day I would thank God that they\nare as they are, and praise him for showing me his will rather than my\nown.  For the secret lies in this; that we must not follow our own\nimpulses, and thus grow pettish and self-willed: neither must we float\nfeebly upon the will of God, like a branch that spins in an eddy;\nrather we must try to put our utmost energy in line with the will of\nGod, hasten with all our might where he calls us, and turn our back as\nresolutely as we can when he bids us go no further; as an eager dog\nwill intently await his master's choice, as to which of two paths he\nmay desire to take; but the way once indicated, he springs forward,\nelate and glad, rejoicing with all his might._\n\n_He leads me.  He leads me; but He has also given me this wild and\nrestless heart, these untamed desires: not that I may follow them and\nobey them, but that I may patiently discern His will, and do it to the\nuttermost._\n\n\n_Father, be patient with me, for I yield myself to Thee; Thou hast\ngiven me a desirous heart, and I have a thousand times gone astray\nafter vain shadows, and found no abiding joy.  I have been weary many\ntimes, and sad often; and I have been light of heart and very glad; but\nmy sadness and my weariness, my lightness and my joy have only blessed\nme, whenever I have shared them with Thee.  I have shut myself up in a\nperverse loneliness, I have closed the door of my heart, miserable that\nI am, even upon Thee.  And Thou hast waited smiling, till I knew that I\nhad no joy apart from Thee.  Only uphold me, only enfold me in Thy\narms, and I shall be safe; for I know that nothing can divide us,\nexcept my own wilful heart; we forget and are forgotten, but Thou alone\nrememberest; and if I forget Thee, at least I know that Thou forgettest\nnot me._","title":"The Thread of Gold","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":62693}