{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_43303/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_43303","id":"gutenberg_43303","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43303","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","Essays"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines.\n\n\n\n\n                             LURES OF LIFE\n\n\n                                   BY\n\n                              JOSEPH LUCAS\n\n                     AUTHOR OF \"OUR VILLA IN ITALY\"\n\n\n\n                         T. FISHER UNWIN, LTD.\n                        ADELPHI TERRACE, LONDON\n\n\n\n\n                 First published . . . . January, 1919.\n                 Second Impression . . . . June, 1919.\n\n\n\n\n                               *CONTENTS*\n\nCHAPTER\n\n      I. THE LURE OF LIFE'S AFTERGLOW\n     II. THE LURE OF HAPPINESS\n    III. THE LURE OF SELF-DENIAL\n     IV. THE LURE OF MAGIC WORDS\n      V. THE LURE OF AN OLD TUSCAN GARDEN\n     VI. THE LURE OF THE MONTELUPO PLATE\n    VII. THE LURE OF PLUCK\n   VIII. THE LURE OF OLD FURNITURE\n     IX. THE LURE OF PERSONALITY\n      X. THE LURE OF NICE PEOPLE\n     XI. THE LURE OF THE NEW DEMOCRACY\n    XII. JESUS CHRIST THE LURE OF THE AGES\n   XIII. THE LURE OF THE LIVING WORD\n    XIV. THE LURE OF THE EUCHARIST\n\n\n\n\n                            *LURES OF LIFE*\n\n\n\n                                  *I*\n\n                     *THE LURE OF LIFE'S AFTERGLOW*\n\n\nA friend put me in remembrance that I had a birthday recently.  Birthday\nemotion with an old man is an extinct crater.  When I was young a coming\nbirthday set my pulse throbbing to mad music weeks beforehand; it filled\nme with delightful anticipations. Romance gathered round the happy\nevent. Our thoughts tripped capriciously along the primrose paths of the\nfuture.  I felt myself preordained to greatness.  The hoarded treasure\nheld in bond for me was surely there awaiting delivery, and Time the\nmagician's wand would wave its largesse into my outstretched eager\nhands, and, clothed in honour, I should ride prosperously all the days\nof my life.\n\nTo the youngster starting on the grand tour of life, the journey is a\nsplendid venture. The cup held to the lips overflows with rich, ripe,\nsparkling liquor; every draught of it is nectar, exhilarating the\nspirits, expanding the experience, and discoursing music on every chord\nof the harp of a thousand strings. It is superb doing, riding life on a\nflowing tide when the warm south wind blows, and the air is redolent\nwith aromatic spices, when driftwood floats from distant climes, and\nshore-birds sail in the central blue signalling that the Land of Heart's\nDesire will soon be reached.  Truly youth takes life with a zest of its\nown.\n\nYes, the birthday is a happy day to the young.  You rejoice that you are\na year older and of added consequence and stature in the world of men,\nand a step nearer realizing the daydreams sweetly dreamed in school,\nwhen the magic of life filled you with wonder and awe.  Birthday joy\nincreases immensely until the period of ecstatic joy crowns all, when\nyou score twenty-one years and write yourself down a man.  You are no\nlonger a flower in the bud worn in anybody's buttonhole, but a\nwell-developed plant on your own root growing in the open.  When you get\ntwice twenty-one birthday joy cloys on your palate, and you begin to\nresent the intrusion of the natal day as an unwelcome guest that you\nhave seen too often. He reminds you that you are growing old and growing\nolder.  Your friends may crown the day with roses and toast you at the\nevening dinner in your best champagne let loose for the occasion, but\nthe obvious remains, and your response to their unblushing flattery is\nnot gushing as of yore. You tire of birthday greetings and birthday\nfestivities; your vivacity flags; your digestion suffers.  The thoughts\nthat adorn the occasion are chiefly reminiscent, for the horizon of the\nfuture is narrowing down and leaves less space for Fancy in which to fly\nher kite.\n\nWhen I had covered my half-century a curious feeling like an electric\nshock chased along every fibre of my being on facing the cold, hard fact\nfor the first time; I had grown old, and done it surreptitiously.  Time\nglides smoothly, silently, swiftly, and startled as from a deep sleep,\none marvels at the hot haste of the rolling years.  You dread nearing\nthe vortex of the great unknown to which we all inevitably steer, and\nfinally sink beneath its swirling surface.  The outlook is disturbing.\nCan't you put down the brake and gentle the pace?  Will no opiate drug\nTime into forgetfulness?  You try the rejuvenating influences of Mrs.\nAllen's Hair Restorer, but nothing happens.  The bald spot on the crown\nof your head increases in baldness and shining splendour.  The longer\nyou watch it, the larger it grows.  Time baffles your artful devices,\nsmiles at your wild alarms, and drives from you the crimson days of\nyouth, with their vigour and vivacity, leaving in your possession a\nfeeling of comfortable lethargy which solidifies into pacific\nblissfulness.  Insensibly a change has passed over you with the mounting\nyears.  How the change wrought you do not know.  Where you crossed the\nfrontier which in the twinkling of an eye ranked you amongst the elders\nyou cannot say.  Who can tell the moment when summer ends and autumn\ncommences?  Who can cut a clean cleavage between afternoon and evening\nhours?\n\nHowever, you settle down to an old man's pleasures.  You dislike being\nhustled after dinner.  You prefer a quiet rubber at Bridge in a cosy\nroom, with shaded lights, and a silent cigar with cronies of a choice,\nfamiliar brand as playmates.  You prefer it to strenuously dancing in a\nstuffy, glaring ball-room till morning hours chase the stale and weary\ndancers to their homes.  It is too fatiguing an amusement to make\npleasure for you, as there is no new romance to be looked for after\nfifty.  Anticipation at your ripe age is wasted stimulant.  Boys dream\nof the future, old men live in the present.  Youth, once upon a time,\nwas an asset held in hand, a rich inheritance to be proud of, but now\nthe treasury of youth is spent to the last coin and only the empty\ncoffer remains, a memento of the vanished wealth of early days.  You are\na middle-aged man aged fifty, and you settle down to it solidly and\nsquarely and comfortably.  You will never be young and flippant again\nthis side the harbour-bar.\n\nAs we steer cautiously into the sixties and face the grand climacteric,\nlife grows pensive. Sober reflections automatically cast their\nlengthening shadows over us.  We have drunk copiously of the wine of\nlife, and are now coming to the dregs of the bottle.  We get moody.\nMeridian sunshine has not fructified the promise of youth as we\nappointed it.  Lean years have eaten up years of plenty.  We have\ngathered tares with the wheat which brought disappointment into the\nstorehouse.  Varied experiences have chequered life with cross lights\nand shadows. The grand ideals of sanguine youth have dissolved like\ndreams at daybreak, and instead of the great achievement ours is the\ncommon lot.  Rates and taxes are hardy annuals that flourish undisturbed\namidst the ruins.  Are we downhearted because the romance of life has\nfizzled out like spent fireworks and left us in darkness?  We did not\nexpect to finish up in obscurity.  Are we downhearted? No; after the\nstruggle and stress of conflict we get our second breath; and the calm\nof age overtakes us.  The halcyon hours set in to cheer us.  I now move\nairily along the line of least resistance, and this brings tranquillity\nof mind in my advancing years.  We are no longer broody.  Experience\nbreaks one in gently to the monotony of daily routine, and the collar\nneither frets nor rubs the shoulder, for the velvet lining of\ncontentment softens the friction and we trudge along serenely going\nWest.\n\nEverything contributes to make an old man's lot happy if the salt of\nlife has not lost its savour.  We have played the game, and now we watch\nothers take their innings. It is good fun to watch.  I tell you it is\nmusic to the eye watching the gay young world go its own way.  The\nswagger, the _bravoure_, the buoyancy of its manners, stagger the dull\nparental mind.  There is rhythm in its movements, there is character in\nits gaiety.  It tops the record of the far-off days of splendour when\nwe, their portly ancestors, were down in the arena beating up the dust\nof conflict, and considered ourselves the cream of modernity and the\nfinest goods in the market.  The youth of to-day has its hand on the\nwheel and the joy-car pads merrily, heedless of speed limits, for time\nhas no limit and life sings a pleasant song to boys of the new regime.\n\nLife's afterglow is the period when the past is viewed through the\ngolden haze of memory and we live over again the days of our youth, the\nsplendid days of hope and promise. Pleasant things and pleasant people\nare remembered, and disagreeable events that vexed us are forgotten.  We\nwipe clean from the slate memories that are unwelcome. From the mellowy\ndistance we admire the picture in its broad outlines; its uninteresting\ndetails drop out of sight.  It is the vivid patches of colour upon the\ncanvas where the eye lingers lovingly and long.  It is the happy past\nthat enchants the memory to-day.\n\nAn old man glances over his shoulder adown the long pathway of receding\nyears hungrily, and muses to himself, \"Oh, to be out in the world again\nas I knew it fifty years ago, with the same sunny people about me; to\nmeet them on the old familiar footing. We had capacious times together;\nwe understood one another and loved one another with kindred hearts and\nflowing speech.  I talk with people nowadays, but these new friends of\nmine are not responsive.  There is a glass screen between us as we talk\ntogether; we sit near one another, but we are far apart.  I catch a\nfar-off glint in their eye which holds me at arm's-length.  Our lips are\nrestrained, our thoughts are bottled up. It seems like sitting together\nin a room with blinds drawn, talking in the dark.  Yes; new friends at\nbest are but amiable strangers, for we met one another only when the\nflower of life had wilted and the leaf was sere and yellow on the tree.\nThe full, unrestrained days when the sap was rising, the blossoming days\nof youth, were lived apart.  I do not know these good people intimately,\nand I never can, and they can never know me.  We each have a buried past\nwhich is sacred ground where the other never treads.\"\n\nI met recently a grey-haired man who was a schoolboy friend of mine.  A\nwide sundering gap of years lies between us since our previous meeting,\nbut at once we grasped hands and knew each other intimately, although\nmid-life with each had been filled with a fulness the other knew nothing\nof.  As boys we chummed together, and now we renewed our ancient\nfriendship on olden lines.  We had studied the same lessons, slept in\nthe same dormitory, sculled in the same boat, fought in the same\nplayground scrimmages, and, having met again after long intervening\nyears, we had endless youthful reminiscences in common to discuss and\nlife-histories to relate. There was no need to sit on the safety-valve\nto throttle down the conversation.  Talk came, a flowing stream bubbling\nup from the hot springs of the heart.  Our meeting had the perfume of\nromance clinging to it, which made golden the precious hours in the\nspending.  Two grey-haired men chattering with their heads together for\nthe nonce were merry schoolboys.  The present was forgotten; the past\nwas everything to them while the old enthusiasms flared up brightly and\nshot a warm rosy afterglow athwart life's pleasant evening hour.\n\nLoafing is a privilege of one's declining years.  It is an agreeable\nform of laziness which sits well upon old shoulders.  It is that mellow\nstate of stagnant content which pervades the mind when the natural force\nabates.  I do not extol it as a virtue, I claim it as a privilege.  It\nhelps to fill gaps in the daily round when business no longer engages\nyour attention and office hours are a dread ordeal done with for ever.\nHaving dropped out of the marching line and become a spectator of the\npassing show, what more natural than that you manifest a livelier\ncuriosity in other people's activities than in your own sluggish\nmovements.  I love to spend a sunny morning lingering on the old garden\nseat, chatting to a friend, or watching the energetic youngsters at play\namongst the roses.  I find it enjoyable to take my pitch on the pierhead\nwith the gay summer crowd ambling along, passing and repassing my post\nof observation, and watch the pretty and well-accoutred girls angling\nfor admiration, and the budding men in spotless flannels flashing\nanswering glances to catch the lasses' eyes; an endless conversation\ngoing on without voices whispering a word; they look at each other and\nlaugh, and the incipient mystery of the thing slips into their blood.\n\nI was once reluctant to relinquish youth. Its passions and pleasure made\nmy life intensely joyous in a clean, healthy way.  I resented the horrid\nfact that with encroaching years I was no longer able to wake the old\nthrill of existence by any of the old methods. The call came to me, but\nnature responded not to its alluring voice.  The spent fires could not\nbe rekindled; and in a tragic moment the truth stood uncovered in its\nstark nakedness: \"I am growing old!\"  I had to readjust my bearings in\nlife to meet the new situation.  I found it better to walk in step with\nthe years and melt into middle life with all the gentle conciliations of\nan easy mind than to clutch at the hem of the garment of departing youth\nand hold on frantically to a corpse; and so it came to pass youth, with\nits frank, jovial, devil-may-care lightheartedness, was surrendered\nground, and I put on a splendid face, taking up a new position in the\nrear as an old fogy, a little moss-grown, but still alive, healthy,\nhappy, and hearty.\n\n\n\n\n                                  *II*\n\n                        *THE LURE OF HAPPINESS*\n\n\nThe joy of living is to grasp life in its fullness just as it comes to\nus clean and sweet from the hand of God; to eat the grapes that grow in\nour own vineyard; to feed on the honey captured from our own hives; and\nto bask in the sunshine blessing our own garden plot.  Some people\ncannot do this.  They were born sour and fail to ripen.  They remind me\nof the Church of St. Lorenzo at Florence, built but never finished, and\nshowing a dejected mien to the passer-by.  They hold on to life timidly\nwith cold and clammy hands, and smile with glum visage and call it all\nvanity and vexation of spirit. Happiness frets them like a lump of\nundigested pickle lying heavy on their chest; they want to throw it off\nand be at ease in their misery. They consider it wickedness to enjoy\nthings--to wallow in sunshine.  They say we ought to content ourselves\nwith bare commodities needful for existence.  The primitive man was\nhappy.  He had no shirt to wash, no taxes to pay, no barns to fill with\nplenty. We must be primitive to be happy.  Deplete the wealthy of their\nwealth; sink society to a common ground-level (allow us boots to wear in\nthis muddy climate, if you please), and then everyone will be healthy,\nhappy, and poor.  Stepping out of his well-appointed motor-car, the\nup-to-date man spurns the primitive craze and blazes forth, \"Is thy\nservant a dog that he should house in a kennel?\"  Surely civilization\nmeans creature comfort; everyone wants something larger than bare\nnecessities to embellish life.  The Creator rears us on finer lines than\nHe raises cattle on the marshes.  Year by year He lavishes before our\neyes Nature's prodigal store of ornament.  Every yard of hedgerow,\n\"those liberal homes of unmarketable beauty,\" contradict the crank who\nwould confine us to the needful.\n\nThe dusty utilitarian sees the world only as a crowded granary, a\nchattering marketplace in which to buy and sell and get gain. The Divine\nArtist enriches the picture by painting in exquisitely the flowering\nhawthorn and fragrant violets, and by tuning the throat of the skylark\nto rarest melody; and concurrently He attunes the soul of man, which\nthrills appreciation, and delights in these manifestations of Sovereign\ngoodness. He not merely appeases the hunger of the human body, but feeds\nthe rarer appetites of the human mind with radiant viands; and the more\ngodlike in stature man grows, the more fully he appreciates God-given\nart and beauty flung like flowers across his pathway.\n\nEverybody is happy in his own order. The history of many a man's life is\nthe story of a soul's wandering in search of happiness. Some people are\nhappy in their misery. Even when nursing their spleen they do it\ncomfortably.  They dilate on their grief with real zest of morbid\nenthusiasm that it flings a blazing cheerfulness over their cold grey\nlives.  It sets them purring with sweet content when an auditor listens\nto their woeful outpourings.  This is the cheapest form of happiness,\nand reflects an impoverished mind thrown back upon itself.\n\nHazlitt, the essayist, gently prods these crazy egoists with a sharp pen\nand says, \"Pure pleasures are in their judgment cloying and insipid; an\nounce of sour is worth a pound of sweet.\"  Farquhar, the lively\ndramatist, mocks their folly when portraying the gushing Lady Constance,\nwho, on finding the miniature of her absent lover lying on the floor,\npicks it up and exclaims: \"Now I am fitted out for sorrow.  With this\nI'll sigh, with this converse, gaze on his image till I grow blind with\nweeping.  It is the only thing could give me joy, because it will\nincrease my grief.\"\n\nHappiness is a gift of temperament.  The occupation that makes one man\nhappy the day long would be capital punishment to another man.  I have\nknown people to possess everything and enjoy nothing; others, who\npossess little, dwell in paradise.  It is a braver thing to extract\nhoney from the hive of life than to leave it rotting in the comb. Alas!\nthese weak-kneed, nervous mortals who are afraid of being too happy:\nthey tremble as they sit at the banquet.  They toy with a lean and\nhungry fate and dare not clasp a full-bosomed blessing.  They prefer\nmisery as a diet, with a spice of religion thrown in to flavour it.\nThey fancy self-inflicted misery is a virtue to be cultivated, and a\ngrace to be counted for righteousness. We shrewdly detect in such\nconduct a pose. It lacks the grace of sincerity.  Such people, overfed\non misery, fatten on it incontinently. It is the diet of a low,\nmelancholy temperament.\n\nThere is no standard-pattern happiness planned to suit the temperament\nof everybody like the map of a city which all travellers follow to find\ntheir bearings.  Happiness is a city that each person maps out for\nhimself; its highways and byways are of his own engineering and grow to\nmatch his own requirements.  Happiness is not a sloppy garment like a\nready-made coat that you buy in a store.  Happiness must be made to fit.\nIn fact, every man makes his own happiness.\n\nWe all distil pleasure out of life in our peculiar way.  Only our ways\ndiffer as the poles asunder.  One man cannot understand where the other\nman's relish for life comes in.  What is nauseous as bitter herbs in one\nmouth tastes delicate as the wines of Orvieto on another palate.  A\nfamous American millionaire found greater satisfaction in the simple\npleasure of attending funerals than in all the superb luxuries which his\nmillions brought him.  We do not envy his simple pleasure.  It was an\ninnocent method of enjoyment peculiarly his own.\n\nI knew a man who made an income of over L10,000 a year by hard work, and\nhis pleasure was immense in doing it.  One half of his relaxation in\nlife was making more income, and the other half his amusement consisted\nin lecturing people on the evil of extravagance if they spent \"tuppence\"\non a bus fare instead of walking three-pennyworth of leather off the\nsoles of their boots.  He never spent \"tuppence\" himself if he could\nsave it.  He drove life at high pressure, and enjoyed the sensations of\na quick run.  People called him a money-making machine devoid of fine\nfeeling.  People made a mistake.  His nature was highly strung.  He was\nkeenly sensitive to pleasure--the pleasure of money-making. It was the\npoetry, the luxury, the fine art of life all rolled into one, and it\nquickened the gay emotions within him that seeing a good play, hearing\nan eloquent sermon or driving a spanking four-in-hand to Ascot on a fine\nJune morning, excites in other people. There are various buttons to\npress, but they all send the same thrill of earthly pleasure tingling\nthrough the human frame.  Different hands strike the same chords on the\nharp of life, and they tremble into song.\n\nSome heroically minded people assert there are only two things in life:\nduty and happiness.  It is not everybody who wants to do his duty--that\nis a special gift of Providence few enjoy.  But everyone wants to be\nhappy, and happiness is the greatest thing of all: other people's\nhappiness as well as our own. We are not all sagacious to discern the\nangel of duty when she comes mixed in a promiscuous assembly of spirits\nless honourable than she.  They all dress becomingly and smile\nbewitchingly that you cannot mark her down; her radiance shines no\nbrighter than other luminous spirits that accompany her. We should try\nthe spirits whether they be good or evil ones.  However, they move\nfirst, and try us with their beauty, their flattery, and their gilded\npromises.  According to the gospel of St. Robert Louis Stevenson, there\nis no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.\n\nA third thing some people suggest makes life worth living is experience.\nExperience, they maintain, is a more valuable treasure than happiness;\nexperience is a pearl of great price, and we must sell all we have to\npossess it.  The world is spacious; range it widely, breathe its bracing\nairs, sail its deep seas in search of experience.  Pursue it, and if in\nthe pursuit you are blown about by the fickle winds of fate, the\nbuffeting may be disagreeable, but it is most exhilarating and healthy\nto the earnest seeker after experience.  Provided you are blown, and\nblown violently, the direction of the gale matters not; the north-easter\nand the zephyr both teach.  Experience builds up character and increases\nknowledge, though during building operations your wisdom may remain a\nstationary virtue.  If you come out of the conflict with only experience\nto your credit at the other end of the struggle be thankful. Life is\nvery good.  Its chief spoils may be anguish and sorrow, yet experience\nmakes it full and rich.\n\nThe logic of this cold philosophy needs consideration before adopting it\nas gospel. If a dinted shield and a broken sword are the only spoils you\nbring home from the wars and hang up in the family parlour as trophies\nof victory, it is not an adequate recompense for the rich and vital\nexperience gained in the fight.  Experience was what Don Quixote in the\nslippered comfort of his home hungered after.  It was what he found on\nhis travels, and after passing through much tribulation it was the one\nprize he brought home with him at the journey's end.  Experience many an\nambitious man has found to be as an empty goblet to his thirsty lips.\n\nWhen the Creator was busy in the minting-house He did not cast his\ncreatures all in the same mould, or coin them of the same metal. Some\npeople are of fine temperament, cram full of emotion; they are all\nfeeling, and express their feeling vigorously.  Other people are of\nbaser metal.  They are stolid, and pass through life neither contented\nnor discontented with their lot; they are neither happy nor miserable.\nThey are well-regulated clocks running slowly down to the last tick, and\nthen ceasing to tick at all. Monotony is the bane of their existence,\nblighting it with double dulness.  They feel little and say nothing\nabout it.  One never knows what hidden compensations life provides for\nits multitudinous offspring.  These torpid people must have a secret\nwell of satisfaction from which they dip refreshing draughts in thirsty\nmoments.\n\nThe child of emotion is more vivacious; he has colour, romance,\nmovement.  He is of a rarer vintage; there is sparkle in the wine of\nlife.  Occasionally the wine turns sour and drops flavour.  Disagreeable\npeople do exist for some veiled purpose of Providence, as the species\nnever becomes extinct in the land.  In infancy they were rocked in the\ncradle of discontent, and they have seldom slept out of it since.  They\nhave grown up in a nursery of their own.  They are highly strung, and\nhave a genius for living in the moment--irritably.  Their wit is\nbrilliant, it scintillates like running water in the sunshine, but it\ncuts like a razor. Everybody within reach of their tongue, even innocent\npeople, feel the whip of their capricious temper.  I suppose some grim\npleasure feeds their fiery nature when they subdue friend and enemy\nunder them.  It is an unenviable pleasure which they enjoy; nobody\nshares with them, and when their ill-humour dies down it must leave a\nnasty taste in their mouth.\n\nIf you want to be happy, do not expect too much from life.  Do not ask\nmore from friendship than you give, for eventually the balance is sure\nto adjust itself.  Do not ask more than your share of good things; if\nyou do exceed the limit, disappointment will dog your footsteps all the\nday.  You cannot expect to be always happy.  Trouble and sorrow come to\nall of us, with a difference. Some people extract comfort out of\ntrouble, and it assuages their grief; others add worry to their woe, and\nit aggravates their vexation of spirit.\n\nMotor-cars carry a little dynamo on board and generate their own\nelectric current as they travel, and after dark, with the great\nheadlights glowing, they travel pleasantly and safe.  A contented mind\nis a dynamo we can carry with us, and it generates its own happiness as\nwe travel.  It illumines the journey of life and makes it pleasant to\nourselves and agreeable to friends travelling in our company.\n\nDo not grizzle over chances missed in life and \"might have beens\" which\nsprinkle your past like gravestones dotting a churchyard, inscribed\n\"sacred to the memory of cherished griefs still hugged and spasmodically\nwept over.\"  Convert the mossy tombstones into wayside shrines which\nloving hands garland with fresh flowers, while grateful hearts fondly\nlinger there, recalling pleasant things and sweet companionship which\ngladdened your pilgrim way.  Do not erect mural tablets to dead\nambitions in the little sanctuary of your memory; build altars there\ninstead whereon you can offer acceptable oblations of praise for evils\nescaped and for the crown of loving-kindness with which the Everlasting\nArms encircle you.\n\nIf we only had the gift of humour on us it would make \"life more amusing\nthan we thought.\"  Our eyes would open to a new world wherein kinder\npeople dwell and where brighter sunshine warms the heart's red blood and\nchases down the gloom we anticipate to-morrow that may never come.\n\n\n\n\n                                 *III*\n\n                       *THE LURE OF SELF-DENIAL*\n\n\nSelf-denial is not the highest form of virtue, nor is it a permanent\ncondition of life for man to live in; yet it is a lure that draws men to\nmartyrdoms as the flame collects moths to the burning.  Man was not\npredestinated to a life of self-abnegation. Self-denial is a compromise\nbetween misery and happiness.  Human nature does not thrive on\ncompromise; it does not develop in austerities.  Self-denial has its\nvalue in the scheme of moral education.  Training is good for man if he\ndoes not carry it too far.  You can overtrain.  The scholar trains; he\ndiscreetly withdraws from gay life and inflicts on himself long hours of\nlonely study that he may rank in the list of University honours. The\njockey trains, and punishes himself in so doing that he may ride to win.\nIt is the same the world over: pain is joy in the making.  Where\nself-denial is the driving power in religious life it leads, not to\nhappiness, but to asceticism: to the lonely cell of the misanthropic\nmonk, the pedestal of St. Simon Stylates, or the self-torture of the\nIndian fakir.  Deluded people these, who build up life on self-denial as\nthe pinnacle virtue to which man can soar while on earth. None of these\npeople set self-denial in its proper place in the human economy--viz., a\nmeans to an end.  It is the end-all in their vision of life, and so\ntheir life is dismal in the living and disappointing in its purpose.\n\nSelf-denial is necessary and serves a healthy purpose.  It is necessary\nto man's spiritual welfare as medicine or the surgeon's knife may be\nnecessary to his physical health.\n\nMan is of twofold nature: the animal and the spiritual, the good and the\nbad, the superior and the inferior--label it as you please.  Self-denial\nis putting the inferior quality under the superior one; self-denial is\nfollowing the higher inspiration at the expense of the lower instincts.\n\"Self-denial\": the very word implies, repressing desires, renouncing\npleasures, suffering pain.  It means living from choice on the shady,\ndank side of the street rather than basking in the open sunny piazza\nwhen only a few steps place you there, where the children play and the\nold men foregather deep in the hallowed sunshine.  Self-denial is not\nthe crowning virtue--it is just the market price we pay that we may\ngarner a harvest of happiness in the recompensing days of autumn.\n\nThe Divine purpose in man is growth, not repression of growth; it is to\nexpand, to unfold, to develop character.  To pass from bud to flower in\nmoral and spiritual excellence, not to stunt manhood till its fairest\nfeatures are arrested in growth, and moral atrophy sets up a canker in\nthe bud, and ugliness usurps the seat of beauty in a man's character.\nUgliness everywhere may be left to the devil as his monopoly.\nSelf-denial is the grubby chrysalis; happiness is the golden butterfly\non the wing.\n\nNot self-denial, but enjoyment, is the highest good and the truest test\nof character. Enjoyment; rejoicing in that which ought to delight us in\nthis our earthly life--this is a finer attainment than self-denial.\nEnjoyment means a full life, living upon our whole nature, and\nwell-balanced withal in the living.  It seems an attractive and sinless\nprogramme to subscribe to, yet it is difficult to draw a boundary-line\nbetween enjoyment and excess.  This is where the crux comes in.  This is\nverily the fire that tries every man's work of what sort it is.  It is\ncruel punishment to crush your passions and pleasures out of\nexistence--that is self-denial. It is splendid discipline to give them\nplay and at the same time hold them in control--that is enjoyment.\nSuccess in this great endeavour brings the victor into marching-line\nwith the angels, and yields a finer exaltation and a larger recompense\nthan trampling on the lilies.\n\nIt is more difficult to hold steadily a full cup than to carry an empty\nflagon.  It is a doleful religion that uproots every flower in the\ngarden as a noxious weed until only the naked brown earth remains to\ngaze upon in the blessed sunshine.  It is a scurvy trick of virtue to\nspill the heady liquor on the ground and then with a flourish place the\nempty chalice an offering on the altar.  Abstinence is the morality of\nthe weak, temperance is the morality of the strong.\n\nA deep enjoying nature is one of God's best gifts to man.  The happy man\nis generally the best of his breed.  The good are usually happy, and the\nhappy are usually good.  There are no short cuts to being happy, you\nmust be really good to win through.  If our daily occupation is\ncongenial to our taste and disposition, our mind dwells at ease and our\nnature mellows in the sunshine of agreeable surroundings.  Our sense of\ncontentment radiates good humour and makes us kindly and benevolent to\nothers.  We are not chafed and fretted by duties irksome to us, because\nuncongenial. We are fulfilling destiny, and fulfilling it with\ncompleteness of purpose.  Those around us feel the warm, penetrating\nsunshine of our hearts, and they grow warm under the mystic touch of the\nsun.  It is for this reason that happiness becomes a holy quest with us,\nfor out of it spring the virtues which robe life in beauty and gladness.\nOne of the most precious of human faculties is the power to enjoy.\n\nSelf-denial is either a tyranny or a virtue, and should be praised with\ncircumspection. Many feverishly religious people debase its moral\ncurrency.  They hinder their own happiness and thwart the happiness of\nothers as far as in them lies, and fancy in so doing they keep the whole\nten commandments of God.\n\nSelf-denial for the sake of self-denial is a pagan rite: cold, pitiless,\nsterile.  Renunciation and suffering prove nothing.  Men have renounced\nand suffered for the greed of gold, for the lust of ambition, for the\nhonour of a blood-stained idol, and lost moral stamina in so doing.  The\nexperience of ages brands deep the flaming truth upon us that sacrifice\nmust be valued according to the object for which the sacrifice is made.\nSacrifice for its own sake weaves no crown of glory for the martyr's\nbrow.  It is a form of amiable suicide.  If you starve yourself for the\nsake of showing mastery over self, what thank have ye?  The heathen do\neven the same--and do it better.  It is an act of self-torture, and\nministers to your pride of purpose. But to give up a meal when hungry\nthat one you love may have it puts a better complexion on the deed.  To\nbear pain for the grim joy of bearing it brings no reward. Do not even\nthe Stoics the same?  But to bear pain rather than surrender truth or to\ncover a suffering friend is a loving and heroic act, meriting a V.C.\nwhen spiritual honours are distributed.\n\nThe old painters pictured in glowing witchery of colour the ordeal by\nsuffering as the master-key that opened the gates of paradise to\nmacerated mortals.  The old writers drove home the same insidious error\nwith all the pious fervour of their fluent pen, and thus men became\nfascinated with the doctrine of self-immolation as the highest good.  In\nmediaeval times the _via dolorosa_ was the well-trodden public way\ntravelled by sainted pilgrims seeking a better country.\n\nMeritorious misery won through, for it was aureoled with the Church's\nbenediction and rendered attractive by her promise of eternal rewards.\nSurely this daily human life of ours was not ordained to be a pageant of\nausterity reaching from the cradle to the grave.  The Creator, having\ngiven this beautiful world as a temporary home for His children to dwell\nin, expects agreeable people to occupy its furnished splendours for a\nspace of three score years and ten, more or less. If not, then the\nCreator's gift is wasted bounty flung to dull and unappreciative\nmortals.\n\nBrighter and healthier views of life emerge out of the crude\nmisconceptions which enveloped the past in religious gloom, although\nthere yet remain amongst us people who revel in the luxury of\nself-denial as in a feast of fat things, while the genial side of their\nnature remains dormant, starved, stunted.  I have seen such-like in the\nflesh, spoken with them and touched their cold hands.  They are\nunattractive people to know, and not companionable to travel with. They\nare faultless, methodical, patient, but they have no endearing\nfriendships, no entwining intimacies by which you can fasten on them and\nlove them.  They are isolated and self-contained, lacking the charm of\nsome little human weakness which makes us all akin.  They may have a\nwarm heart, but chilled blood circulates round it.  Their eyes glitter\nlike glaciers at the call of duty.  They hurry from committee meeting to\ncommittee meeting, and forget to lunch between engagements.  They shine\nin the performance of self-imposed errands of mercy, and live by rule\nrelentlessly at any cost to pocket, health, or reputation.  They\nminister to the sick and poor assiduously, and mother a class of poor\nfactory girls in the evening, but their home is shivery to enter as a\ncold storage. A cold storage is a curious place to visit, but an\nimpossible place to dwell in, except for frozen goods.\n\nIt is possible to make the best of both worlds without an uncomfortable\nsense of sin nagging you like toothache; it is possible to work for\nothers and yet tend your own vineyard with whole-hearted joy garnered\nfrom the wonder and beauty and sunshine of this our earthly home.  The\nman is not a miscreant who laughs heartily and often: the person is not\na saint who starves his body to save his soul.\n\nThe harassing question is, How can we make the best of life as it comes\nto us a day at a time, and yet sail on an even keel?  It is the problem\nthat prophets, savants, and theologians have hammered at through the\nages, but have not yet forged in fine gold the key that unlocks the\nmystery; thus there is an opening for us to cut in before the final word\nis uttered and the discussion battens down under a unanimous show of\nhands, which crowning mercy will be the last far-off result of time.\nThe question agitating the moment is, What shall we do with the fair\nflower of our earthly life?  Shall we enjoy it as we would the beauty\nand fragrance of a rose, thanking the good God for a gift so sweet and\nprecious, or shall we with peevish fingers pick the rose to pieces petal\nby petal and crush it under foot, fearing its beauty may seduce our\nvirtue and its perfume poison our soul?\n\nLet us preserve the rose inviolate.  Its role is to be joy-giver on the\nearth.  I would sooner sit with Jesus Christ at the marriage feast in\nCana of Galilee and drink with Him wine of the best vintage that ever\nflowed on festive board than sup with John Baptist in the wilderness on\nhis menu of locusts and wild honey.  The exquisite scene my imagination\nquaintly pictures is Jesus Christ and John the Baptist sitting together\nat the banquet, and each enjoying the meal with equal zest.\n\nThe Renaissance which fascinated half Europe in the fifteenth century,\nlike a carillon of joy-bells ringing through the land, stirring the dull\npulses of the people and reviving generous and graceful ideals of life,\nwas just open rebellion against the crabbed austerities of the Church,\npractised in the name of religion falsely so called.  The people threw\noff the galling yoke of forced asceticism and found liberty of spirit\nand peace of mind in literature and art, and in the spontaneous and\nnatural flow of healthy human life. Unfortunately, there was a fly in\nthe amber; the people borrowed most of their new pleasures from pagan\nGreece, and the old Greek gods came tripping back from fairyland hand in\nglove with Greek culture, which was embarrassing.\n\nThe advent of the light-hearted Cavaliers in England, flinging colour\nand warmth and gaiety over the land, was a sharp recoil from the drab\nseverity of Puritan rule.  The Puritans were men of strong personality:\nhalf soldiers and half preachers.  They were honest without charm;\nstrong-minded without pose; mighty in conscience, but mean in heart\nqualities.  They were clean livers, but as they aged their visage grew\nhard and sour as unripe fruit, and their geniality of temper withered\nlike a winter apple.  They forgot to smile; the solemnities of life\ncrushed them. They were grave and sagacious citizens lacking vivacity\nand humour, with plenty of flavour, but no sweetness.  They dreamed of\ninvisible kingdoms and fought for eternal verities.  They command our\nadmiration, but do not win our love.  Their God was of the best theology\nmechanically constructed at Geneva by John Calvin, built up in parts\ncomposed of Righteousness, Justice, Holiness. Beauty was barred as a\nDivine attribute. The dismal meeting-house where they worshipped was the\nwhitewashed prison in which the captured Deity dwelt.  The burning light\nof this dread Presence enraptured the elect souls and intimidated the\nuncovenanted and graceless sinners, while the vast multitude of the\nnation held aloof, dreading contact with a religion so fierce and yet so\ngloomy, and they waited patiently through the shivering night of\nRoundhead rule, like watchmen on the city walls, for the coming of the\nking to set English homes once again humming with joy.\n\nThese two strong currents of life--Self-denial and Enjoyment--are\nflowing side by side in our midst to-day, dividing men in thought and\npurpose, driving men into open collision, only to relax their\nstrangle-hold on one another to get firmer grip and fight again another\nday.  These two different ideals of life represent two antagonistic\nsides of a man's nature that clash with each other, and the man has a\nstand-up fight with himself, which is an experience fiery temperaments\noften plunge into.  Each side carries a half-truth and half an error.\nBlend the two half-truths into an intimate and harmonious whole and sink\nthe errors into the bottomless pit from whence they came, and you\ndiscover human nature touching its highest and ripest form, approaching\nthe Christlike in character, which combines the two elements in true and\neverlasting union.\n\nJesus of Nazareth, whose knightly character embodied all that the sweet\nromancists of the Middle Ages dreamed of and pictured in the faultless\nknight-errant of their day which won their hearts' devotion and consent\n(_preux chevalier sans peur et sans reproche_), and all that our own age\ntypifies and holds dear in modern character of good repute when in a\nsingle phrase it proclaims the man a perfect gentleman--Jesus Christ\nmeans all that and more to us.  Christ is not a withered flower on a\nbroken stem torn from the Tree of Life; He is not a damaged idol of an\neffete civilization which modern progress sweeps aside in its forward\nmarch; He is not the Lord of an ancient faith whom the fires of\nscientific criticism have burnt up and left only His ashes in a cinerary\nurn reposing on the altar of our heart.  He is the world's one\nfulfilment of the faultless and the ideal in human nature, blending all\nthat is beautiful and enjoyable with all that is holy and vigorous.\n\n\n\n\n                                  *IV*\n\n                       *THE LURE OF MAGIC WORDS*\n\n\nBeautiful language is the flower of poetry. The magic of diction, of\nenchanted words transformed into radiant, marvellous sentient things\npulsing with life and passion, capture our attention, and deep within us\nsomething vibrates in answer to their mastering call.\n\nA writer with perfect felicity of expression voices thoughts and\nemotions of our own heart that we cannot give utterance to, yet of which\nwe are dimly conscious.  These ghostly creatures of our mind, half a\nmemory and half a thing, peep and mutter within us; we try to hold them,\nbut they are illusive as shadows on the wall.  From the well-written\nwords there leaps out something that has life and form and comeliness in\nit, and instantly we recognize an intimate returning from a far country\nladen with spoil.  Words liberate the imprisoned thought that fretted\nwithin us and set it free: gloriously free for you and me and all the\nworld to make familiar with.\n\nThere are words--spectacular words that print indelibly pleasant\npictures on the mind, reveal in a sabre-flash thoughts that burn and\nthings that were hidden.  There are words--vivid, striking, portentous\nwords that unfold noble vistas of truth in which happy, emancipated\npeople walk freely in sunlight and song.  There are melodious, aromatic\nwords that ring tunefully through corridors of the mind like a carillon\nof merry bells charming the heart with far-reaching joy.  There are\nstrong, fiery, tempestuous words that crash and rattle and reverberate\nlike rolling thunder through your being, and kindle the spirit of man\ninto blazing passion and heroic fervour. There are dull, prosy,\nsomnolent words that baffle like a London fog, envelop the writer's\nmeaning in dense obscurity, and lure the reader's mentality into\nquagmires of perplexity and doubt.\n\nThere are ambrosial, honeyed, ornate words that regale us with fair\nvisions of life, and steep the mind in dreams of romance and intoxicate\nwith amorous delight.  There are treacherous, lying words that distil\nmurder in the air as they wing their evil flight. They strike deadly as\na keen stiletto, or spit poison like a venomous adder in the grass.\n\nThere are discordant words that harrow up the feelings, and there are\nsmooth, velvety, caressing words whose sweet sorcery holds us in their\nthrall, and that flow on and on harmoniously like the rippling of many\nwaters that never fall out of tune.\n\nWords cannot be measured with the measuring-reed of a man; they are\nspiritual forces; \"they are angels of blessing or cursing.  Unuttered we\ncontrol them, uttered they control us.\"  A man may have much wisdom\npacked into his capacious mind, but to unfold it attractively so that it\nglitters in the public eye and arrests attention is where the master art\nof handling words comes in.\n\nOne secret of successful writing is to express your thoughts in as few\nwords as possible.  Be frugal in your expenditure of words as a miser\nover the outlay of his hoarded gold.  Write clearly, tersely, compactly,\nfor words, like coins of the realm, are most esteemed when they contain\nlarge value in little space.  The more briefly a thing is said, the more\nbrilliantly it is put. The rarest of all qualities in a writer\nis--measure, saying exactly as much as you mean to say and not a word\nmore or less. If a picture is complete, everything added is something\ntaken away.\n\nThe \"command of language\" is often a snare of the devil into which men\nfall and do themselves grievous hurt.  A redundancy of flowery words and\nempty fluency of speech confuse the thought and confound the meaning;\nskip half the telling and you know more of the tale.  Oh the dreariness\nof some solid reading I have done in my time!--very learned and logical\ndissertations, but dulness crowned it all; even the dry bones of\nscientific matter clogged with technicalities can be made to live by a\ntouch of style.  Cartloads of words rumbling along the rutty road of\nargument slowly to their destination are not half so forceful as an apt\nimage which flies straight to the point on wings of inspiration, and\ngets there first.\n\nNo subject is uninteresting if discoursed with an engaging pen, for\nwords throw colour-magic on things that are common-place and give charm\nto them.  I have watched Italian sunlight playing on the crumbling\nplaster walls of a peasant's cottage on the Tuscan hills, drenching them\nin opal and rose-carmine splendours, changing them into the image of a\nfairy palace.  Words cast sunlight on commonplace, familiar things,\nflushing them with a radiance all their own, and so awaking our mind to\nsee new beauties, or old beauties made manifest in a new light which had\nbeen staled by the lethargy of custom.  Miss Mitford's village was an\nordinary Berkshire village mute in the annals of English history, but it\nwas surprised into fame by the romantic pen of its lady historian.  A\nsplendid accident of literary achievement adorned it with immortality,\nfor it unfolds vividly before our wondering eyes the beauty of petty\nthings and plain people in village life.  The world owes to her genial\npen a debt of gratitude; for it has won our sympathies, and in reading\nher book we can read our own village with interest instead of boredom,\nand see for ourselves the beauty and pathos and comedy of common people\nand homely things around us.\n\nArt is the gift of God to man.  It is impossible to buy or barter for\nthe possession of it.  You may cultivate, improve, perfect the\nindwelling talent, but the Divine seed is sown mysteriously in the life\nof the child when brought to birth.  In whom the secret power lies\ndormant none know until the appointed hour reveals its budding graces.\nInscrutable is the Divine favour; none can tell whence it cometh or\nwhither it goeth. It is not inherited like gold or lands; it is not an\nentailed honour which accompanies the family title.  Genius seldom, like\nan heirloom, passes from sire to son in direct succession.\n\nA man may possess the advantages that education, training, culture give,\nyet all these excellent acquirements combined cannot manufacture an\nartist.  It needs the live coal taken from off the altar to kindle the\nsacred flame which illumines the artist's soul.\n\nThe painter's art is subject to this very mysterious law.  Philip\nGilbert Hamerton describes the working of the artistic spirit in man.\nHe says: \"Painting is a pursuit in which thought, scholarship,\ninformation, go for little; whereas a strange, unaccountable talent\nworking in obscure ways achieves the only results worth having.  Here is\na field in which neither birth nor condition is of any use, and wealth\nitself of exceeding little; here faculty alone avails, and a kind of\nfaculty so subtle and peculiar, so difficult to estimate before years\nhave been spent in developing it, or wasted in the vain attempt to\ndevelop where it does not exist.\"\n\nThere are pictures you and I dearly love, and they are priceless\ntreasures in the market; yet there is no deep thought or display of\nlearning in them to win our admiration. They violate facts of history,\nthey outrage the grammar of academic art, and even their drawing may be\ninaccurate.  Why, then, are such works cherished and treasured? Because,\nwith all their faults, they have power, they have feeling; they speak to\nthe heart. The men who painted them were unlearned and ignorant, but\nthey were artists to the finger-tips.  There is a spiritual something\nbreathing beneath the surface of the true painter's work which leaps to\nthe eye and draws upon us and bestirs our emotions. Other\npictures--laboured, scholastic, monumental, they leave us cold and\npassionless, and we pass them by on the other side.\n\nA good architect also is to the manner born. The principles of\nproportion in designing a building are difficult to adjust to give\npleasure to the eye.  Now, the sense of proportion is a gift which some\nmen possess and others lack; although they are architects by profession,\nthey are amateurs in construction.  Without that subtle sense of\nproportion a man blunders through his designs, and puts no feeling of\nbeauty or joy in the finished structure which is the work of his hands.\nRuskin says: \"It is just as rational an attempt to teach a young\narchitect how to proportion truly and well by calculating for him the\nproportions of fine works as it would be to teach him to compare\nmelodies by calculating the mathematical relations of the notes in\nBeethoven's 'Adelaide' or Mozart's 'Requiem.'  The man who has eye and\nintellect will invent beautiful proportions, and cannot help it; but he\ncan no more tell us how to do it than Wordsworth could tell us how to\nwrite a sonnet, or than Scott could have told us how to plan a romance.\"\n\nWhat the faculty of feeling is to the artist, what the sense of\nproportion is to the architect, the gift of style is to the writer.\nStyle is the witchery of words; style is clothing thought in captivating\nlanguage.  Style is the setting of the gem.  The gem may be rare, but it\nneeds the aid of the goldsmith's art to make the most of it.  It is the\nskilful setting that holds up the sparkling gem to our admiration.\nStyle is everything in writing; it makes the thoughts sparkle. Niceties\nof style you cannot explain by rule-of-three, nor dissect its\nindividuality by the drastic deed of vivisection; you cannot slash the\nheart out of it with a critickin's reckless knife.  You can unravel a\npiece of rare old Flemish tapestry, and destroy the beautiful design and\nharmonious colouring of it.  In fact, you can reduce the tapestry to a\nheap of valueless threads of worsted fit only for burning; but style in\nliterature you cannot pick to pieces.  You cannot find the master-thread\non which the secret of the pattern runs, and which reveals the cunning\nof the workman's craft.  By some mysterious process the writer weaves\nwords together that the chambers of our imagination may be hung with\ntapestries rare and pleasant to behold.  No explanation of the gift of\npenmanship is possible.  Moulding words into forms of beauty is not an\nachievement: it is a gift of the gods, and no handbook of literature,\nhowever diligently pursued, can turn an artisan into an artist cunning\nin gold-minted phrases.\n\nWhen Castiglione sent the manuscript of his book, \"The Perfect\nCourtier,\" to Vittoria Colonna for her approval, she replied in a\nflattering letter thanking the author, saying: \"The subject is new and\nbeautiful, but the excellence of the style is such that, with a\nsweetness never before felt, it leads us up a most pleasant and fertile\nslope, which we gradually ascend without perceiving that we are no\nlonger on the level ground from which we started; and the way is so well\ncultivated and adorned that we scarce can tell whether Art or Nature has\ndone most to make it fair.\"\n\nIt is expression that counts, and the writer who expresses himself\nsimply, vividly, concisely, boldly, and plays upon our heart-strings at\npleasure, is naturally a \"gifted\" man.  He not only sees in clear, full\nvision himself, but he brings his vision home to our cloudy brains and\nmakes us see clearly; that is the wonder of it.  It needs all the art\nand magic and persuasion of language to accomplish this difficult task.\nWe _see_ the subject presented as a picture when he writes with a\ngraphic pen; we _feel_ poignantly when his sharp and polished periods\npierce like a rapier our understanding; we are _fascinated_ when his\nimpassioned eloquence flows, glittering like running water in the\nsunlight, dazzling our bewildered brains.  And when he scores by his\nnative wit and writes in his trenchant, racy mother-tongue there is a\nsmile in the stalls and loud laughter in the pit.\n\nHow mysteriously beauty steals into language and warms up the radiant\nface of poetry with glowing vitality.  There is no beauty in stale\nprosaic sentences like \"Trespassers will be prosecuted\" or \"Rubbish may\nbe shot here,\" because they say exactly and completely all that they\nhave to say and nothing more can be squeezed out of them.  There is\nbeauty in a sentence like \"The bright day is done.  And we are for the\nnight,\" or \"He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass,\" because\nin them, although they seem quite simple, the poet is trying to say\ninfinitely more than he can pack into words.  It is the effort to do\nsomething beyond the power of words; it is the effort to investigate the\nalluring Infinite with a mind closely fettered within the cramped and\nnarrow finite that can only stretch forth a hand here and there between\nprison bars and touch the azure of infinitude which is the dreamland of\nthe soul; it is this reaching out that brings beauty into language: it\nenflames the imagination; it ruffles the emotions; unutterable thoughts\nlinger on the lips and fail to break away.  There is a greatness in\nthese winged words feathered with beauty because they mean a thousand\ntimes more than speaks on the surface.\n\nWhen I was young the magic of words took possession of my virgin mind.\nThe first master of language that I served under was John Ruskin.  The\naim of good writing is to communicate feeling; Ruskin did this\nintensely.  The indefinable richness and power of words as they flowed\nfrom his pen, the musical and measured cadence of his prose, and the\nlimpid clearness of his thoughts when cast on paper, placed an hypnotic\nspell upon me.  When reading one of his books, I dwelt in dreamland.\nAnother reading that I enjoyed with avidity in the seventies and\neighties of the last century was the long literary leaders, never too\nlong for me, in the _Daily Telegraph_.  The best literary talent of the\nday wrote them.  Many of them I cut out and placed in my scrap-book;\nalas! to be buried in decent sepulchre, for I never see them now.  Lord\nBurnham, the proprietor of the _Daily Telegraph_, put himself into these\nleaders, although other pens wrote them. They were his special hobby,\nand grew under his inspiration.  His biographer tells us: \"He had the\nrhetorical sense strongly developed.  He liked full-blooded writing, and\nhad a tenderness for big words and big adjectives, well-matched and in\npairs. He revelled in the warmth and colour of certain words, and the\nmore resonant they were, the better he liked them.\"  Words carry not\nonly meaning, but atmosphere with them.  Sometimes a single word well\nchosen and well placed in a sentence gives feeling, and lights it up\nwith a glow of beauty. J. A. Symonds says: \"The right word used in the\nright place constitutes the perfection of style.\"  In my youth a\nliterary friend was pruning a crude essay I had written; he paused in\nhis reading on the word \"fallacious,\" and he said: \"That's a good word\nand well chosen; it's the right word.\"  It was a revelation to me at the\ntime that one word was better than another if they both meant the same\nthing.  On thinking it over, I saw that no two words do mean exactly the\nsame thing, and that there is only one right word in a hundred to\nexpress exactly your meaning and to give life to it. The other\nninety-and-nine words are but poor relations--nay! they are all dead\ncorpses.\n\nPerhaps you remember Millais' wonderfully popular picture called\n\"Cinderella.\"  A beautiful healthy English child, with deep dreamy eyes\nand long wavy golden hair sits on a stool by the kitchen fire holding in\nher hand a birch broom emblem of her kitchen toil.  It is a fascinating\npicture.  At home I look on a coloured print of it nearly every day of\nthe week.  The most brilliant thing on the canvas is the patch of\nscarlet in the dainty cap the child wears.  That single dab of red seems\nto concentrate in itself the whole colour-scheme of the picture.  It is\nthe keynote.  Now a single word in a sentence sometimes gives a\nstartling effect.  It strikes a strong, clear, ringing note which keys\nthe writer's passing mood, fascinates us with its vividness, and sticks\nin the memory ever after.  It is a colour-patch in literary art which\ndominates the picture and arrests attention, as in Shakespeare's\n\n    \"Every yesterday hath lighted fools\n    The way to _dusty_ death!\"\n\nOr,\n\n    \"The _primrose_ path to the eternal bonfire.\"\n\nOr Pope's\n\n    \"Quick effluvia darting through the brain\n    Die of a rose in _aromatic_ pain.\"\n\nAlso\n\n    \"Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,\n    And let me _languish_ into life.\"\n\nAnd Gray's inimitable couplet:\n\n    \"There pipes the song-thrush, and the skylark there\n    Scatters his _loose_ notes in the waste of air.\"\n\n\nIt is the height of literary skill to gather up your thought into a\nsingle word and fling it flaming on canvas.  It is more convincing than\na long chapter of dull argument which drugs the senses.  Tennyson knew\nthe magic of a single epithet in the thought scheme of the moment when\nhe sang: \"All the charm of all the muses often flowering in a lonely\nword.\"  It is not as easily done as eating hot cakes for tea, for it is\nnot the first word that comes sailing into a man's head that is the\nright word.  \"The comely phrase, the well-born word,\" is a prince of\nhigh degree, and you may wait in his anteroom days before an audience is\ngranted.  The elect word does not sit on the tip of the tongue and drop\ninto its place at call.  You may search diligently and not find it, and\npresently of its own free will it comes to you, a happy thought flashed\nfrom the void where whispering spirits dwell.  Gray's Elegy is the most\nperfect poem in the English language. It was not thrown together\ncarelessly in an idle hour one sleepy summer afternoon. Every word and\nevery line of it cost thought, was written and rewritten, and patiently\npolished over again.  For eight years the author held the poem between\nthe hammer and the anvil, beating it into shape before he passed it into\nprint.  He damaged reams of paper developing a fair copy of those\nimmortal verses.\n\n\n\n\n                                  *V*\n\n                   *THE LURE OF AN OLD TUSCAN GARDEN*\n\n\nA delightful French writer says \"to grow old in a garden in sight of\nsoftly undulating hills, beneath a sky variable as the human soul, is\nvery sweet, very consoling, very easy. One becomes more of a child and\nfor the first time a philosopher.  Poetry and wisdom on every hand\npermeate the close of life, just as the oblique rays of the setting sun\npenetrate into the heart of the densest foliage, which is impervious to\nthe vertical beams of noonday.\"  This charming writer touches the spot;\nexperience, tenderness, and sympathy flow from mellowed lips well\nrounding to the autumn of life.  Old age does reflect more discerningly\nthan impatient youth, and in a garden, too, surrounded by a heavenly\nhost of flowers whose blossom is as laughter and whose perfume is a\nsong.  Romance sketches wonderful pictures with such a beatific\nbackground to inspire it, and imagination wanders into a carnival of\ndreams. How many pleasant thoughts and noble thoughts have been brought\nto birth in a garden which afterward grew into brave deeds and gentle\nlives contributing generously to enrich the sum of human happiness!\n\nI sit under an ilex-tree in an old Tuscan garden which in course of many\ngenerations has belonged to many owners.  A haunting beauty fills the\nancient place, which one can feel, but cannot understand.  A friendly\natmosphere that pervades old gardens saturates the solitude.  It is more\nthan atmosphere, it is influence--a caressing influence almost human\nthat holds us up and tantalizes. Vague ancestral memories of old\nfamilies flash upon the mind; for more than four hundred years men and\nwomen have walked and talked and thought in this Tuscan garden of mine,\nand tended its flowers and enjoyed its tranquillity. Children have\nplayed in it, often going to bed tired and happy after romping in it the\nlivelong day, and so generation after generation mankind repeats itself\nin the life-story of the old garden on a Tuscan hillside. The spirit of\nthe past haunts it in shadow and in sunshine, because wherever men have\nbeen they leave a little of themselves behind in ghostly exhalations.\n\nWhen one is in a contemplative humour a garden is full of object-lessons\ninteresting to study.  By dint of watching leaf replace leaf, insects\ncome into life and die, blossoms change into fruit, fruit ripen and\nfall, the swallows come with the daffodils and depart when the hunter's\nmoon frightens them away--by watching these things methodically and\nsilently accomplishing their allotted tasks, I have come to think about\nmyself with brave resolution and resigned conformity to natural laws.  I\ngrieve less over myself when I regard the change which is universal; the\nsetting sun and the dying summer help me also to decline gently.  Life\nis a splendid heritage to hold in fee, but we quit and deliver up\npossession when our lease expires.  The light must be kept burning if\nour own little taper flickers into darkness.\n\nA young girl visited us in Florence one spring-time.  She lived in the\ngarden among the flowers, caressed them, talked to them, and gathered\nthem by the handful, the armful, the basketful.  She decorated the rooms\nwith flowers, filled glass bowls and bronze vases with flowers, and her\nart touched its zenith in glorifying the dinner-table every evening with\nthe choicest of them all.  She chatted, smiled, and sang whilst doing\nit, for she dearly loved the flowers that she fondled.\n\nWe took her to the Uffizi to see the world-renowned Old Masters there;\nbut she yawned in front of masterpieces of art, and her eyes wandered\nround searching the smart costumes of the ladies in the room.  We took\nher to Rome and showed her the sights of the Eternal City, but Bond\nStreet and Regent Street interested her more than St. Peter's and the\nColiseum.  We visited the Forum with its ruined temples and triumphal\narches, and trod the Via Sacra; but the place was only an old stoneyard\nto her, devoid of interest, so we left her to herself, and she wandered\nover the Forum on other pleasure bent, and we found her afterwards\npicking violets amongst the ruins.\n\nWhen at home again a friend asked how she enjoyed her visit to Rome, and\nhad she seen the Forum?  In blank despair she appealed to me to help her\nout of it.  \"Yes,\" I replied, \"you saw the Forum; that is where you\npicked the violets.\"  The Forum to her was deadly dull and forgotten\neven by name, but a bunch of wild violets lived vividly in her memory as\nthe crown and flower of her heart's desire, more excellent than all the\nruins of Rome.\n\nDulness comes to us in uncongenial company and occupation.  You may be\nsurrounded by objects of interest and beauty which amuse other people,\nbut if these worthy objects do not fit your taste, for you they contain\nno element of delight, and you are bored utterly with them whoever may\nsing their praise.  It is a question of temperament.  The heart is not\ndull if the head is _triste_.  Every eye makes its own beauty and every\nheart forms its own kinships. Put me in front of a post-impressionist\npicture and dulness covers me like a funeral pall.  The beauties of the\nglowing picture composed of significant form and bunkum are lost on me\ncompletely.  Here is something tremendously original that makes demands\non my intelligence that I cannot meet.  I am mentally bankrupt in front\nof this maddening art.\n\nLooking at a post-impressionist picture, you see only shapes and forms\ntangled together within the limited area of a gilt frame; you see\nrelations and quantities of colour splashed on canvas meaning anything\nyou choose to label it, but in the likeness of nothing God made or man\never saw. It distorts nature and scoffs at portraiture. \"Creating a work\nof art,\" trumpets the evangelist of post-impressionism, \"is so\ntremendous a business that it leaves no leisure for catching a\nlikeness.\"  \"You look at a landscape, and you are not to see it as\nfields and cottages; instead you are to see it as lines and colours.\"\nYet up against this lucid statement I observe no reason why the portrait\nof a man should be drawn like a peculiarly shaped market-garden divided\ninto plots for growing vegetables.  Nor can I explain why the picture of\na village street should look like a fortnight's wash suspended in a\ncherry orchard, and the policeman standing in front of the village inn\nat the corner should look like a laundry-maid hanging out the clothes.\nIt requires uncommon genius to work the illusion successfully, and to\nstart an indolent British public frivolling with the captivating puzzle.\nBut it leaves me cold and passionless, for I am slow of understanding\nthese things.  They say an impressionist picture of top-note character\nis a painfully exciting object for the spectator to worship.  To do it\njustice, he must squirm in front of it, for it is a picture that creates\na thunderstorm of rhapsody, a deluge of delight, a roaring cataract of\naesthetic emotion in the soul of the man who understands its cryptic\nlanguage.  The artist who limned the picture suffers agonies whilst\nworking up significant form, being pricked with pins and needles of\nexcitement, and is continually dancing on the hot-plate of rapture.  The\nspectator's duty when viewing a work of art is to come into touch with\nthe mind of the artist.  To do this no wonder the spectator has a bad\ntime when digesting a whole gallery of post-impressionist pictures.\n\nTheir religion is as bewildering as their art. For their moral vision is\nout of kilter, as their eyesight is out of focus.  The aforesaid\nevangelist of the cult says: \"I doubt whether the good artist bothers\nmuch more about the future than about the past.  Why should artists\nbother about the fate of humanity? If art does not justify itself,\naesthetic rapture does....  Rapture suffices.  The artist has no more\ncall to look forward than the lover in the arms of his mistress.  There\nare moments in life that are ends to which the whole history of humanity\nwould not be an extravagant means; of such are the moments of aesthetic\necstasy.\"\n\nWe return to the garden, for the lure of a garden relaxes not.  The joy\nof it entangles you in its toils.  Each successive season of the year\nunfolds new developments which lead you on to the next season.  So you\nare handed on from one month to another throughout the gardener's\ncalendar by endless enticements which keep the interest gently\nsimmering.  The procession of gay flowers that promenade the sheltered\nborders and disport themselves with flagrant pride on open beds during\nspring and summer days, tricked in rainbow colours, dazzle the eye with\nsplendour, win the heart's endearment, and pay in noblest coin full\nrecompense for the chill, dull toil given in grey winter hours.\n\nA lady friend who lived to a ripe old age said to me jocosely, \"To be a\ngood gardener you need a wooden back with an iron hinge to it, for you\nare bending and stooping all day long in the garden.\"  Only by constant\nlabour spent on the good brown earth can you become candidate for\npossession of this useful garden requisite, a wooden back with an iron\nhinge to it, or the neatest imitation offered on the market.  In the\ngarden you get in touch with Nature, breathe fresh air, cultivate a\ncontented mind, and never stagnate in idleness or degenerate into ennui.\nYour body, inured to all weathers, escapes many little ills of the\nflesh, and gradually you harden into an iron constitution, which is the\nnearest earthly substitute to a wooden back hung on iron hinges.\n\nYou never need remain indoors to smoke or sew or yawn because there is\nnothing doing in the garden: you can weed there the livelong day in the\nopen.  This lowly service offers immediate reward; it begets a healthy\nappetite at meal-times, and develops a night's sound sleep, which is\nsome pleasure no millionaire can buy with his millions. Weeding puzzles\nmy blind gardener Emilio.\n\nI have two brothers gardeners, Enrico and Emilio.  Enrico has sight only\nof one eye, Emilio is blind both eyes.  The two brothers work together\nin brotherly love, and have only one working eye between them, yet it is\nwonderful how much good work the one eye accomplishes per day.  Emilio\nsees with his hands.  It is weeding that puzzles him most.  He never\npulls a flower instead of a weed--he feels the difference between them.\nIt is the weeds that elude his fingers as he works along the border that\ngrieve him.  Weeding is a fascinating occupation to me.  Nice people\nwon't profane their hands grubbing in common garden soil, but, being a\ngroundling myself, I enjoy the fun of coming into contact with my native\nelement.  Clean, sweet, caressing earth, it is the last flowery coverlet\nall of us will sleep under; why shun thy friendly touch to-day? There is\nalways an abundant crop of weeds to practise on in an Italian garden,\nand your fingers itch to uproot them to the very last offender.  I\nsuppose it is the ruthlessness and slaughter of the deed, the close\nhandgrip on the enemy, that compels you on; and when the skirmish is\nover, surveying the ground cleared of the foe and the heaps of the slain\nwithering at your feet gives a pleasurable thrill of excitement in the\nhour of victory.  You exult, for there is something done, and well done,\nto show for your backache.\n\nThe gardener's lure is irresistible.  The devotee walks in flowerland of\nhis own creation.  In dreary winter hours he dreams splendid dreams of\nhimself surrounded by summer harmonies, summer fragrance, and summer\nflowers, for which he has planned and planted and patiently tended along\nthe covering months of winter and spring.  The hour of full realization\napproaches when the roses mass their rival glories and spread their\ncoloured raptures in the garden that he loves. This puts the crown on\nthe brow of summer. This is the gardener's festival of the year. He\ninvites his horticultural cronies to tea on the lawn, and they all talk\nrose jargon together.  He takes them on a tour of inspection round the\ngarden, and they congratulate the founder of the feast of flowers. They\nare happy as a band of Sunday-school children spending the afternoon\nout.  They sit on the lawn under the spreading ilex-tree, which casts\nample shadow for their comfort, and the summer sunshine lays ardent on\nthe green-sward around them.  It is a genial gathering, but the man who\nunderstands not roses would be speechless in their midst and not a\nlittle bored.  Conversation cools off, the evening shadows lengthen, and\nin an interlude of silence there is a sort of whispering stillness in\nthe warm evening air, as if the flowers and grass and trees are all\nsaying kind words to one another, for having done their best to please.\nThe lure of the garden is never so poignant as at this great moment, for\nyour heart is brimming of sweet content, and you say to yourself: \"Can\nit be true? Can anything in the world be more beautiful?\"\n\nThere is another lure that lays hands on a man like grappling-irons\ntackling a Spanish galleon laden with treasure, with a grip which cannot\nbe shaken off: I mean the writer's lure.  I am fond of reading.  The\nenticements of a good book are hard to resist, especially if you have no\ninclination to resist, but tumble a ready victim to the writer's charm.\n\nWhat is the writer's lure?  How does it cast its spell?  You can talk\nround the subject by metaphor and symbol and figure of speech, but\ncannot solve it like a problem in Euclid and add Q.E.D. at the end.  The\nwriter's lure is the vividest way of saying things.  It is a bolt shot\nfrom the mind that hits the penman's mark.  The writer's lure fixes you\neven as a beautiful sympathetic picture holds you up by its witchery of\nart. In the picture warmth of colour, grace of line, melting tints,\ndreamy distance, and an added mystic charm brooding over all, voice\nlovingly your taste in art, and, like a haunted man, you carry the\nlandscape about with you all day long.  It intrudes on your mind midst\npressing business affairs; the sunlight sleeping on the hills creates a\npleasant interlude of thought when engrossed in life's little worries.\nTurner's \"Crossing the Brook\" in the Tate Gallery is a picture that\nbewitches me when I see it.  It stimulates my imagination and sets my\nthoughts sailing over the country carried on the breezes which blow\nacross the Turner landscape.\n\nA book haunts you in the selfsame way as a picture.  You read a book,\nand it stirs your emotions and captivates your fancy, and for a time it\npossesses you like a living spirit.  The writer's lure holds you in its\ngrip.  The book soaks into you.  A sentence here and there leaps to\nmemory during odd moments of the day; the rhythm of the language ripples\nmusically as a chime of bells, and you repeat the sentence to yourself\nagain and again.  The aptness of an image is lifelike, and a vision\nfloats across your mind; the happy turn of a sentence sticks. The fresh,\nclear-cut thought shot out boldly from the writer's brain conveys a new\nidea; you recall the touch of humour resembling a patch of warm sunshine\ntwinkling on the landscape, and your lips curve into a smile. There are\npassages of tenderness also that you treasure, because they find your\nheart like shafts of love feathered with joy.  All these things in the\nbook come back to you vividly, and whisper their fond message over\nagain.\n\nOne cannot explain the writer's lure.  You may name it, but you cannot\ncatch it in the reviewer's trap of criticism.  It is illusive as the\nangel who visited Manoah and his wife, wrought wondrously, and vanished\nleaving no trace.  It is a secret of pencraft which defies definitions\nand eludes analysis, yet it is the vital element in composition.  It is\nnot a question of conforming to correct standards of good writing by\nwhich literary excellence is judged, the writer being blessed or cursed\nby the censors according to the measure of his allegiance to their\nliterary creed.  Some writers violate every literary canon set up to\nguide their pen in the way of righteousness, but they are alive with\nliterary fire; the vital element is fecund within them, and they riot in\nthe power of it.  There are no rules in art that great writers have not\nshown us how to break with advantage. You cannot resolve the writer's\nlure into its component parts as you can a potato.  Like electricity, it\ndefies analysis, but, like the electric current, you feel it in your\nbones.\n\nBlind Emilio does not work by rules taught in popular garden manuals; he\ngathers inspiration for his craft direct from the heavens. He is an\noracle of occult information and prevision almost uncanny, concerning\nthings in the garden and out of it.  However, he is a cheerful soul and\na born optimist, so we consult him often and rely on his wisdom,\nbecause, like honey, its flavour is pleasant to the taste.\n\nThe moon is the guiding providence regulating some of Emilio's important\nduties. He observes the phases of the moon with the reverence of an\nastrologer of legendary days.  He awaits the waning moon in February to\nprune the rose-trees.  A potent mystic virtue dwells in a waning moon\naccording to his garden lore, which is old as his pagan ancestors.  If\nyou prune rose-trees in a waxing moon the new growths will be long, weak\nshoots, and the crop of roses in the summer poor, puny things.  Prune in\nthe waning moon and the new growths will be short, sturdy rods bearing\nlarge flowers, and an abundance of them.  Garden seed must be sown under\nthe auspices of the waning moon if you want your flower-beds in the\nsummer-time to be renowned for beauty, to make your friends envious of\nyour success and yourself just swaggeringly happy.\n\nWhat applies to roses and seed applies equally to pruning vines and\ngrafting fruit-trees.  Bulbs and potatoes may be planted any time.  They\nmove in the spring when Nature signals whether they are in the ground or\nout of it.  They are outside the ritual of the moon.\n\nWe had a heavy crop of diospyros last autumn, drawn from four trees in\nthe kitchen-garden.  These fruits are fat, round, rosy fellows, plump as\novergrown tomatoes.  The flesh of the ripe diospyros is Nature's jam,\nsoft and mushy, delicious in flavour, and eaten politely with a spoon.\nOur neighbour who hails from Cincinnati grew a crop of small,\nsickly-looking fruit.  \"Ah!\" said Emilio, \"now that you see the\ndifference in the two crops, you must believe me.  Their diospyros were\ngathered in the growing moon, and they shrivel and lose colour and\nflavour; ours were gathered in the waning moon, and keep beautiful and\nsound to the end of the season.\"  There is good luck under the waning\nmoon.  Another explanation of the difference in the crops has merit,\nwhich Emilio considers treason to the honourable tradition of his\nfathers.  Our fruit was grown in the kitchen-garden on manured soil; our\nAmerican neighbour's trees stand on a rocky bank in the wild garden\nwhich is never dressed with manure.  The blessing of the moon falls on\nthe crop that is best nourished in the days of its youth.\n\nIn the garden is an avenue of lime-trees about one hundred and sixty\nfeet long.  In the summer it forms a deliciously shady walk; in rainy\nweather it is a clean and pleasant promenade, for it has a paved pathway\nin it.  The north end of the avenue terminates in a large semicircular\nstone seat mounted on a stone base one step higher than the pathway.\nThe seat has no florid decorative carving on it to arouse hostility or\nprovoke criticism.  It is just a plain seat of simple Roman type, roomy\nand comfortable to sit on.  Behind the seat curves a semicircle of\nthirteen cypress-trees screening the north winds.  Again, behind the\ncypress-trees is an interesting old stone wall about twenty feet high,\nforming the boundary of the garden.  Above the wall, rising in gentle\nslope, is the south shoulder of the hill, on the hill-top sits Fiesole,\nthe famous Etruscan city of history and legend.  The slope is covered\nwith olives and vines, forming a mantle grey and green with its leafy\nfringe dropping on our garden wall.\n\nThis great retaining wall is old as the villa which was purchased by\nDomenico Mori in 1475.  The history of the house earlier than this date\nis lost in the mist of antiquity. The ancient wall is a feature in the\ngarden, for on two sides it towers like a cliff, forming a charming\nbackground to the scene.  It has weathered beautifully with the ages,\nand is an immense stretch of canvas for the display of masses of colour.\nIn places it is bleached silvery-grey, and elsewhere the tinted lichen\nmottle it with saffron and orange and brown, and every delectable shade\nand tone which Time, the great decorator, with loving hand, imparts to\nold stone.  It looks warm and gay and friendly, and grows a rock-garden\nof its own, for wild flowers bloom in its cracks and crannies and red\nvalerian flames upon its heights, side by side with golden broom. Ivy\nclothes it in parts, and most mysteriously so, for years back the plants\nwere cut off their roots, and the ivy now exists only on nourishment\ndrawn from the wall, and it exists vigorously on the meagre diet the\nwall supplies.  When the sunshine pours down upon its hoary time-worn\nface, the old wall is transfigured into a thing of triple splendour, for\nits colours glow and blaze with spiritual fervour imparting that\nartistic touch of nature which is the happy gift of garden plaisance.\n\nDeeply set in the wall is the ruin of a small shrine.  Once upon a time\nthis shrine was the home of the Madonna, but now no Madonna occupies the\nniche.  Some pious ancestor of the house implored gracious protection of\nthe Mother of Jesus on behalf of his vines and olives, fruits and\nflowers, and he set up her Ladyship's sheltered image in the little\nvaulted temple on the wall as guardian of the crops, hoping that fat\nharvest would follow his devotion to Our Lady of Plenty. The vacant\nshrine is desolate and crumbling and mossy now, and so is the\nsentimental faith of those ancient days.  It was a hallowed sentiment in\nits way, this worship of the Madonna.  Men lived up to it, and felt\nhappy in their prayers to the Lady of Heaven. Nowadays men win good\nharvests on more scientific lines.  They put trust in deep ploughing and\nartificial manure rather than in prayers and oblations to the Mother of\nGod.\n\nThe personal intervention of the Deity in the affairs of men strikes a\nhomely note in the world's domestic management, and brings the Heavenly\nFather in close touch with His earthly family; but the dear God's\nblessing is level-handed, and favours His children, bad or good, who\nwork the hardest, and add intelligence to their toil.\n\n\n\n\n                                  *VI*\n\n                   *THE LURE OF THE MONTELUPO PLATE*\n\n\nMy friend Federico wandering through Tuscany on one of those delightful\nexcursions that he loves, passing from town to town and village to\nvillage picking up \"old things\" _en route_, called at a dealer's shop in\nBagni di Lucca.  In the miscellaneous collection of antiquities there\noffered for sale he found nothing to please him.  To console him in the\nhour of disappointment, the little dealer, named Grosso, said: \"I know\nof a beautiful Montelupo plate that will take your fancy.  Come with me;\nit is away up the hills, a pleasant ride for us.  Give me a few francs\nfor my trouble, and you can buy the plate.\"  So they took a vettura and\nrode up the mountains in quest of the Montelupo plate.  After an hour's\ndelightful drive they stopped at a contadino's cottage on the roadside,\nand there, boldly on view to the passer-by and stuck on the\nweather-beaten front of the cottage over the doorway, was the Montelupo\nplate, the very heart's desire of the two adventurers.  It was a brave\nplate, round as the sun and about thirteen inches in diameter.  In the\ncentre of it, painted in flaming colours, trotted a soldier on horseback\nwith drawn sword in hand, but no painted foeman visible into which to\nbury the thirsty blade.  The interior of the plate surrounding the\nwarrior was a mass of rich deep orange ground; the colour much esteemed\nby collectors of this rural pottery.  The contadinos in Tuscany once\nowned numerous specimens of these rustic dishes, which were used daily\nby them in their homes as common household crockery. They were nothing\nthought of in those far-off days of the fifteenth and sixteenth\ncenturies.  They were made for the peasants' service, and if a plate was\nbroken another was bought for half a franc in the next market town.  The\nday came when the supply stopped and the plates could not be replaced.\nSome other novelty in kitchenware had the run of the market, and nobody\nwanted Montelupo plates.\n\nFashion set in about twenty years ago to collect this crude, curious,\nneglected pottery, so grotesque and humorous in design and coarse in\nworkmanship, but when reposing against the wall of a well-lit room\ncertainly showy and decorative for all time.  They carry amusing and\npicturesque subjects, comical or satirical in treatment.  Not very\nartistic, but cleverly and freely drawn with a few bold lines to catch\nthe peasant's sense of humour, which was easily tickled.  The plates\nrevel in brightness and colour.  Colour holds the eye and courts our\nadmiration, and fancy prices rule the market.\n\nThe rarest plates to find are those burlesquing the Churchman.  The\nsoldier, the farmer, and the serving-maid took the joke kindly, but the\nplates in which the monk was caricatured offended the Church\ndignitaries, and these specimens were bought up mysteriously, quickly\ndestroyed, and now cannot be found.\n\nWhen the fashion set in, wandering dealers and touring collectors made\nhaste to buy. They spread themselves over the country; knocked at\ncottage doors in out-of-the-way places in Tuscany, begged a glass of\nmilk, admired the plates on the kitchen dresser, and offered to buy at a\nfew francs apiece. The contadino soon found he had something good, and\nthe price rose to ten francs each. Still the plates were admired by\ntired travellers resting in out-of-the-way cottages drinking a glass of\nmilk.  The price rose incontinently to twenty, thirty, fifty francs,\nuntil the peasants discovered a gold-mine in their old kitchen crockery,\nand now their stock is sold out.  To-day the plates are found only in\nthe hands of dealers, and good specimens command prices anywhere between\na hundred and two hundred and fifty francs each.\n\nThe owner of the Montelupo plate over the cottage door asked sixty\nfrancs for his family treasure.  My friend borrowed a ladder, that he\nmight have it down to examine.  \"No,\" said the owner; \"you must buy it\nwhere it is, and pay for it first.\"  Federico's fancy was caught with\nthe pretty toy; he submitted to the hard terms, and paid the sixty\nfrancs. Little Grosso now mounted the ladder to bring down the plate.\n\"I can't move it; it is cemented into the wall,\" he called to the new\ncomer, standing below.  So he borrowed a hammer and chisel, and ran\nnimbly up the ladder again and began chipping round the plate.\n\nImmediately the whole village was on the spot, standing round, excited,\nchattering, watching the job.  A noisy man, the cock of the village,\nslung himself forward and shouted strenuously.  He demanded to know what\nthey were doing: \"That plate has been there for over a hundred years.\nIt is a very important piece, and is worth much money. It is of great\nvalue.  Who has bought it? What have you paid for it?\"\n\n\"I have bought it,\" said my friend; \"I have given sixty francs for it,\nand as you think it so valuable, I will sell it to you for sixty francs.\nWill you have it at the price I gave for it?\"\n\nFederico has a lovable disposition.  He takes life placidly.  He takes\ntaxes placidly, he takes bad trade placidly, he takes the war placidly,\nhe takes a human tornado placidly.  The noisy man exploded--shouted\nlouder and louder, and scattered his arms about in the air,\ngesticulating like the sails of a windmill racing in a stiff breeze, but\nhe did not buy the village treasure.  Grosso on the ladder kept on\nchipping round the plate, the crowd watching him critically.\n\nPresently he called out, \"Signore, the plate is in two pieces!\" My\nfriend said to the noisy man: \"Do you want to buy the plate?  It is in\ntwo pieces--you can have it for fifty francs.\"  He did not take on, but\ncontinued talking, gesticulating, and exciting the onlookers.  Grosso\ncontinued chipping round the plate.  He called out again, \"Signore, the\nplate is even in three pieces.\"  So my friend said to the village bully,\n\"You can have the plate for thirty francs.\"  But he did not buy at the\nprice. Grosso resumed his work, hacking round the plate.  He called out\nagain, \"Signore, the plate is in many pieces!\"  So Federico shouted to\nthe troublesome man: \"Now is your chance; you can have the plate for\ntwenty francs.  I paid sixty for it; will you give me twenty?\"\n\nThe man folded himself up and slunk off; the crowd also melted away, and\nGrosso went on chipping, and put fragment after fragment of the plate in\nhis pocket as he released them from their cement setting. He came down\nthe ladder with the broken plate in his pocket in ten pieces.  They rode\nhome to Bagni di Lucca, feeling a bit miserable on the journey.  At\nBagni di Lucca my friend comforted Grosso with a good dinner in the\nrestaurant and gave him seven francs for his trouble.  \"And what about\nthe plate?\" said Grosso, when my friend bid him good-bye.  \"You keep it,\nGrosso. I don't want it.\"  \"No,\" said Grosso; \"the plate is yours.  You\nhave treated me well and given me seven francs.  I am more than\nsatisfied.\"  \"Keep it,\" was the reply; and away Federico went home, just\na little disappointed with the result of his expedition up the\nmountains.  The lure of the Montelupo dish had proved a failure.\n\nNext year he visited Bagni di Lucca in quest of antiques, and called\nupon Grosso the dealer.  On entering the shop he saw the Montelupo plate\nhanging against the wall, looking gay as ever without visible crack or\ncleavage on it.  The dealer had cunningly dove-tailed the plate\ntogether, and it looked faultless to the eye.  \"It is yours,\" said\nGrosso; \"I have kept it for you.  Customers wanted to buy it.  I knew\nyou would come again to see me.\"  After much persuasion and a\nconsideration, Federico took the plate home and hung it in his studio\namongst a collection of treasured antiques which he has gathered round\nhim there and are the joy of his heart.  It was much admired, and the\nromance of its history, often related, was as often listened to with\namusement and laughter.\n\nOne day a Florentine dealer visited the studio and fell in love with the\nMontelupo plate, and bought it for ninety francs.\n\n\n\n\n                                 *VII*\n\n                          *THE LURE OF PLUCK*\n\n\nIt happened in Rome; in our apartment on the Piazza di Spagna.  We had a\nvisit from a Countess.  She was heralded by her visiting-card, on which\nblazed a coronet--an awe-inspiring visiting-card, imposing enough to\nreduce to the ground the most blatant democrat.  What did the unknown\nCountess want? we asked each other with palpitating hearts. Had she come\nto invite us to visit her ancestral castle in the Sabine Hills?  Was she\na messenger from the Queen of Italy summoning us to an audience in the\nQuirinal Palace?  What did this high-toned lady want? My wife faced the\nmusic alone.  She entered the room, and saw a shabbily dressed old lady\nrambling about amongst the furniture.\n\n\"Ah!\" exclaimed the Countess; \"please excuse me the liberty of admiring\nyour old Italian furniture; it is very fine indeed.  I am so fond of it.\nI used to have my rooms full of it, but we sold it all to dealers.  They\ngave us a good price for it.  We are reduced in circumstances now, and I\nhave called to ask if you would buy some jam from me.  I make it myself,\nand have good clients among the English and American residents.  I\ncharge 3.50 lire for a jar, and allow 50 centimes for the empty jar if\nreturned when I call again.\"\n\nShe produced some glass jars of jam and honey from a basket she carried\nunder her cloak.  Refined-looking jars; artistically labelled jars,\nassuring the purchaser that the jam within was made under perfect\nhygienic conditions.  The wording of the labels was printed in accurate\nEnglish; but the Countess could not speak English, not a broken sentence\nof it could she utter.  The conversation was carried on in French.  We\nbought a jar of jam and a jar of honey, and are looking hopefully for\nthe return of the 50 centimes on the empty jars when next she calls on\nbusiness intent.\n\nIt is no hedgerow jam, no common cottage mixture of blackberry and apple\nshe offered us, but highly aristocratic peach jam from choicest fruits\ngrown in coroneted orchards. And the honey she offered was superior\nhoney; not the produce of old-fashioned garden flowers and wild heather\nfrom the hills--anybody breeds that plebeian honey. Her bees were\nclassic to the core, lived in the garden of Hesperides, and fed only on\norange-blossoms and acacia.  No honey had an aroma equal to hers.\n\nDear, good old soul!  There was lots of fine metal in her character; she\nwas a piece of rare old silver plate with hall-mark clearly impressed on\nit, but in somewhat battered and bruised condition.  She had been\nroughly handled in the hard-hammering world.  She had lost everything\nbut manners and breeding. She could sell jam with the grace and dignity\nof a Queen bestowing royal favours on a subject.  She was striving to\nmaintain herself honourably in the sight of all men, and she would die\nin the last ditch rather than beg.  Her pluck lured her on to the\nwinning-post.\n\nThere are sensitive people who, when hard-hit by Fortune, mope like\nmoulting fowls and creep into dark corners of the earth; they do not\nstrut in the market-place and shout loud-throated their woes to the\ncrowd; they lower their flag and surrender themselves to fate. Their\nvanity supports their poverty, and their poverty breaks their heart.\nReally, these people are victims of false shame.  False shame deludes\ntheir common sense.  It discolours their imagination, enfeebles their\nwill-power, and drives them on to the rocks to feed with the goats.\nTheir misfortune assumes an exaggerated character in their own minds.\nThey fancy that the world stares coldly on them in their adversity and\nwhispers contemptuously against them behind their backs, and they\ncollapse in the frigid atmosphere with which they surround themselves.\n\nTheir vanity betrays them into surmising unwholesome things.  They\nfidget about themselves in their supersensitiveness.  They adore public\nopinion, and fancy themselves filling a large place in its\nconsideration, and they dread the smiting lash of its hostile criticism.\nThe truth is humiliating but very refreshing to our morbid disposition,\nand the truth is that people are not thinking much about us, however\nconspicuously we imagine ourselves to be painted in the picture.  We are\nonly one of a crowd of common people, nor even the most interesting\nfigure in it.  It is unwise to esteem ourselves to be of immeasurably\nmore consequence than we really are.  The busy world at best gives us\nonly a passing thought. Dr. Johnson bluntly said: \"No man is much\nregarded by the rest of the world.  The utmost which we can reasonably\nhope or fear is to fill a vacant hour with prattle and be forgotten.\"\nIf a man thinks no more seriously of his own misfortunes than his\nneighbour thinks of them, his troubles will be lightly borne.\n\nHowever, the world is much more good-natured than the man of morbid\ntemper gives it credit for.  Penetrate through its cold reserve, and you\noften find within a warm, sympathetic heart.  The good English heart is\noft-times hedged by a _chevaux de frise_ of English hauteur hard to\nbreak through, but get within the lines and you receive a cordial\nwelcome.\n\nOur sturdy Countess was not afflicted with false shame.  She had pride,\nbut not vanity. Vanity is a coquette and says, \"What do you think of\nme?\" and tremblingly awaits your verdict.  Pride says, \"I am as good as\nyou are, and I don't care a damn.\"  It is not every decadent Countess\nwho sells jam to keep her end up in this see-saw world.  It requires\ngrit and a rare brand of pride uncommon in the quality to rise to the\noccasion.  There is a vain pride that welters into nothingness in the\ndismal hour of failure, and starves tragically like a rat in a trap\nrather than help itself or accept help from others.  There is another\npride--robust, full-blooded pride--that spurns the conventionalities of\ncaste, takes off its coat and fights misfortune face to face resolutely\nfor its daily bread, and wins through.  This is where our heroic\nCountess steps in splendour.\n\nWhy immolate oneself on the altar of family pride?  A false goddess sits\nenshrined there on a false throne.  Why live on the reputation a\nforefather won in the Middle Ages?  That reputation is now spent\ncapital; it is worthless scrip on the social market to-day.  Build\nanother reputation for yourself, clean and sweet and new.  If ill luck\ndrops you in the ditch, to maintain inviolate the family honour you must\nget up and with ungloved hands work your way out of it like a man.  Sell\njam.\n\nPerhaps you hate wearing a brand-new reputation.  It sets on you like a\nmisfitting coat.  You are an heir of the glorious past, and exult on the\nlength in your ancient lineage.  Remember also you are a trustee of the\nsplendid future; the shining days to come demand your thoughtful\nconsideration. Do rare credit to your sacred trust.  It is better to\ntransmit honour to your descendants than to borrow fame from your\nancestors. It is better to be lovingly remembered than nobly born.  That\ngrim old ancestor of yours who built the family fortune out of nothing\nand grimly fought every inch of the way up to renown single-handed would\ndespise you for a poltroon lying derelict in the ditch of despair.  If\nthe family fall throws you to the ground, are you going to lie there\nindefinitely and rot like offal?  Sell jam.\n\nAn Italian nobleman went to America to repair his fallen fortunes.  He\nrefused to soil his hands in trade; his old family title was the magic\nkey he carried to open the treasure-chests of the New World.  So he\narrived in America armed with a despatch-box full of introductions to\nmoney magnates there.  He called upon a banker in New York, and\npresented a letter of introduction. The banker asked him what he knew\nabout business.  \"Nothing,\" replied the nobleman; \"I am a cavalry\nofficer.\"  \"Sorry I cannot help you,\" said the banker; \"the circus left\nour town yesterday.\"  The nobleman was floored. Enraged at the magnate's\nlaconic insolence, he destroyed all letters of introduction contained in\nhis despatch-box and tackled the world on his own.  He folded up his\nfamily pedigree, laid it in lavender, went into the market and sold jam.\nIn the market-place a long head is a better weapon to fight with than a\nlong pedigree.  He worked out his own salvation, and returned home and\nlived contentedly amongst the orange-groves and sunshine of Southern\nItaly.\n\n\n\n\n                                 *VIII*\n\n                      *THE LURE OF OLD FURNITURE*\n\n\nEight old Chippendale chairs and two settees sold recently at Christie's\nfor 5,600 guineas, and report says quickly after the auctioneer's hammer\ndismissed the lot they changed hands again at L1,000 profit to the\nbuyer.  There must be great charm in old furniture when people scramble\nfor it regardless of cost.  I suppose money is dull stuff to own heaps\nof unless you can exchange it for things that give the heart a passing\nthrill of pleasure (the great sport is in the making it); and the more\nmoney you make, the more it takes you to work up the thrill.  A\nmillionaire's smile is an expensive hobby to cultivate. Gathering a\nbunch of wild primroses in the sunny April woods gladdens the heart of a\nchild amazingly, and he dreams the pleasure over again in his sleep.  It\ncosts over 5,000 guineas to tingle the feelings of a rich man. The\nchild's outlay is more economical, but it fetches as much enjoyment.\n\nWherein lies the secret charm of old furniture?  I love it myself, and\nfor that reason ask the question for the pleasure given in answering it.\nI am only a trifler in antiques, possessing a few pieces of exquisite\nold oak of the seventeenth-century period; also several pieces of walnut\nfurniture which are old Italian.  The Italian pieces lie fallow in a\nvilla just outside the barriera St. Domenico, Florence, where we live\nwith them half the year round.  Beautiful old walnut furniture counts\nmuch more in its own homeland, while the alien oak of England, which we\nlove here, is cold and expressionless in the rooms of an Italian villa\non the sunny slopes of Fiesole.  It loses its aura in a strange land.\n\nOld furniture with a time-worn glossy face on it is interesting because\nit is made by the hands of man; and the man used his brain in making it,\nas well as his hands; surely man's delight is in man's work.  A piece of\nold furniture reflects the mind of its maker in every detail of its\nconstruction, and that is a very fascinating feature to me; for we are\ntold on high authority that \"hand-work possesses character, almost\npersonality,\" and we believe the high authority with all our heart.\n\nModern furniture has no personality, and so it transmits no message; it\nis machine-made, and I hold no kinship with machinery to cherish warm\nfeeling in its favour; but handcraft ever commands our respect, and when\nwell done wins our widest admiration.\n\nMachine-made work carries a lie on the face of it; it imitates handwork.\nThe machine simulates a trouble that has not been taken. It produces\nbeautifully designed and ornamented imitations of ancient handcraft at\ntrifling cost.  Who cares for beauty produced by formula?  Beauty is the\nflowering of noble labour linked to useful purpose. Cheapness and\nshowiness are the flaring advertisements of the mechanical cabinet-maker\nto-day, and he hits with precision the public taste.\n\nGive me to admire something a man has laboured lovingly and honestly to\nproduce, not what a machine vomits out standard pattern; something a man\nhas put the power of his brain into as well as the dexterity of his\nhand.  William Morris quaintly remarks: \"If you have anything to say,\nyou may as well put it into a chair or a table.\"  The cabinet-maker\nspeaks to us with his tools in a language of his own invention.  The\ncabinet-maker has helped to make English homes comfortable to live in,\nand for so doing we owe him a debt of gratitude.  His tools are not the\nsword and the cannon, but the plane, the chisel, and the swift-moving\nsaw.  His art is not destructive to life, piling on misery to man's many\nwoes, but he enriches life manifold by adding comfort and luxury to the\nwidening circle of human happiness.  His rewards are not stars and\ngarters and hereditary honours conferred by princes for brave deeds done\non the field of battle, but just the recompense that the master of the\ntools' true play appreciates; the simple pleasure of good work well and\ntruly done sent forth to take honourable place in the stately homes of\nEngland, knowing that by such fine hand-craft he will speak from his\ngrave to people unborn; and he even cherishes the inspiring hope that\nthose who are possessors of his treasured work done in oak and walnut\nand sweet satinwood will, in the hereafterward, in the quietude of their\nsequestered homes, surrounded by familiar furniture of high lineage,\nbestow on the workman a passing measure of praise; for these worthy\ncraftsmen put the best of their lives into the labour of their hands.\n\nOld furniture is delightful in your home because it is old.  Age has an\nalchemy of its own that ennobles the work of man.  A brand-new house is\ndeadly unromantic, even if it is a dream of architectural excellence.\nIts appearance is garish and crude.  New stones and raw bricks are ugly\nin the days of their youth, but age transforms the place, be it\nmanor-house or thatched cottage, until enchantment haunts the fabric.  I\ndearly love the grace of antiquity that mellows the venerable homesteads\nof England and blends the intermingling lustre of tradition with the\nroll of their lengthening years.\n\nAge likewise has a mellowing influence on furniture.  Obliteration of\nexactitude of form is essential charm in it as it is in a man or woman.\nYou resent the loudness of a newly made rich man.  His manners smell\nstrongly of varnish just put on; his vanity and self-importance are\nunsavoury morsels to swallow without salt.  He is a terror to his polite\nneighbours and a stranger to himself.  Wait and see; he will tone down\nas the mills of life grind off the sharp angles and smooth him into a\ndecent fellow.\n\nGood taste resents primness and self-assertiveness in new furniture; its\nraw outlines and sharp angles offend the eye.  When these stubborn\nfeatures are subdued by centuries of wear and tear and the wondrous\nold-time bloom of rich deep colour glorifies the ripened oak with\nsoftness and transparency of tone, that quality so delightful to sight\nand touch which distinguishes genuine antique furniture, then\nsentimental feeling waxes strong and renders the work attractive to us.\n\nVague and visionary thoughts of past owners flit across the mind, and\nkindle emotions in the presence of an ancient piece of furniture of good\nrepute.  It idealizes in our minds, and becomes beautiful to us.  It is\na call of the past.  It is an unwritten chapter in some old family\nhistory, and we want to handle the key of the legend locked up in it.\nThere may be tragedy or comedy, or a mixture of both, recorded in the\nfamily log-book, and the stately old carved-oak court cupboard dozing in\nthe banqueting-hall, generation after generation, saw it all through\nfrom beginning to end, but it whispers away no family secrets to\ninquisitive people.  An evil day broke the family fortunes.  The\nvenerable court cupboard vacated its place of honour which it occupied\nfor centuries in the Yorkshire manor-house, and has taken up quarters\nwith us in our Sussex home.  It is no longer mere chattel; there is\nhuman interest in it.\n\nI wonder if it takes kindly to its new home? Land, they say, sometimes\nresents change of owners, especially passing from a family who had held\nlordship of the soil for generations. When the old squire dies, the last\nof his line, the land grieves.  It seems to know that it is going to be\nsold and broken up, and it loses heart.  It goes rotten like apples.  A\npatch goes wrong here and a patch goes wrong there, and the rottenness\nspreads and runs together.  It takes the land long to get used to a new\nmaster.\n\nHas our old oak court cupboard sensitive feelings like the ancestral\nacres?  Or is it silently and sullenly indifferent to all the changes of\nfortune that befall it?\n\nI have an oak armchair with a unique story to tell.  The back of it is\none large panel carved with heavy flora and foliated decoration; on the\ncross-rail below the panel is carved in bold raised letters:\n\n                           16 ELLIN RYLAND 94\n\nThe two arms are bountifully carved, and the carving terminates in a\nlarge Tudor rose forming a knob at the end of each arm. The arm-tops,\nthrough constant use, are smooth and shine like unto burnished bronze.\nThe supports and front legs are twisted in good Jacobean manner, and the\nbroad stretcher is carved with two long feathery, flowing\nacanthus-leaves curling round gracefully at the tips as if under\npressure of a strong breeze, and crouching within their embrace nestles\na rose in ambush.  The chair has been mothered with lifelong care, and\nthe bloom and beauty of age sit upon it like a crown of glory.  So Ellin\nRyland has won for her name immortality among the roses.\n\nWe often think of Ellin and question the chair about her, but\ninformation does not flow freely from that quarter.  Did Ellin order the\nchair from the cabinet-maker herself?  I think not; perhaps her lover\ngave it her on her birthday, or her husband on their wedding-day.  No\ndoubt the chair's existence celebrates a red-letter day in the annals of\nthe family.  The name now is only a legend to us, but there it is,\nlegible after the flight of two hundred and twenty years. The old chair\nis a better monument to Ellin Ryland's memory than a stone slab in a\ndamp churchyard, with her name graven on it in crumbling letters.\n\nI dare say Ellin had a thin slice of vanity in her nature; we all have,\nand would like our names printed somewhere imperishably. During two\nhundred and twenty years the moss and lichen, the sun and the frost,\nconspire together to obliterate any lettering in churchyard stones, but\nthe writing in tablet-oak on the armchair is as brave as ever.  The name\nis only a legend, but it keeps her memory green.\n\nI do not turn my house into a museum of antiques, but certainly I choose\ninteresting old furniture to live with where choice is possible; it has\na cheery influence on your temper.  I love to walk amongst my treasures\nand touch them with my hand and admire their cloistered beauty.  I\nstarted housekeeping in Victorian days, after the orthodox manner of\nEnglishmen about to marry, by buying new furniture.  To get the genuine\narticle I bought it in framework and had it upholstered and finished at\nhome, under my eye.  As years rolled on, piece by piece the Victorian\nfurniture vanished from our rooms and old pieces supplanted them, and\nthe rooms grew pleasant to look upon and cosy to sit in.  Your furniture\nhas a subtle influence on your disposition.  You live with it daily all\nthe year round as you do with your wife, and you married her because she\nwas the girl you loved best in the world, and since the wedding-day her\ninfluence has coloured your life more than you can measure and\ncontributed mysteriously to make you the manner of man you are.  Your\nfurniture adds much to your pleasure and quiet enjoyment of home life if\nyou have the right sort.  Old furniture with quietness of line is the\nbest to live with--it is suggestive of repose.\n\nI love old furniture because its workmanship is artistic.  Style in a\nchair or table is the all-important thing.  A piece of furniture,\nhowever simple in design, if it is wrought artistically, stimulates the\nimagination, arouses the emotions, and provokes endless delight in the\nconnoisseur.  We are keen observers to-day, and curious over work done\ncenturies ago.  We handle a well-bred piece of furniture with respect as\nwe trace the skill shown in beauty of line; the eye travels joyously\nover its well-balanced proportions and hovers with admirance over its\ndownright dexterity of carving.  No literal copy of antique furniture\nmade in the forcing factories of to-day has feeling in it.  It is very\naccurate in line and detail but it lacks expression, and that is where\nthe artistic spirit enters, that is where the charm holds us.  As old\nHiggery the carpenter explained himself out of it when Lord Louis Lewis\ncomplimented him on being the finest carpenter of his age: \"Ah, sir,\" he\nreplied, \"Chippendale was the finest cabinet-maker of his age and\nSheraton of his; but they went beyond that.  They had the Idea.  I can\nuse my tools as well as either of them--better, maybe, for 'tis a subtle\nthing to give a semblance of age to a new piece, but I haven't got the\nIdea, and never had.  If the imagination had gone with the craft, King\nGeorge might have seen his period of furniture as well as any of the\nothers.\"\n\nChippendale and Sheraton were without doubt the cleverest cabinet-makers\nof their age; but many an unnamed workman of their period has left us\nthe splendid legacy of his \"ideas\" in furniture which is scattered over\nthe comfortable homes of England, with no pedigree attached except the\nimprimatur of a master craftsman's genius.\n\nSpeaking of artistic furniture, I do not mean elaborate furniture\noverladen with a heavy ornament which confuses its lines and perverts\nits beauty into vulgarity. Simplicity is the fairest form of art.\nSimplicity consists not so much in plainness of production as in\nsingleness of purpose.  The essence of simplicity is the absence of\nself-consciousness.  A combination of simplicity of character and great\nartistic power is difficult to find, but when found it is the most\nperfect combination and produces finest work.  Art is often\nself-conscious, and quickly runs to seed in superfluous ornamentation.\nThe Louis Quinze style is unwholesome as poison.  It is brilliantly\nclever, but it is fascinatingly demoralizing.  It reflects in art the\nluxury and insincerity, the licentiousness and effeminacy of the age\nthat invented it.\n\nGaudy and overornamented furniture is teasingly self-conscious, and\nconceited stuff to live with.  Its lines are vulgar and sensuous curves.\nIt is always staring at you, grinning at you, ogling you, and saying,\n\"Observe me, and admire.\"  Just the very character of the frivolous\nwomen, the Pompadour and the Du Barri, who ruled the voluptuous Court of\nLouis XV., and who squandered the royal revenues in extravagance of art\nand craft, so that the artist's taste was wasted in riotous designing\nand the craftsman's skill debased in excesses of ornament.\n\nSumptuous furniture and splendid apparel are closely wedded together,\nand cannot be separated with success.  If I lived among Louis Quinze\nfurniture I should often see in the room with me ghosts of gallant\ncourtiers, dressed in long silk coats, embellished with gold braid, and\nvests of rainbow hue, with cravats and ruffs of billowy lace, carrying\nat their hips a long rapier, and toying with a bejewelled snuff-box as\nthey moved noiselessly with an elegant devil-may-care swagger, mixing\nwith superbly decorated marqueterie cabinets and tables and bronze\nstatuettes and Sevres china _bleu du roi_; and shadowy ladies of high\ndegree would be there, wearing capacious and flowery dresses and\npowdered hair, sitting in the chequered light of evening on seats richly\nupholstered in pale rose Gobelin tapestry, smiling dreamily on the\nexquisites of the old regime--all of them fatally gifted mortals with\nmanners polished as the hard, shining surface of the parquet floor they\ngaily tread: the whole scene a vision glorious, composing an harmonious\nblend of colour, grace, and beauty.  Modern men lounging in tweed\nNorfolk jackets, or dressed sombre in black swallow-tail coats, with a\ncigarette lolling on their lips, and ladies tailored into close-fitting\ncostumes of neutral tints, however beautiful in themselves, would be\ncompletely out of the picture.\n\nA peculiar reason why old furniture is coveted by many people is because\nit is fashionable and scarce.  The quantity that remains in the country,\ndrawn from the homes of our easy-going port-wine-drinking Georgian\nforefathers, is decreasing, and buyers are increasing, so competition\nruns riot for really good pieces.\n\nThere is plenty of worthless old furniture for sale, as there are\nworthless \"Old Masters\" asking for buyers.  Americans are the greedy\ncollectors who raid the market with their unlimited dollars and pay\nsensational prices for the prize pieces to adorn their town houses in\nNew York or Chicago.\n\nCollecting is a fascinating hobby.  I have found pleasure hunting for\nantiques far away from the heated atmosphere of Christie's\nauction-rooms.  The joy of the chase is great, and the habit grows upon\nyou.  I have made many enjoyable excursions into the country with a\nclear-cut object in view which gives zest to the journey. Rummaging\nthrough second-hand shops in the back streets of provincial towns or in\nout-of-the-way villages searching for spoil is an alluring pastime to\nindulge in, and if you love the country through which you travel for the\ncountry's sake you will be very happy on the trail, and want to go again\nwhether much or little plunder falls to your quest. Old cathedral towns\nyield the best results. There are many sleepy second-hand shops\nloitering round the cathedral waiting for customers to step in after\nvisiting the sacred fane.  There is much lumber and little treasure in\nmost of them; but if you don't find what you want, in looking for it you\nmay find something that pleases you better, like the man who was digging\na hole in his garden to bury a dead dog and unburied a Greek statue of\nVenus.\n\nCalling at the smart antique dealers' spacious establishments in London\nis an edition de luxe version of the same story. Here choice pieces are\nassembled, polished and poised adroitly to arrest attention. Some of\nthese elegant salons resemble museums; the surroundings breathe order,\ncalm, refinement.  Prices rule high as the aristocratic character of the\nplace you visit.\n\nNothing is cheap in these sanctuaries of the old nobility of furniture\nand art treasure except courtesy and affability, which are supplied\ngratis by the faultlessly accoutred gentleman of the department, who\nchecks you on entering and conducts you round. Any object you look at he\nexplains for your edification.  He rivals the showman at Windsor Castle\nor the Tower of London for knowing his part and throwing at you torrents\nof information as he strides along.  He revels in it, and his importance\nand intelligence mesmerize you and keep most of your five senses\nstirring.  You admire him as an oracle of antique lore, and listen to\nhim with fear and trembling.  His beaming smile encourages you to live,\nand politely you ask another question.\n\nHere the business of selling is practised as a fine art.  The attendant\nis so well bred, well groomed, so condescending and obliging you feel\nyourself a criminal if you escape him without making a purchase.  You\nsay: \"I should like to go back and see that satinwood chair again.\"\n\"Ah,\" he replies, \"that is a most interesting piece; King Edward often\nsat in that chair.  It belonged to the Hon. Oliver Grimes, a great\nfriend of King Edward; it was the King's favourite seat when he visited\nthe Hon. Oliver at Redcote Manor.  And here is the oak table you admired\nso much as we passed along. We know the pedigree of it.  It came from\nMonkwood Hall, Derbyshire.  It has been in possession of the family\nsince the year 1620.  We bought it at the Hall last week, and so it has\nnever been in the trade.  How beautifully the frieze is carved; what a\nfine patina it has formed; it shines like a mirror; surely the butler\nmust have polished it every week when he waxed the oak floor.  It has\nnever been damaged or repaired; it is genuine all over.  It is a\nprecious and faultless piece of Jacobean oak, and the price is only...!\"\n\nThere are dangers and pitfalls besetting the buyer of old furniture.\nEven in the garden of antiques a slimy serpent spoils the smiling\nlandscape.  Fraud is not unknown side by side with honest dealing.  Not\nall furniture is old as it looks.  That is where that predatory rascal\ncalled the faker creeps in and preys upon humanity in general and the\ninnocent amateur in particular.\n\nThere are sly manufactories of old furniture busy to-day in shoddy\nworkshops, building up immaculate high-grade chairs, tables, cabinets,\nout of oddments of oak and mahogany collected from the scrap-heap of\nbroken and decayed furniture.  New wood is added in parts where\nnecessary to complete the transformation, and when these modern antiques\nare blended, stained to harmonize in colour, and a glowing patina rubbed\non by the artful dodgers, it takes a keen eye to detect the villainy of\nthe deed, as that arch-swindler Gaspero Bandini said to his\nfellow-conspirator: \"We must make it as antique as possible: we must\nsell the old wine with the dust on the bottle.\"\n\nThere is no fixed market value to old furniture as there is to\npostage-stamps or War Loan stock.  The dealer sets his own price on his\ngoods, and the cupidity of the public guides him how best to do it.  He\nis a keen observer of human nature, and plays up to its little\nweaknesses for his own advantage, and he does it smilingly.\n\nIt is wonderful how environment works on our feelings and baffles our\njudgment.  In the twinkling of an eye it changes the value we place on\nthings.  Dress the same man in two different suits of clothes, and you\nhave all the difference in our cursory opinion between a lord and a\ntinker.  The same article exhibited in shop-windows East or West of\nLondon changes its value appreciably, and we are blindly content to buy\nin the dearest market if it is the most elegant, and fancy we get full\nvalue for money.\n\nI know a man in Florence who wanted an old Tuscan table, and he padded\nround the city looking for one.  In a small shop where much furniture\nwas crowded into little space he saw the article that pleased him.  The\ndealer asked twenty-four pounds for it.  He tried to beat down the\nprice, but the dealer would not humour him, so he left without buying.\nPresently a large dealer in antiques entered the shop, fancied the\ntable, and paid twenty-four pounds for it straightway, and removed it to\nhis own premises, which are spacious and commanding.  The man in quest\nof a Tuscan table visited the spacious premises and saw the table in its\ngrander home, fell in love with it again, and bought it for forty\npounds.  Afterward he told the dealer in the small shop that he had\nfound the table he wanted at Mr. So-and-so's, and, quite elated, he\ndescribed his purchase. \"Yes, I know about it,\" replied the rejected\ndealer.  \"You have paid forty pounds for the table I offered to sell you\nfor twenty-four.\"  The buyer looked foolish, and said: \"But it was so\nmuch better displayed at Mr. So-and-so's shop that I did not recognize\nit being the same table; it looked worth twenty pounds more in his place\nthan it did in yours.\"\n\nThe auction-mart frequently governs the price of old furniture and gives\nit an upward lift.  The psychology of the auction-room is an interesting\nstudy.  The loaded atmosphere of the place has a compelling influence\nthat gets the better of one's judgment.  In a shop a man scoffs at the\ntall price of a piece of furniture and haggles doggedly with the dealer\nto reduce it thirty shillings; in the auction-room if the same piece\nwere offered he would compete with the crowd to raise the price of it\nincontinently.  It is the consistent conduct of inconsistent human\nnature.  It is that bellicose little devil who hides himself at the\nbottom of every human being, impelling him down into the danger zone to\nfight, who is guilty of the rash and feckless deed.  A man enters the\nauction-room in a happy, breezy frame of mind, not to buy, just to look\non and see what things are fetching. The serpent of the place tempts\nhim, and he is a lost soul.  His good resolutions evaporate like water\non a hot plate, leaving no trace behind.  The fighting impulse in him\nleaps up, and he bids and bids again, and eventually he finds himself\nthe possessor of a rare old mahogany bureau hatched in the reign of our\nKing George, but inadvertently described in the catalogue as a\nmasterpiece of the cabinet-maker's craft composed in the times of Queen\nAnne!\n\n\n\n\n                                  *IX*\n\n                       *THE LURE OF PERSONALITY*\n\n\nPersonal influence is a subtle impalpable sovereign power that man\npossesses; sometimes it possesses the man, for influence often is an\nunconscious element in his life which exhales from him like the\nfragrance from a flower or miasma from a swamp.  You cannot investigate\nit.  It is moral force.  Some men possess much of it, others less, the\nresidue of mankind none.  That is the mystery of influence.  You cannot\nregulate it, calculate it, or tabulate it in standard quantities. Its\noperation is noiseless as a shadow, dangerous as lightning, profound as\neternity, beautiful as the five wise virgins, or devilish as\nMephistopheles.\n\nWe speak here of personal influence. There is an influence of a baser\nsort which is powerful in its way--the influence of money.  Money is\nextraneous matter. Wealth magnifies a man in people's eyes, but the man\nhimself may be small without the money inflation.  Strip the rich man of\nhis shekels, and you strip him of his significance.  He counts no more\nthan an empty egg-shell after the rats have eaten the meat out of it.\nFrequently the extraordinary man is only an ordinary man placed in\nextraordinary circumstances.\n\nThere is also the influence of position. That is not the genuine\narticle.  It is alien honour conferred like the odour of attar of roses\nclinging to an empty earthen jar. Position gives power.  Some people who\nsit in the chair of authority use their power to the full, but it is the\npower of position, not of character or individuality.  The only\nadvantage of power is to be able to do more good than other people.  All\nthe world knows the difference, the ghastly difference, between Cardinal\nWolsey in favour and Cardinal Wolsey in disgrace.  Catastrophe lies\nbetween these extremes of fortune. The man remains the same in both\nstates, but the world moves with the times, and gives no credit to an\noverrun banking account.  He is a fallen star.  He drops out of the\nseventh heaven of popularity into abysmal darkness.  Banished the Royal\npresence, who cares for Cardinal Wolsey? He has no favours to transmit.\nNo man is his friend, for he can befriend no man. Position makes and\nunmakes a man, like sunshine makes or unmakes a summer day.\n\nInfluence of truest and finest brand is personal.  It emanates from the\nman, not from his circumstances.  Some men handle their fellow-creatures\nwith dexterity and ease, like an experienced whip controls the horse he\nsits behind.  Quietness and firmness are in the human touch, and the\nanimal bends submissively to every movement of the reins; so some men\ncommand their fellow-creatures, and they submit their wills to the\nmaster mind that rides them, and how the spell governs they cannot say.\nOther men are ciphers in society.  \"Only Mr. So-and-so\" consigns a man\nto the outposts of social extinction, and mixes him up with the\nunclassified masses of limp, negligible, and insignificant people who\nwelter and gambol with their kennel companions, but they cannot head the\npack on hunting days.\n\nInfluential men are not common in the community.  Only the elect few\nshine; many are reflectors of borrowed light.  Influence is a gift.  It\nis caught, not taught.  It is all decided for us when nestlings in the\ncradle, and perhaps before we nestle.  The schoolboy unconsciously\nwields a mystic power in the playground, and his chums hover round him\nas king of the revels.  Animal magnetism exudes from every pore of his\nyouthful skin. He leads in every escapade, and others fall in without\nquestion.  He is not taught the trick; it comes natural for him to lead\nas for the rank and file to follow.\n\nOn what principle Nature bestows her favours it is difficult to hazard,\nmore difficult than to discover what principle guides the British\nGovernment in distributing her coveted decorations to the British\npublic.  Nature is romantic.  Exercising her sovereignty she gives her\nhonours as she pleases.  No money can buy them.  Blue-blooded pedigrees\nhave no preferential tariff.  Nature mocks our conventionality, spurns\nour orders of merit, and winks at our social somebodies.  Often she\nopenly prefers a costermonger to a King--stamps aristocratic grace on a\ngipsy, and refuses it to a Duchess.  There are insignificant great men\nwho would be hustled in a crowd if they wore no badge, while to social\nnobodies Nature attaches a halo of distinction which the crowd delights\nto honour as subjects offer incense to a King.\n\nPersonality is an attribute that carries a man far on the road to\nsuccess.  Personality is an endowment which proclaims a man one of\nNature's aristocrats.  It is Nature's advertisement of her best, and she\nis proud of her handiwork.  Personality is a fascinating asset; it lends\ndignity to common clay; it gives a man a standing outside the crowd,\nwhich he occupies with ineffable content and full advantage to himself.\nSome people have \"an air\" about them, and the atmosphere they move in is\nintoxicating to those dwelling under the spell of their presence.  You\ncannot crush people who have personality.  Over and over again it turns\nthe scales in their favour in the competitions of life.  Their virtues\nmay not be of the celestial, their talent may lack glitter, but their\npersonality grips you with its pomp and splendour, and they sit amongst\nthe mighty, imposing themselves on gods and men.  The envious man admits\ntheir success, and slurringly says: \"They are commonplace: there is\nnothing astonishing in them except their success.\"  He consoles himself\nwith the banal reflection that, other things being equal, he is quite as\ngood as they.  But the strange mystery of presence steps in and prevents\nother things ever being equal.\n\nSome men lack engaging personality, they have no physical charm or\nforce, yet they exert strenuous influence.  They possess great mental or\nmoral qualities.  There is a Divine spark in the clay that scintillates\nand collects attention.  They are luminous bodies, and emit light.  They\nare men with virtue in them, and virtue flows out of them.  The\nextremely fascinating character of Jesus Christ moves in splendour adown\nthe ages, giving out vital energy.  It draws men to-day irresistibly, as\nit constrained men nearly two thousand years ago to follow Him homeless\nand penniless through the highways and by-ways of Palestine, without\nworldly honour or pay to recompense them.  There is a strange, silent,\npenetrating, perplexing, yet mighty influence working round about us; it\nis the influence of the life of Christ holding us up. I do not mean His\nlife as crudely reflected to us in the modern Church.  Jesus Christ has\na larger influence outside the Church than in it.  Christ would be a\nstranger in the sanctuary to-day if He visited it as the peasant of\nGalilee.\n\nJesus Christ never commissioned His disciples to build up in the world\nsuch a colossal organization as the Church has swollen itself into with\nwindy pride.  In every country in Europe the Church is the biggest\nbusiness concern and the wealthiest institution, the most aristocratic\nsociety and the most retrogressive force.  The national Churches are\nslavishly worldly and chastely genteel concerns; they would boycott the\nkingdom of Christ if they thought it were trying to enter the world\nthrough their gilded gates.\n\nThe kingdom of Christ is democratic.  It might interfere with tithes and\nendowments and vested interests.  I fancy Christ will establish His\nkingdom without calling in the Church to help Him.  I could not picture\nChrist making use of a Bishop in knee-breeches, lawn sleeves, and with a\nseat in the House of Lords, when engaging disciples to evangelize the\nworld.  But I can picture Christ falling speechless when brought face to\nface with a Bishop geared in full canonical uniform; and if in His\nignorance of ecclesiastical functionaries Jesus politely inquired, \"Who\nis the aristocratic old gentleman wearing knee-breeches and a\nbroad-brimmed hat, and to what institution does he belong?\" on being\ntold he was speaking to one of the leading representatives of His own\nspiritual institution, I can picture Christ melting away in anguish of\nheart from the venerable presence of the great divine to solace Himself\nin the company of fishermen and mechanics--men whose hearts are warm and\nmanners natural, even if their creed is a bit unorthodox from the\necclesiastical standpoint.\n\nAnd there is the good St. Francesco, the stainless and blameless saint,\nborn of the little Tuscan hill city, the perpetual flowering rose of\nAssisi, whose godly fragrance gives off for ever to sweeten the life of\nmankind--St. Francis of Assisi, the humble child of God, the dear\nbrother of men, dead these five hundred years gone by; but he is now\nlying warm upon the lap of Christendom, nursed for one of the noblest,\ngentlest spirits, aglow with the fervour of an endless life. He is a\nliving, controlling force to-day in the world's long battle for\nrighteousness, and ever pouring into our ears the sweetness of Christ.\n\nMen are governed more wisely by the dead than by the living.  Interned\nwithin the calmness of their shades, the mighty dead speak to us, and no\ncross-currents of envy, prejudice, or malice ruffle the serenity of\ntheir counsel.  Influence is not always beneficent; it is malignant\nsometimes, and contaminates like the plague.  Evil qualities can be as\nattractive as wholesome virtues.  The poets brand the Devil with a\ncommanding personality.  John Wilkes, the notorious demagogue in the\nreign of George III., was the ugliest man in England, yet he impressed\nhimself marvellously on his generation.  He was a popular hero; he\npossessed natural gaiety of disposition and an irrepressible fund of\nimpudence and wit.  He was the most brilliant controversialist of his\nday. He was a charming rake with an insinuating smile, and he wore the\nmanners of a fine English gentleman, which captivated his enemies and\nconciliated the King.  He had exceptional powers of fascination, and he\nboasted that--ugly as he was--with the start of a quarter of an hour he\ncould get the better of any man, however good-looking, in the graces of\nany lady.\n\n\n\n\n                                  *X*\n\n                       *THE LURE OF NICE PEOPLE*\n\n\nOur friend Mrs. Alinson took me sharply in hand one day, and tendered me\ngood advice gratuitously over the tea-table.  Mrs. Alinson is a lady\nmagnificent in bulk, energetic in action, torrential in tongue, and\nwarm-hearted in disposition, second to none amongst the daughters of\nmen.\n\nWhen as a young man I first came to town she adopted me, mothered me\nsocially, and manoeuvred for my success.  She did not approve of my\nassociates, and rated me soundly in her loud, pushful, stridulant voice,\nwhich commands attention: \"Mr. Drake is not a desirable acquaintance for\nyou to pursue, my dear.  He don't belong to our set, and his reputation\nis tainted; unpleasant rumours cloud round his name.  Take my advice and\ncut him.  You only want to know nice people.\"\n\nShrewd, disinterested, motherly advice for Mrs. Alinson to bestow on a\ntenderfoot unfamiliar with the pitfalls of society.  Surely only a lady\nof sweet discerning disposition could give it; a lady whom everybody\nloves and whom nobody gainsays; a lady the final arbiter of taste in\n\"nice people\" who opens the door to a new-comer and no man shuts, who\nshuts the door on a new-comer and no man opens.  I accepted her dictum\nas good current coin of the elect world we moved in, to be honoured\nwithout reserve.  Its metal rang genuine on the social counter.  Mr.\nDrake henceforth is a stranger to me; it would imperil my position in\nsociety to know him.\n\nAfter tea we parted, and I went to the cinema.  I often go to a cinema\nbecause it amuses me when I want amusement.  It is light and inexpensive\ndiversion.  Superior people sneer at the cinema, and call it low-grade\namusement: a common glanty-show that pleases common people.  However, as\nI have no shares in music-halls or wasting investments in theatre-land,\nI am impartial in my pleasures, and can take a shilling seat in a\npicture palace with clean conscience and merry heart.  In the cinema we\nmet our dear friend Lady ----, who was enjoying the moving pictures.\nShe invited us to her reception on the following Saturday afternoon; at\nthe conclusion of the show, when parting from her, she said: \"It's very\nkind of you to promise for next Saturday.  Please don't tell Mrs.\nAlinson you are coming, or she will be sure to come too, and I don't\nwant her.  The friends I am inviting don't care to meet her.\"\n\nThis was a staggering blow struck at the serene goddess to whom we bent\nthe obedient knee.  Was there another social kingdom where she had no\nsovereignty, where her passing shadow, like a malign influence, was a\nthing to be shunned?  Was she a false goddess, or no goddess at all?\nShe pictured herself the controlling hand which steered the current of\ngay life in our midst.  Was she at the helm, or was it a mild illusion\nthat muddled her amiable brain?  Here are people actually who will not\nopen their doors to receive her, nor permit her feet to tread their\ndusty carpet--and she thought omnipotence was in her nod.\n\nThese colliding facts perplexed us.  They suggested the ridiculous, and\noffer food for reflection on the comedy of human manners. Here, on the\none hand, is a portrait we draw of ourselves, and there opposite hangs\non the wall a portrait other people draw of us. Place these two sketches\nside by side and consider, do they represent the same person? Is there\nresemblance between them enough to establish identity in a British court\nof law?  How can there be?  We do not see ourselves as others see us.\nWe each observe the interesting object that engages our attention from\ndifferent points of the compass. We see our good points of character and\nmake the best of them; our neighbours detect our little sins and make\nthe worst of them.  So we clothe ourselves in sunlight and paint our\nneighbours drab.  Mrs. Alinson, fortunate woman, had no glimmering idea\nwhat other people thought of her; it was not given her to see herself as\nothers see her.  She lives stolidly; eats, drinks, dresses, talks,\nsurrounded by a shining halo of self-complacency through which her\nmentality cannot penetrate.  She is good-natured, thinks excellently of\nherself, and believes other people's feelings towards her are equally\nwell disposed.  You and I, happily, are unconscious of the quaint esteem\nin which our neighbours hold us, and wisely there we ring the curtain\ndown.  If the truth were told, half our acquaintances are our\nenemies--behind our backs.\n\nSoon after the split in the Liberal party on the first Home Rule Bill,\nwhich sundered so many political friendships, Frank Holl was painting\nthe portrait of John Bright. He mentioned to his sitter that he was\nabout to paint the portrait of Mr. Gladstone.  \"It must be a very\npainful thing to you, Mr. Bright,\" he hazarded, \"that after all these\nyears of comradeship you two should sever your connection?\"  \"Indeed it\nis,\" replied Bright with a sigh; \"to think that after we have so long\nworked together we should be forced apart in the evening of our lives!\nAnd by what?  A bogy that has risen up within him, beckoning him away\nfrom duty and sense.  Do you know, Mr. Holl, I seriously fear that my\ndear old friend's mind is giving way.\"\n\nWhen the artist was at Hawarden painting Mr. Gladstone, the subject of\nMr. Bright's portrait cropped up.  \"Ah!\" said Mr. Gladstone, \"and how\ndid you find him?\"  \"Fairly well; and he spoke very affectionately of\nyou, Mr. Gladstone.\"  \"Did he indeed?\" replied the sitter sorrowfully.\n\"It was a cruel blow that parted us--and on so clear a question, too!\nTell me, Mr. Holl\"--and here his lips quivered, for he was evidently\nmoved with strong emotion--\"tell me, did you notice anything in the\nmanner of my old friend which would lead you to suppose that his reason\nwas becoming unhinged?\"\n\nWe cannot see another man's personality in full rounded vision.  We get\npeeps at him; broken lights and flickering shadows of his character\ndance before us.  We chase the shadow, and think we can capture the man\nand rifle him of his every locked-up thought and uncover his soul's\nnakedness.\n\nThe popular writer analyzes, probes, dissects human character on paper,\nand we marvel at his subtlety in reading so far into people.  He plucks\nthe gay plumage off the poor bird he has trapped, and leaves the\nstripped and quivering body an unpleasant spectacle for the public to\ncontemplate through the glass case of a six-shilling novel. The novelist\nis a crude, fumbling workman at his trade.  His hand is too clumsy for\nhis tools.  He dissects his paper dolls as they pass before him in a\npaper world, but the tangled, unbalanced, erratic human being pulsing\nwith mystic life, even his next-door neighbour, baffles him on the\ndoorstep.  The novelist is a cunning artist, but an unskilful\nphilosopher.  He works like Conan Doyle's great detective Sherlock\nHolmes, who can unravel any mystery he himself concocts in the pages of\nthe _Strand Magazine_, but is no use to Scotland Yard in tracking a real\nmurderer or laying bare an elusive crime.\n\nIf some famous men who in their day and generation lived in cheap houses\nand mixed with common people, and died unparagraphed in daily papers,\ncould see themselves now, as we see them, promoted to illustrious\ncompanionship with the mighty dead, their heads would spin with\namazement at themselves for having arrived in splendour; they would\nstagger at the worship paid them by reverent posterity.\n\nDuring life they were great artists in mufti. They were regarded as\nunimportant persons by their own contemporaries, and to-day they are\nposted amongst the demi-gods of history.  They knew themselves to be\ngood workmen who did a good day's work for a fair day's pay, and then,\nlike other honest day-labourers, at nightfall, with clean consciences,\nthey laid down their tools, and their life-story ended there.  They\nlittle knew that they had the bud of immortality swelling in their\nveins, soon to break and flower into endless renown.\n\nHuman nature is a conundrum to itself hard to crack, as it is to other\npeople, even its friends and neighbours who eat and drink with it at\ntable.  We do not know that heaps of posthumous fame may presently cover\nour strange next-door neighbour.  To us he is only a negligible quantity\nin the affairs of the day, with a little gift of the pen or some queer\nscientific hobby that absorbs him.  In this swift age of ours Time and\nSpace are being brought to heel in masterly control, but our neighbours\nremain mysterious to us as Adam was to Eve until the affair of the apple\nfound the man out.  Even Shakespeare to his contemporaries did not\nappear a towering genius, but only one of themselves--a common literary\nhack with an uncommon gift of turning a sentence and making it tell.  It\nwas a trick they all tried to catch from him, but he just went one\nbetter than they.\n\nShakespeare's fellow-craftsmen were unconscious that they were\nentertaining an archangel unawares.  Nothing he said or did outside his\nscribbling for the playhouse is on record.  He had no trusty Boswell at\nhis elbow to note his pothouse wit and succulent wisdom, sparks from the\nfire of his genius, flung off impromptu in merry moments at the Mermaid\nTavern over a flagon of malmsey. His pals thought him a jovial fellow\nwell met, and when he died no crumbs of biography were swept up by\nloving hands to keep his memory green.\n\nBut strangest of all, did Shakespeare think much of himself?  He was\nutterly careless of the fate of his own literary labours.  He never\npublished one of his own plays.  After his death the stage copies of his\nplays were carefully collected together by two prudent men, Heming and\nCondell, with an eye to business.  Seven years later the first folio\nedition of Shakespeare's plays appeared in print.  The first edition is\nfull of glaring blunders, compiled as it was from the stage\nversions--the manuscripts that the players used in the theatres.  Those\nwell-thumbed dog-eared copies of the plays, very interesting documents\nto own if one could be placed on the market to-day: worn and torn,\nscored with erasures, interlined with emendations, stained with spilt\nwine and small beer, greasy with handling of midnight study, and\ncrumpled after pouching in the players' pockets cheek by jowl with\nincongruous trifles--could you expect literary finish to adorn these\nfugitive children of the playhouse?  Ever since that day learned\ncommentators have laboured assiduously correcting the text of the plays\nand combing out the tangle, quarrelling fraternally amongst themselves\nover the correct word for the place and the correct place for a word.\nThe quarrel of the commentators still flourishes, for the muddle of the\ntext has yet to be tidied up.\n\n\n\n\n                                  *XI*\n\n                    *THE LURE OF THE NEW DEMOCRACY*\n\n\nDemocracy is the rising star, mounting clear and bright over falling\nkingdoms and toppling empires.  Crowns are going cheap in the market\nto-day, and the divine right of kings is a broken weapon flung in the\nmud of the world's scorn and picked up as a toy for _Punch_ to provoke\nlaughter.  The old nobility is losing its ancient charter to sit\nexclusive in the high places of honour, and the common people--the new\ncaste--are coming into possession and power.  The working-man must be\ntailored to the grand part he plays in history.  He will feel uneasy\nperhaps wearing his first new dress suit--it will worry him like a\nmisfit.  But clothes add splendour to our common lot.  With the\nsalvation of the country dependent on his nod he must cast the stodgy\ncloth cap that clowns his head on bank holidays and nod heroically to\nthe admirers who retinue his movements.\n\nDemocracy is the unknown god it will be fashionable to worship when the\nwar is over. Now we are all wasting ink and paper and taxing our small\nbrains prophesying what the world will be like in the flowering-time of\npeace, when everybody will become deliriously happy, wise, and good.  We\nshall move more cautiously then, like a cat stepping circumspectly over\nbroken glass on top of the garden wall.  We will make no mistakes, as we\ndid in the feckless past, bringing us not only bleeding feet, but\nwounded hearts. There must be no party politics in the land as there\nused to be when politicians sold their country to buy their party into\npower, and sold themselves to keep the power which they had bought.\nEveryone will want to do good to his neighbour, and our neighbour will\nwant to do good to himself, and so social reform now and henceforth is\nthe compelling idea that holds the public fancy.\n\nBut no two social reformers think alike or advance the same doctrines of\nreform, although the same idea dominates the mind of all the\ndoctrinaires.  An idea is an abstract, invisible, impalpable, thing that\nenters into the mind of man naked and unadorned. Before exposing this\nnaked idea to public observation it must be clothed and attractively\ndressed.  Confusion comes in with the clothes.  Fashions in clothes\ndiffer so that the same idea differently dressed appears to be a\ndifferent object.  However, it is not. Ideas do not differ: it is the\nexpression of them that differs.  It is when you clothe your idea with\nwords and deck it in literary plumage that the mischief stalks in and\ndivergent opinions clash and confound us.\n\nWe all believe in Utopia, but none of us hold the clue to the high road\nthat gallops straight into it.  We take trial trips over new ground and\nget sloughed up on false trails.  Plato and Socrates, Francesco d'Assisi\nand Philip Sydney, Ruskin and Tolstoi, have each been famous architects\nof Utopia in the dim dreamland of the past, and each propounded his own\nscheme as being the very healthiest and happiest earthly paradise ever\nconstructed for man to dwell in.  They all have some aims and ends in\ncommon, considering thoughtfully the welfare of the people bodily and\nmorally: but the distinctive personality of the architect slyly creeps\nin, and on the rock of personal vanity they split into rival factions\nand a general quarrel ensues, rending the best-laid schemes man ever\ndevised for the emancipation of the human race.  And so the egg of\nsocial reform gets addled before it is hatched, and alas! the glittering\ncity of ten thousand joys for mankind to dwell in recedes farther and\nfarther into the sweet dreamland of the future.\n\nOne architect of Utopia proposes to upbuild the city of Human Happiness\nby hand labour.  Brick by brick it is to rise in colossal proportions\nand flowering beauty.  He starts with the individual as the foundation\nand finishes with the individual as top-stone. He works by gradual and\npeaceful process to attain his splendid purpose.  His method of work is\nunpopular because it is slow.\n\nAnother architect proposes to work by machinery, and to force it to a\nhasty finish. Organization and legislation are the instruments of\ntorture proposed for the rapid promotion of his purpose.  Human\nsociety--social and industrial--is stricken with fell disease, which can\nbe cured promptly by Acts of Parliament and Orders in Council. By this\ndrastic method the \"organic welfare\" of society is to be builded while\nyou wait. The State is to be organized, thought is to be organized, the\nwill is to be organized, and happiness is to be organized, and nothing\nof consequence is to be left unorganized; while the mere individual is\nto be wiped from the map as an unnecessary dot of disfigurement upon it.\nWealth is to be handled by a new and better process; wealth is to be\nconscripted, which means one man is to make it and another man is to\ntake it. Labour is not to be dealt with as a marketable commodity.  It\nis an insult to the dignity of labour to measure a man's work and pay\nhim exactly what his day's toil is worth in the market.  The working-man\nis a member of the universal brotherhood, and needs elbow-room in the\ncommunity to spread himself.  He must have the wages he hankers after,\nand when too weary to work a pension granted from the State to make\ncomfortable his latter end.  In fact in Utopia every man, woman, and\nchild claims sufficient income independent of work, and the State must\nbe Paymaster-General.\n\nAlas! universal happiness on these idealistic lines of compulsion and\ngreed is like an echo. It answers your call but does not come. Socialism\nmakes no progress in saving men; it has eyes to see man's misery, but no\nhands to lift him out of it.\n\nThe longer I live the more I am convinced that this great and vital\nproblem of social regeneration is to be engineered only by slow\ngradations and with infinite patience and gentleness.  Society is\ncomposed of dense masses and millions of frail, erring human beings, and\nto schedule a sudden inrush of perfect laws on the statute-book will not\nbreed an improved strain of perfect citizens who can live up to the pose\nof perfection. You cannot legislate selfishness and weakness and\ngreediness and vice out of human nature quickly, as you wring dirty\nwater out of a wet sponge; neither can you pump purity and patience and\nbrotherly love into humanity by Act of Parliament, and out of such\nshoddy material weave an ideal State in one round of the clock.  Perfect\nlaws are scarce as perfect men.  Laws will grow better as we grow\nbetter--gradually.  Laws and men act and react upon one another in\nmystic collusion.  The great incoming tide of righteousness which shall\nfill all things will fill them.  You cannot complete and furnish the top\nfloor of the Palace of Humanity before you have laid the foundation\nsolidly and deep on the rock of righteousness.\n\nLabour has not yet won its charter of rights because it has neglected to\nperform its role of duties.  Labour has to look the social problem\nsquarely in the face with both eyes open.  At present it only opens one\neye--the eye which sees magnifically its rights.  The other eye is shut\nwhich should observe its duties.  The eye of Labour that should see its\nduties is sealed in darkness. The scales of Justice must balance truly\nbefore mankind is happy ever more.\n\nFree labour is as necessary a commodity as free sunshine in a\nwell-balanced State.  If a man does his work well and does not require\nso much beer and tobacco and time for football as another man, he should\nbe free to dispose of his labour as he chooses, without being picketed\nor bludgeoned by lewd fellows of the baser sort.  Until there prevail an\nall-round correct idea of work, legislation will be a dead letter.  God\nhas not made one sun to shine on wages and another on capital, nor has\nHe made two varieties of justice.  He is God over all of us, and His law\nis impartial justice.\n\nCapital is not immaculate.  It sits the great god incarnate on its high\ngold throne, ruling men with sovereign power and using men as a means to\nwealth.  Its vestments are of purple and fine linen.  Costly raiment to\nwear, but unseemly smirched with the mud of gutter complots and stained\nred with blood sweated from the poor.  Capital wants washing thoroughly\nfrom its iniquity and purging with hyssop before it is fragrant and can\ndiscourse virtue to the working classes.\n\nCapital and Labour must forgive each the sins of the past, and as Brains\nand Hands work together in mutual confidence and esteem.  Brains and\nHands are not hard-set hereditary foes.  They are blood relatives,\nmembers of the same body-politic, and must hold together for their\ncommon good.  They are not even business opponents with clashing\ninterests spoiling to cut each other's throat and smash the opposition\nconcern with fiery glee of heart.  They are copartners in the same\nbusiness concern, and must combine, each having their own department to\nsuperintend.  The interest of one is the interest of the other.  If one\ndepartment breaks, the other falls with it deep in disaster.  Yet these\ntwo copartners of the same business firm are hating one another with a\nhot historical hatred that defies the flight of ages.  They are locked\ntogether struggling for mastery, each hoping to throw the other and\nbecome top-dog and dictate new terms of partnership which never would be\nkept, for the articles of treaty would soon become merely \"a scrap of\npaper.\"  It is not conquest: it is co-operation that will bring peace\nand concord between Capital and Labour.\n\nThe world is ripe for a new social programme.  The war has altered the\nmap of Europe, and it will alter the map of men's minds.  The war has\nswept away old crusted conventions which cobwebbed the mind, and false\nfoundations of social science upon which men laboured vainly to build\nUtopia.  These things must be reassessed at new values.\n\nThe working-man wanted to get in the sun and own his patch as a free and\nindependent citizen.  There is no such thing in the world as\nindependence, complete and arrogant: either in art, science, revolting\ndaughters or commerce.  Independence is a fool's word or an anarchist's\nbattle-cry.  The nearest approach to it in the realm of reality is\ninterdependence.  Substitute this word \"interdependence\" in the place of\nthe other insolent and erroneous one and you have a working proposition,\nfor you establish a sense of justice between man and man, and you have\ngathered together raw material out of which to build a new heaven and a\nnew earth.\n\nA pre-war panacea for curing the ills of unrighteousness which blight\nsociety was the amelioration of environment--a sonorous, windy, academic\nplatitude having more sound in it than sense.  It was the pet scheme for\nmanufacturing good citizens out of bad ones; it began at the outward\ncondition of mankind and worked inward.  It started with the barber, the\nschoolmaster, and the politician.  By pursuing this method they started\nwith folly and ended with failure.  It is like telling a man to polish\nhis boots when his heart wants cleaning.  The favourite speculation of\ntheorists was that perfect circumstances create perfect character.  This\nis attractive reading in cheap handbooks of political economy for the\nworking classes, but in this wicked world it fails to pan out when put\nto a working test.  It is more important a man should start by mending\nhimself, and his circumstances will quickly mend themselves.\n\nTo expect by flattening down inequalities, removing temptations, and\ngiving everybody a living wage of L2 per week, England will flower into\na Garden of Eden where people are all good and happy and pay no taxes,\nand where angels will come and converse with us in the cool of the day,\nis to expect the impossible.  To expect by adapting the lot to man\ninstead of adapting man to his lot you will create an earthly paradise\nout of a world of wickedness is to expose your ignorance of human nature\nand to admit your incapacity for adjusting its wrongs.\n\nThey tell us that in the New Democracy patriotism will be scrapped.\nLove of country is a parochial virtue; it will be swamped in the greater\nlove of humanity which will rise like a swelling flood and cover all.\nIn the new Garden of Eden we shall be a happy brotherhood, for the\ndangerous serpent will be scotched.  This doctrine is maudlin\nsentimentalism with a tang of grotesque to flavour it.  Humanity is an\nimmense crowd to fall in love with _en bloc_; each individual will\nreceive a very thin slice of your affection if all the world is to share\nin it alike.  Love will die of starvation fed on these lean rations.  As\na _padre_ fresh from the Front persuasively raps out the truth, \"the\nwould-be cosmopolitan who will not narrow himself to love of country is\nrarely capable of any real self-devotion to the international ideal\nwhich he worships.  The lover of humanity is more often than not utterly\nmiserable travelling in a third-class railway-carriage.\"\n\nPatriotism must survive as a national virtue, however violently the\nuniversal brotherhood flourishes, because the love of country is founded\non the love of home and family, and the love of home and family is\nfounded on the love of a man and a woman. You can never get over this\nnature-logic while men and women remain human beings with natural\ninstincts which draw them to love one another and preserve the family\nfeeling.  I would rather be the victim of every insular prejudice\npossible than have no British prejudices to stir my British blood.\n\nAnother hope of the ages that has failed us in the hour of need is the\nChurch.  If all other saviours of society failed there remained the\nChurch as by law established to rely upon as the great regenerating\npower in the land.  Alas! the Church in our midst cannot cast out evil\nspirits.  It has lost the gift of healing through respectability.  It\nworships an ancient creed instead of the living Christ. Jesus of\nNazareth is the great International Democrat of history.  He was a\ntradesman's son and a working carpenter Himself.  This fact shocks\nrespectability.  How many more people would be Christians if Christ had\nbeen born in a palace and not in a stable! This is the unsavoury feature\nof religion, and the exclusive dignitaries of the Church hover round it\ndubiously.  They admit the historic fact with candour, but slither away\nsilently from its indelicate associations as far as decency permits.\n\nWe have been told that bishops in gaiters and aprons harmonize daintily\nwith the quiet cathedral close, shadowed by immemorial elms and the\nother minor glories of the Establishment; but bishops in gaiters do seem\nbadly placed in a carpenter's shop, where their Lord and Master served\nHis 'prentice years.  The apron is an ancient figment of clothing\nbishops now wear in common with the working carpenter at his bench.  It\nis a kind of retaining badge, signalling their humble origin and ancient\ndescent.\n\nBishops, in general, are cultured and amiable men, more renowned for\ntheir learning than their piety.  They are appointed by the State, and\nform the executive of the ecclesiastical machine to run the traditional\npiety of the land.  They sometimes quarrel amongst themselves as to who\nis orthodox and who is not on the episcopal bench--quarrelling amongst\nbishops is only a human diversion--but touching the righteousness which\nis in the law they are all blameless men. There is something faulty in\nthe religion they inculcate, for it does not grip the people. It is\ndreamy; it is not real.  It is the vague pursuit of an unknown god\nranging through a maze of decorative ritual and symbol, and there remain\ngreat arid spaces in our nature which it never fills up.\n\nIt has been said that the visible Church stands in the way of spiritual\nenlightenment of the people, just as stone idols of the heathen stand in\nthe way of apprehension of God.  What the eye sees before it the mind\nsettles down upon, and roams no farther searching for a fuller vision of\nspiritual truth.  The savage sees his stone idol, and never thinks\nbeyond it religiously.  It was his father's god, and it is god enough\nfor him.\n\nThe good Churchman is equally content to know nothing beyond the\nreligious ceremonials which the Church ordains in the place of God, the\nSpiritual Father of us all. These ceremonials, sanctified by long\nobservance, quenched the religious thirst of his forefathers, and they\nquench his thirst and he is satisfied.  The Church is tenacious of her\nhold on men, not suffering the allegiance of the people to be shifted\nback to God the Father.  The Church is said to be the one and only\nsacred aqueduct through which Divine grace can flow.  The curse of the\ncommunity is the middleman.  He takes a heavy toll of profit in every\nbusiness that feeds the people bodily or spiritually.\n\nThe New Democracy must return to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth to\nlay a solid foundation on which to build social righteousness and\nnational greatness.  The secret elements of social rectitude slumber in\nthe words of Christ, and the volcanic action of the war will blast them\ninto life and power.\n\nJesus Christ was not a theologian or schoolman of the fossil type of\nGamaliel or Calvin, learned in booklore, but ignorant of men.  He was\nnot a stump orator inflaming the radical passions of the masses, bating\nthem into red fury by pictorially describing the wickedness of the\nclasses.  He proposed no easy road to riches as a trap to catch the\nenvious poor.  He did not sit in his study formulating a scientific\ncreed to mystify people with a religion of words and phrases; He lived\nin the open air a noble life that men could see and believe in.  It is\nthe mind, not the soul, that asks a creed to help its faith; the heart\nbelieves without the crutches of theological formula to support it.  He\nstood for goodness pure and simple, for rich men and poor men alike.\nHis teaching is exemplified in His life, and His life is a beautiful and\nfaithful commentary on His teaching.\n\nThe careless world did not relish this straight talk on goodness--indoor\nand outdoor goodness.  It was too realistic, too personal in its touch;\nbut men are growing sensible now as the world grows older, and with\nreawakened conscience ask for the truth instead of its theological\ncounterfeit, which does not heal the wounded spot.  Out of the teachings\nof Jesus of Nazareth grow eternal principles that build up the best\ngovernments and the wisest laws, that train the finest citizens, and\nregulate society on a basis of righteousness and mutual honour. The\nseeds of all possible national prosperity and generous manhood lie\nembedded in these teachings.  Nations may rise, flourish, and decay, but\nthe nation with the blood of Christ in its veins is immortal and shall\nendure for ever.  May it be the British nation!\n\n\n\n\n                                 *XII*\n\n                  *JESUS CHRIST THE LURE OF THE AGES*\n\n\nJesus Christ is the lure of the ages.  He is the most interesting figure\nin history. History says little about Him, yet that little means much to\nus.  It whets the appetite for more knowledge.  The little is distinctly\nfascinating; what would be a full record of His sayings and doings,\nsuppose such a narrative displayed in faded manuscript were unearthed\nfrom the musty archives of an old Eastern monastery and brought to\ndaylight in the twentieth century?  The fragmentary record that we hold\nis sufficiently vital to have kept His memory green for nearly two\nthousand years.  What a glorious find a continuation of the wonderful\nstory would be to those hungering for larger knowledge of their Lord's\nearthly life!\n\nJesus Christ is the unplaced figure in history.  He occupies no niche in\nthe secular temple of Fame.  No historian of the country in which He\nlived paged His name amongst the worthies of the age or gave it mention\nin a footnote of history.  Outside the covers of the Sacred Book Jesus\nChrist is an unknown quantity.  During His lifetime the insignificance\nof the movement He promoted in Galilee was unworthy of serious attention\nfrom the authorities.  His disciples were men of obscure origin, a mere\nhandful of ignorant peasants and fishermen, rated as misguided, harmless\nfanatics following a crazy leader to oblivion, the foreordained end of a\nmadman's escapade.  Others before Him had started forth on the splendid\nexpedition to set the world in order and were interrupted in the\nperformance of their formidable task.  It was towering madness to\nsuppose permanent results could follow a single-handed fight against the\nworld; to think that He could disturb the well-founded authority of King\nHerod or challenge Caesar seated in purple power on the seven hills of\nRome: as likely He might uproot the seven hills themselves which cradle\nthe imperial city on their nursing-lap.  Yet to-day He ranks above all\ncompeting heroes and overlords earth and heaven in the compelling\ninfluence His solitary life imposes on the world's activities, and that\ninfluence is only just beginning to be felt by us; eventually it will\nsucceed in refashioning the world after His own heart and conforming it\nto the likeness of His own image.\n\nJesus Christ is the lonely figure in history. He launched His mission on\nthe world without human patronage to give it a winning start.\nIllustrious men of the age did not do Him reverence, nor contribute\ntheir sympathy and support to stiffen His cause; they were frankly\nhostile to Him. He had no family influence to help Him in the great\nadventure; His ancestry was illustrious, but His relatives were poor and\nuninfluential folk; His father was a village tradesman.  He was not a\nUniversity man distinguished in letters to gain the ear of the cultured\nclasses.  He had no well-to-do friends to back Him either socially or\nfinancially.  No man ever stood more remote from the world's\nconventional smile than He did.  He was a rank outsider.  He battled\nonward through resisting foes, upholding the shining truth as a\nsun-bright banner for brave men to rally round and fight for the kingdom\nof God and the empire of good souls on earth.  He dwelt in spiritual\nisolation, for a mighty purpose cut Him off from the current influences\nof His time.  The world's cold stare was the freezing recognition given\nHim, and it chilled the finer sensibilities of His loving nature.\n\nThere was nothing professional about Jesus Christ.  He was not a\nplace-seeker.  He held no office in Church or State.  He was a plain\ncitizen, plainly dressed.  His manner was simple and natural and without\nside.  His speech was of the people; He was one of the crowd.  No\nglittering halo aureoled His brow, promoting Him beyond His brethren.\nAs a prophet, appearances were dead against Him.  Why should He rise\nabove his class-level and teach His betters and superiors high morality\nand spiritual truth?  He had no crumbs of learning Himself--how could He\nfeed others out of an empty basket? He had never studied in the schools\nand won academic distinction!  Surely He overstepped Himself.  His\nneighbours resented His common everyday look, easy manner, and arrogant\npretensions.  These things did not mix well together.  They denounced\nHis new, strange teachings as dangerous to the community; He was an\nunchartered, restless demagogue, roaming the country, disturbing the\npublic weal.  They scoffed at this common villager and His idle dream of\nfounding a kingdom of righteousness built on the dregs of humanity, and\nderisively asked \"When shall this kingdom come?\"\n\nNow, John the Baptist, hermit of the wilderness, was a prophet after\ntheir own heart.  He played up to their ideal.  He quickened their hot\nimagination.  He was aglow with colour.  He was a human tornado. His\ndefiant attitude, eccentric apparel, and mystic fervour, were vividly\npicturesque; they caught the eye and compelled attention. He was an\nuntamed child of the desert; he stood aloof from the common crowd.  Even\nhigh-toned Pharisees were glamoured by his romantic pose.  They listened\nraptly to his fiery message, and were fascinated by his insolent tongue\nand audacious words shot bolt-straight at them.  His hearers staggered\nwhilst he thundered burning condemnations on their smug sins and sordid\nlives; they writhed in agony as he lifted them from their feet and\nsuspended them over the bottomless pit, choking in sulphurous fumes\nascending from the fires of the damned below. Such ghastly presentment\nof the truth after the good old method of the prophets churned up the\nmuddy depths of their polluted hearts.  It converted the masses quickly,\nas a visitation of the plague could drop a panicky city to its knees,\nand when the excitement slowed down be as quickly forgotten as a\nnine-days' wonder out of fashion. The religious revival subsided like\nthe froth blown off by the welcome wind of a new excitement.  The\nemotions of a day spent down on the banks of the Jordan with John the\nBaptist, the idol of the people, were exhilarating, and something to be\nremembered for a lifetime by these hard-headed old Jews, and an\ninteresting story to tell their children's children in years to come.\nThe ministry of Jesus was not effervescent in character.  He could have\nstormed men's imaginations with flaming pomp and splendour; He could\nhave ridden a chariot of fire attended by thunder and lightning as\nrunning footmen to announce His presence, but men's hearts would have\nbeen unmelted by such fierce demonstrations of power.  It might have\nawoke astonishment and intoxicated them into religious frenzy, but\nafterward it would have left behind a nasty chill on the heart.\n\nJesus Christ had no official position in the Church as a teacher.  He\nhad no mandate from the powers that be to carry on.  He did not present\nHimself as a high Church dignitary, high as an enthroned archbishop\nrobed in scarlet and gold; nor was He comfortably placed as a canon in a\nsnug cathedral stall; nor even a meek young curate casting longing eyes\non Church preferment.  The Church of the day would have none of Him.\nThey flung Him from the synagogue.  His ideas were unproven and\nunpalatable to His countrymen; He must build a new romantic world for\nHimself and His followers to live in outside the orthodox world of His\nday, if they wanted liberty to breathe, and so He began at the bottom of\nsociety and quietly built upwards.  He was just a man walking amongst\nsuffering humanity, and was one of the sufferers Himself.  He came like\ndew descending on mown grass, noiseless, fragrant, healing; silently He\nministered amongst the people, winning home to human hearts by sympathy\nand gentleness and love, and gradually the new kingdom of righteousness\ngrew up in the midst of the weary old world. He gained dominion over men\nby their resistible beauty and power of Divine truth which He expounded,\nand made attractive by parable and picture and by His own blameless walk\nand conversation.  His teachings were exemplified in His life, and His\nlife shines in undimmed beauty the exemplification of His teaching.  He\nbecame a living gospel to them which all men could read, and His Divine\npersonality was a centre of healing power which cured men's infirmities\nof body and mind.  He had no money to pay for services rendered to Him,\nand He gave no hopes of worldly honour or possessions to His followers.\nHe was homeless and at the mercy of friends for the shelter of a roof\nand the hospitality of His daily meals.  He had intense sympathy with\nmen, but He was no deluded optimist.  He placed measured value on every\nman's pledge of fidelity to His cause, for He knew what was in man; with\nclear insight He saw into their dishonesty, selfishness, misery, but He\nknew they never had had a chance to do better, and He meant to give them\na good chance all round.  He frankly told people their sins, yet with\nall His straight speaking He won men and women to Himself.  His manner\nwas gracious, and He was indulgent to the frailties of our human nature\nwith a sympathy that pardons all.  The deep longings of His heart were\nfor their happiness and uplifting, and the difficulty He encountered in\nleading them to follow the things that made for their peace was\nheartbreaking to His sensitive nature.\n\nHe had but few friends, and of the inner circle He gathered round Him\nall were not loyal; for He was betrayed into the hands of His enemies by\none of the intimates of the band, and was forsaken by all in the hour of\nHis supreme trial.  He returned good for evil, blessing for cursing, and\ndied in the act of praying for His enemies.  No one could bring any\nserious accusation against Him, and he was declared innocent by the\njudge who condemned Him to death.  Yet He was sacrificed as one whose\nlife did not count; He was thrown as a sop to slake the blood-thirst of\na howling Jewish mob.  In the annals of the law-court His name is not\nmentioned, and there is no record of His trial and crucifixion to be\nfound in history.\n\nLooked at from the standpoint of men of His time, His life was a\nfailure, and the delectable vision of a kingdom of righteousness on\nearth, the coming of which He pictured in glowing, fluent colours, reads\nlike a dainty fairy-tale spun for children's amusement.  Yet He himself\nsaw through the darkness into the white light of the future, and beheld\nthe crowning success of His mission.  He saw the coming triumph of the\nConquering Cross, which should subdue all things unto itself, and in\nplace of the finest legend ever planted on human credulity by an artist\nin words He saw outlined through the dissolving mists of time, solid and\nwell founded, the City Beautiful, with its shining streets, its many\nmansions and translucent atmosphere, peopled with white-robed citizens\nredeemed and ever blest; and the verdict of to-day is that the ministry\nof Jesus Christ on earth was the turning point in the world's destiny.\nNo other personality has exerted such profound influence on the lives of\nmen as Jesus of Nazareth, the despised and rejected of His day.\n\nThe ministry of Christ on earth lasted about three years in all.  Until\nHe was thirty years of age He was content to rest in deep obscurity.\nNazareth, with its quiet remote valley, was world enough for Him to move\nin, and when His hour was come He found Himself.  He opened His mouth\nand taught the people.  He passed from village to village, a travelling\nstorm-centre, exposing respectable old sins, ripping up time-honoured\nreligious hypocrisies, vexing the Pharisees, and confounding the vain\ntraditions of the elders. He laid down new laws of life and conduct for\nmen's observance, and unfolded the love of God to man in its plenitude\nof tenderness and pity; even to waifs and strays and outcasts of city\nslums who had never received a kind, hopeful word from the lips of their\nown religious teachers.  In fact, it was God breaking in upon history,\nopening a new permanent way into heaven for lost men to return home by,\nand to cull the wayside flowers of joy and happiness whilst homeward\nbound.\n\nThus Jesus in three short years fearlessly and swiftly accomplished His\nworld-wide mission, and died triumphantly in full achievement of His\nbenign purpose.\n\nNot half the story of those few full, crowded hours of His glorious life\nhas been collected and cast into history.  It is a brief narrative of a\nbrief career; so little of His life comes in view.  Just a few detached\nincidents and a few disjointed conversations jotted down from the\nmellowed memory of three or four old men years after the events occurred\nfurnish us an incomplete memoir of His earthly ministry--that is all we\nhave.  There was no adoring pen of a ready writer like Boswell to fix on\nthe spot His sayings and doings.  We possess only stray fragments of the\nlife-story gathered up from memory and hearsay, and on these gathered\nfragments we found all our spiritual faith and base our eternal hope of\nblessedness.  The structure seems to have been casually and hastily put\ntogether, but its design is the work of the Supreme Architect, and the\nhouse was well built and the foundation securely placed, for it has\nsheltered many millions of people through many generations of time.  The\nroof is still rainproof, and the walls stand firm in their pillared\nstrength.  _It is the living words of Christ that form the stronghold of\nthe ages_.  His words are seed-thoughts dropped into the hearts of men\nwhich bring forth fruit manifold.  Again they drop into other hearts,\nand springing up yield fruit abundantly unto life everlasting; and so\ngeneration after generation men fall under His gracious spell, and turn\nto His words for guidance, for inspiration, for joy.  You never reach\nthe end of Christ's words.  They are growing words.  There is always\nsomething new springing out of them unexpectedly: new thoughts, new\nlaws, new problems, new solutions, new enemies, new friends, new hopes,\nnew consolations.  The words of Christ are spending and being spent, but\nthey are never exhausted.  They pass into new meanings, into new\ncurrency, but they never pass away. They are the hope of all the ages.\n\nThe early Christians lived in a state of spiritual elation; they daily,\nhourly, expected the Second Coming of Christ.  It was the one article of\ntheir religious creed.  The end of the world was to be the next\nimportant festival in the Church calendar, so they held in full near\nview their heavenly home, which was already feathered for their\nreception. At the sound of the Archangel's trumpet the heavens would\nopen, the dead rise from their graves, and they would be caught up in\nthe air to meet the Lord, and float off triumphantly into mansions of\neternal rest furnished for their home coming.  They saw it all vividly\nas a drama soon to be enacted, in which they each would play their\nordered parts.  The present was a dream-life to them, a mirage quickly\nto melt away. This hope of immortality was the first bright ray of light\nthe gospel of Jesus Christ shed upon mankind.  Having minds heavily\ncharged with celestial visions, the common round of daily duties became\nunreal to them. They had a short creed and no theology. They sat on the\nbrink of eternity, and the radiance streaming from its shining heights\nbedazzled their minds with bewildering raptures.\n\nAfter long and patient waiting the heavens did not open, no clarion\nvoice trumpeted the dead from their graves or welcomed saints into\nparadise; the sordid, sin-stained earth remained their polluted\ndwelling-place.  The illusion of the millennium faded away and\ndisappointment frosted their early hopes, yet bravely they held on and\ndied in the faith. The Saviour's promise did not fulfil on the\ncomfortable lines they planned, but it would make good another way\nequally great.  The Church learnt to take long views of the promises,\nand turned its thoughts to things terrestrial.  The affairs of the\npresent grew interesting to them; they commenced setting their earthly\nhouse in order, and when the Church settled down into the slow, steady\nstride characteristic of every long march it became clear that she was\ndestined to rank amongst the permanent institutions of the world.  She\nformed new rules of life for her children's guidance, and thus faith in\nChrist gradually lost the fragrant aroma of otherworldliness which first\nperfumed it, and in lapse of time the plan of salvation became more\nthought of than salvation itself.  A vast ecclesiastical system was\norganized, having endless intricate ramifications, and God was appointed\nhead of one department of it; and to-day heavy accretions of theology\naccumulate and fasten deadly tight on the old Church like barnacles\ncrusting the bottom of a long floated ship, hindering its speed to port.\n\nVerily the time has now come that the good ship of the Church be\ncareened, and the foul accretions of mediaeval theology stripped off and\nthe solid copper bottom of truth flash clean and bright in the sunlight,\nand the truth as it is in Jesus recover its splendour and power as in\ndays of the early Church.  His teachings shall yet win men to\nrighteousness, and the fruits of His lips bring peace and joy to those\nwho believe on His name.\n\nThe words of Christ have a future before them in moulding the growing\ngoodness of the world and in solving the hard problems of social reform\nwhich vex humanity. He is the wise Reconciliator who can adjust society\nand bring into harmony the classes of men now gnashing their teeth at\none another on opposing fronts.  Jesus Christ is the true Political\nEconomist, but He taught far in advance of His times--truth always\nmarches a bit ahead of us.  At present in social science we are only\njust touching the hem of His garment, and healing virtue flows from it;\npresently we shall approach nearer to Him, and, feeling the full throb\nof His loving heart, we shall understand Him better, and His life-blood\nwill pour into our veins and complete the healing of the nations.\n\n\n\n\n                                 *XIII*\n\n                     *THE LURE OF THE LIVING WORD*\n\n\nThe English State Church suffers from excess of theology and paucity of\ngospel. Our narrow Church creeds, in which the gospel of Jesus Christ is\nkept under cork by ecclesiastical cellar-men, must be broken that the\ngood wine of the kingdom may flow freely. The gospel of Jesus Christ in\nthe unwholesome captivity of rigid creeds is a feeble, mean,\ncontemptible gospel, quite unable to save mankind, which business it\nundertook to achieve when coming into the world.  If the teaching of\nJesus Christ is no larger or kindlier than these old crumbling creeds\nshow, it deserves to be scrapped, for there is no room in them for\nChrist to have fair play. Christianity is not a formula, it is a\npassion; it is not theology, it is truth.  These dismal dogmas have not\nenough spiritual nourishment in them to keep men's souls alive; men\nstarve on such unleavened food.\n\nWhat are these antiquated creeds of the Church which strangle religion?\nThey are ancient dismantled strongholds where the fighting forefathers\nof the faith housed themselves tightly and fought their foes\ntenaciously.  The modern fathers of the Church still inhabit these\ntottering towers of refuge, although their day of usefulness is spent.\nLoyal Churchmen still breathe lovingly the chilly, stifling atmosphere\nof these spiritual dungeons of traditional Christianity.\n\nWe are living in a new age since August, 1914, and a new spirit\npossesses the people. With this terrific war raging new standards of\nvalues in religion, as in politics, have come into operation, shattering\nold ideals evermore.  To encourage and strengthen them in this era of\nstrain and conflict men need the larger, cleaner, diviner truth which\nfell from the lips of the living Christ.  We want these truths to win\nthrough--the spoken words of Christ, with the free airs of heaven\nblowing across them, bringing healthiness of life, sanity of faith, and\nmanifold charities, to all men who dwell on earth.  The lure of the\nLiving Word alone can hold men firm in this age of upheaval, when the\nold world has caved in and the plans of the new world are not yet\nmanifest.  There is finer, simpler, fuller spiritual teaching in the\nfour gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, touching our present need\nthan in all books of theology ever written and all Sunday sermons weekly\npreached.  It is these half-forgotten things that matter on which new\nemphasis must be thrown.\n\nTheology is the great imposture planted on mankind as a substitute for\nthe teachings of Jesus Christ.  When one leaves the words of Christ and\nstrays amongst the words of men, it is like a traveller switching off\nthe main line whereon his destination lies and losing himself on a\nside-track.  It is disaster to side-track on the journey of life.  Keep\nto the words of Christ and you keep on the main line.  The gospel as\nrevealed in the teachings of Jesus is entirely free from the sacerdotal\nimperative which nowadays imposes priest and ritual in the path of\nspiritual worship and blocks the fair-way to God. Priests and rituals\nand creeds are non-essentials; they are only wrappings: they are not\nreligion, nor the best part of it.  We must distinguish between living,\nbreathing Christianity and the man-made ecclesiastical garments which\nclothe it fashionably, because the difference between them is vital and\nfar-reaching.  True religion, however, is seldom found stripped of all\ntemporary wrappings, but its spiritual vigour survives in spite of\nChurch-made millinery which encumbers it and impedes its healthy growth.\nStrip the religion of Jesus Christ of its grave-clothes and put the pure\ngospel in her mouth, and never tidings could be told to weary,\nheavy-laden men to-day which would be hailed as half so welcome.  The\none thing needful to make this world an earthly paradise, delightful to\ndwell in, is for men to live face to face with God, without a screen of\nritual or image or priestcraft obstructing the view of our Heavenly\nFather; it is the light of God's countenance that cheers the heart of\nman, and strengthens him to live a good life in all sincerity of\npurpose.\n\nEcclesiastics have built up the Church into a colossal business trust\nwhich corners the Bread of Life and doles it to hungry mortals on terms\nof its own making.  The Church is a wealthy corporation with immense\nproperty and privilege to safeguard and hold against all comers, and\nthese temporal possessions engage its keenest thought and ceaseless\nactivity.  So it has important work to do other than saving the souls of\nmen.  To maintain its temporal authority in the world it has tampered\nwith the teaching of Jesus Christ; by cunning craftiness of man the\ngospel has been twisted into theology, and the way of salvation shrouded\nbehind a dense veil of ceremonial observances which the Church imposes\non people and declares necessary to the saving of their souls.  Much\nconflicting religious literature is issued annually by free-lances of\nthe Press to explain the downright simplicity of the truth as it is in\nJesus; and these conflicting opinions add other stumbling-blocks in the\nway, for they baffle the brains of the gentle reader, beating up a thick\ndust of doubt around him that his faith is smothered in a cloud of\nperplexity which darkens the daylight of truth.\n\nThe words of Jesus, when read and pondered over, prove religion to be a\nvery simple matter.  Yet this simplicity is its standing peril.  So\nlittle human wisdom is needed to understand the words of Christ that we\nare apt to fear they do not mean what they say in plainest language--the\nlanguage runs too easy for the majesty and importance and solemnity of\nthe theme.  We think there is an occult mystery lurking behind the\nhonest homely phrases.  Language so often bewilders simple-minded people\nthat we are hard of belief when told we can find the way to heaven\nourselves without the aid of a bishop's pastoral staff to point it out.\nThe difficulty is to convince the plain man that he understands the\nwords of Jesus when he reads them, and that he feels his spirit touch\nthe Spirit of the Saviour of his soul without a priest between to make\nthe contact.  The Church as a commercial organization would fall quickly\ninto bankruptcy if the gospel in its naked plainness was believed in\nwhole-heartedly.\n\nVery superior people tell us that the teachings of Jesus are only the\nbeginning of God's revelation to man; they tell us that new revelations\nare constantly flowing in upon us through the sacred channel of the\nChurch, and that the Church alone holds the key which deciphers these\nconfidential messages despatched from mysterious sources for our\nedification.  This is ecclesiastical bluff.  The teachings of Jesus in\nthe gospels suffice the spiritual needs of men through all time--time\npast, time present, and time to come. When God legislates once He\nlegislates for aye, for truth is unchanging and cannot be improved on as\nthe world grows older.  No Divine after-thoughts will be added to the\nwritten word nor supplementary revelation supplied to guide men through\nthe tangling maze of life.  The Spirit of God is equal to all\nemergencies arising between now and the sundown of time.  New-fallen\nlight may illumine the written word in the forward quest of faith, for\nevery age makes its own theology and coins new language to express old\ntruths.  The words of Christ are inexhaustible treasure locked in a deep\nmine, and in that mine lies many a lode of truth untapped by the\ndiggers.  The old gospel mine yields more and more treasure as the\nsearchers strike deeper and deeper into its secret heart.  The last\nnugget of truth has not yet been lifted from the treasure-house of God's\nWord.\n\nBack to the words of Christ: this is the one hope of a truly good\nlife--national or individual.  If we forsake Christ and turn to the\nteachings of the Church for our spiritual well-being, we suffer for our\nfolly in so doing.  The real meaning of anything is to be found at its\nbeginning not in its latest developments.  As religious systems develop\nand grow old they grow corrupt, and on the earthly journey pick up error\nwith truth, and the two mixed together look equally sacrosanct to the\nuninitiated, simple soul, and even the very elect are ofttimes deceived.\nWater is purest at the spring-head; the farther it flows from the\nfountain, the more contaminated it becomes.  Back to Jesus Christ and\nHis teachings in the gospels. His words are the very life and light of\nmen.\n\nMen often mistake the nature of religion through wrong teaching received\nin early years or no teaching received at all, thus giving the\nwell-rooted weeds of error a long start to grow rampant in the human\nsoil. Some people think religion is an isolated activity, like\ncollecting old china, a hobby you can pursue, drop, and pick up again at\nleisure.  Other people imagine it is the conventional badge of good\nsociety, giving tone to a life of fashionable respectability, like a\ncarnation slipped into your buttonhole which adds a finishing touch to\nyour evening dress. But they are not over careful, these conventional\npeople, to apply its tenets in the privacy of their homes; religion is\nnever enthroned as a domestic virtue.  Lord Melbourne, the early\nVictorian Prime Minister, was one day coming from church in the country\nin a mighty fume.  Finding a friend on the road, he unloaded: \"It's too\nbad. I have always been a supporter of the Church, and I have always\nupheld the clergy.  But it is really too bad to have to listen to a\nsermon like that we had this morning.  Why, the preacher actually\ninsisted upon applying religion to a man's private life!\"\n\nTheir interior life is neither better nor worse for hitching on religion\nas a supplementary virtue.  Such good people would never miss an\nopportunity of attending a missionary meeting at Caxton Hall or neglect\nan early morning service at the parish church, but the maid-of-all-work\nin the kitchen is not benefited by the religious fervour which perfumes\nher ladyship with the odour of sanctity.\n\nReligion is a state of mind giving purpose and direction to the whole\nround of a man's activities.  Religion is not like a red holly-berry in\na tumbler of clear water, a hard, insoluble object, pretty enough seen\nthrough the crystal medium, but working no change in the water.\nReligion resembles a drop of cochineal falling into the water; it\ncolours with rose hue the full contents of the tumbler; it tinges the\nwhole character and conduct of a man; it permeates his thoughts and\nfeelings and actions, changing the colour of his life for good and for\never.  Religion works a change--a radical change--that is the point. It\nis not a question of drapery; it does not merely hang up a decoration\nhere and there to improve appearances, leaving the secret chambers of\nthe heart unclean.  It makes a new man in Christ Jesus even out of the\ncoarsest raw material to be found on the human market.\n\nThe Church as established in our midst to-day cannot work a social\nregeneration in the land, for it gives forth so little of the teaching\nof Christ to the people.  The gold of truth it circulates is mixed with\nthe dross of error of its own minting.  It may bear the image and\nsuperscription of Christ on it and pass the world's counter as genuine\nmetal, but it is counterfeit coin of the kingdom.  The Church does not\ngrip the people. It is a fashionable institution of conventional\nhigh-grade orthodoxy, but it is a thing apart from the people.  Its\nclergy socially are a multitude of pleasant, amiable, guileless folk\nspread over the tennis-lawns and garden-parties of England on a summer's\nafternoon, mingling good-humouredly with their neighbours, but\necclesiastically they belt themselves in a compact phalanx of\nself-centred, intolerant men with a purpose in life, or by preference\nthey are self-constituted \"priests.\"  They hold the Church as a close\nborough, consume its revenues, swear by its creed, and maintain its\nprivileges.  They are strong partisans; the same interest guides them\nwhich governs the business man in upholding his trade interests--the\nsacred rights of property.  To defend their inherited rights they will\nfight doggedly, and surrender only in the last trench.\n\nOutside the charmed enclosure of the Church the clergy esteem their\nChristian neighbours ecclesiastical inferiors, not to be consorted with\non equal footing, and they leave the Almighty to take charge of\noutsiders here and hereafter.  As a class long years of clerical\nassumption has sapped the humanness out of their nature, and only a\npriest is left in their skin.\n\nThere are honourable exceptions to this general rule.  Many individual\nclergymen are thoroughly alive with the spirit of Christ. They are men\nof broad sympathies and of intense devotion to their work, but it is\nsurprising how tightly the Church as an institution grips those who\nminister at her altars; the Church is the idol of their hearts, the\ncentre of their adoration.  If the centre of their adoration could be\ntransferred to Christ; if they could love Christ as devotedly as they\nlove the Church of England, the result of their ministrations amongst\nthe people would be gloriously successful; if instead of coddling the\none respectable sheep that never strayed away they rounded up the\nninety-and-nine lost ones and settled them in the home pastures the work\nwould make their hearts ring with joy.\n\nI have heard sermons by clergymen in which the Church and the Prayer\nBook were exalted as the chief Divine oracles before which we all must\nbow in blind submission as though Christ and the Bible existed not in\nany corner of the preacher's mind; and the result of such degenerate\ndoctrine is that preachers add good Churchmen to their flock, but not\ngood Christians to the fold of Christ.  A good Churchman thus becomes a\nsuperior being to a common Christian, as though it were more important\nto be a Churchman than a Christian.  \"Churchman\" really is only the\ntrade name for a man who believes in the State Church.  To be a\nChurchman is good enough for some people.\n\nCompare the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth with the harsh, unsympathetic\nsystem represented by the Anglican creed which caricatures the Saviour\nin our midst.  The cruel system which refuses to bury an unbaptized baby\nwith its dead mother, or would refuse to allow a man or a woman to have\na chance of happiness in marriage because, through no fault of their\nown, they have already suffered great unhappiness; that would refuse\nrelatives permission to carve the word \"Reverend\" on the tombstone of a\nWesleyan minister buried in a village churchyard because the dead man\nwas not of the Church of England.\n\nThe Kikuyu Conference is typical of our bishops' lack of Christ-like\ncharity and shortage of that kindly touch of nature that makes the whole\nworld kin.  The question lying before the bishops in conference was \"the\npromotion of a brotherly spirit and the adoption of practical steps\ntoward unity\" in the mission-field; or, should the Church of England\nretain its old crusted conventions as an exclusive institution and cold\nshoulder all outsiders.  The bishops consulted in Lambeth Palace over\nthis aggravating question, and finally decided that their first duty was\nto protect the Church of England in all its ancient sanctities, to\nretain the proud boundary-walls isolating those within in strict\nspiritual seclusion, and to warn trespassers off their private\necclesiastical preserves.  Their duty to the State Church was clear-cut\nand formulated--viz., to maintain its high-cast principles and to avoid\nthe contagion of the sects.  None of the beautiful roses of charity\ngrowing in their garden-close must run over the wall for the wayfarer to\npluck.  Their fraternal duty to native Christians won to Christ by\nmissionary zeal remains obscure. However, no loose form of brotherly\nlove or Christian fellowship can be permitted in the mission-field or\nelsewhere.  State Church principles must be upheld.  As a sweetmeat and\nas a goody-goody sample of what Jesus Christ meant by brotherly love, an\noccasional hospitality to other Christian communities may be practised\nwithout prejudice to Church principles; you may come and partake of Holy\nCommunion with us in our Church, but we cannot partake of Holy Communion\nwith you in yours.  For you to come to us is a privilege, for us to go\nto you would be _infra dig_.\n\nOn these liberal lines the bishops expound the teachings of Jesus Christ\nand uphold Church principles, and if Christ's principles clash with\nChurch principles, so much the worse for the principles of Jesus Christ.\nThe Church is the orthodox institution, and must hold itself inviolate\neven against the heterodoxy of Jesus Christ.  The Kikuyu Conference and\nits deliberations may be summed up briefly as a study in Church\nprinciples and how to maintain them.\n\nSuch harsh decisions bring contempt upon the Church, and widen the gulf\nwhich divides the rubric from the gospels and the clergyman from Christ.\nJesus of Nazareth differs essentially from the Church on earth which\nto-day flies His banner and breaks His commandments.  Christ declared\nfor character and conduct as essentials in life; the Church favours\ncreed and ceremony.  Christ worked undogmatically, and the Church,\noverweighted with dogma, fails hopelessly in its Christly work.\n\nObserve the generous, liberal, broad-minded traits which even in the\nscanty records of the gospels mark Jesus Christ as the kindliest and\nmost humane of men.  Where there was a choice, He stood on the side of\ncharity and common sense.  He was no misanthrope; He was of social\ntemperament.  He knew well the joy of life, and He did not hesitate to\nparticipate in it.  He drank wine Himself, and exerted miraculous power\nthat others might drink it.  In argument upon Sabbatarianism He took the\nmore liberal view. He instantly and frankly forgave the woman taken in\nadultery.  His heart went out in gentleness to children, to the poor,\nand to everybody who needed support and comfort. It is that golden\nthread of kindliness running like flashes of sunlight through His\nministry which wins the love and adherence of disciples to His name.\n\nA few years ago an English ship foundered on the coast of Ushant.  Many\nof the crew were drowned and the bodies washed ashore. The villagers of\nUshant showed no little kindness to the shipwrecked strangers.  The\ninterment of the drowned sailors was a memorable scene.  The deceased\nwere all Protestants, the villagers were all Roman Catholics, yet the\nvillagers performed the ceremony with all the ritual shown to those of\ntheir own faith.  The cure officiating had qualms of conscience in\nadmitting the bodies to the church and reading the Catholic service over\nthem.  An Englishman standing by remarked, \"God has no creed.\"  The cure\nwaved his hand as if to dismiss the objections which perturbed his mind,\nand the service proceeded.\n\nThis is a refreshing lesson in humanity furnished by the simple-minded,\ngood-natured fishermen of Ushant.  The spirit of Jesus breathes in it\nvictoriously over the narrowness of creed and the hardness of heart\nwhich separate men in much party bitterness.\n\n\n\n\n                                 *XIV*\n\n                      *THE LURE OF THE EUCHARIST*\n\n\nA beautiful spectacular ceremonial the Church has wrapped around the\nSacrament of the Lord's Supper, smothering it under the pomp of a\nreligious service, which works upon the nerves like a subtle, mastering\nspell.  The senses of the worshipper become drugged with incense, dazed\nby the glitter of broidered vestments, charmed with the strains of\nalluring music, spellbound with the deep droning voice intoning at the\naltar, and all the splendid equipments and sacred associations of the\nsanctuary, which tighten you up until a wrapt ecstasy of feeling\nintoxicates you in the midst of it all, and you are drenched in the\nluxury of strong, dreamy religious emotion.\n\nFor nineteen centuries the spectacle has been growing in significance,\nand it is not finished growing yet.  Every age adds a decorative touch\nto embellish its colossal splendours.  Finality in ecclesiastical\nevolution lies a long way off in the distance.  If one of the twelve\ndisciples who supped with our Blessed Lord on that historic night could\nslip out of paradise and for a few minutes witness a modern high\ncelebration of the Holy Eucharist, he would marvel much at the imposing\nfunction, and marvel more at men's credulity in mistaking an\necclesiastical pageant for a simple act of devout obedience to Jesus\nChrist.  The plain and homely meal which our Lord instituted to be a\nremembrance of Himself and His death on the Cross has flowered into an\nornate and flamboyant religious function striking wonderment and awe in\nthe hearts of mankind by the glitter of its barbaric and imposing\nsplendours.  The Church has worked up the Lord's Supper into a\nsupernatural mystic rite run on old pagan lines; in fact, it amalgamates\nChristianity with ancient magic, and so the spirit of Christ escapes\nfrom the service, and only His traditional dead body reposes on the\naltar like the cold ashes of an extinct fire.\n\nRecall the simple and unpretentious meal of which our Blessed Lord\npartook with His disciples on the eve of His betrayal and death.  There\nin an upper room in the city of Jerusalem is the small assembly,\nconsisting of the Master and His twelve disciples, and during the meal\nJesus took a piece of bread, \"and when He had given thanks, He brake it\nand said: 'Take, eat: this is My body, which is broken for you; this do\nin remembrance of Me.'  After the same manner also He took the cup, when\nHe had supped, saying: 'This cup is the New Testament in My blood; this\ndo ye as often as ye drink in remembrance of Me; for as often as ye eat\nthis bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He\ncome.'\"[*]\n\n[*] 1 Cor. xi. 24-26.\n\nOn this plain foundation the amazing and pernicious rite of\nTransubstantiation has been reared--a veritable temple of divination,\nand cloistered within its shadowed recesses the priest casts his spell,\ndispensing religious consolations to credulous and confiding mortals\ntangled in the coils of the seductive creed.\n\nTransubstantiation is a pagan heresy grafted on to Christian stock.  In\nancient times, when the pagan priest muttered an incantation over the\nidol of his god, the spirit of the god was supposed to enter the idol,\nand so when the Christian priest now utters a prayer over the bread and\nwine it is affirmed they become the real flesh and the real blood of\nChrist.\n\nA brief glance back on the early history of the Church shows us the door\nthrough which this sacerdotal error slipped into the sacramental\nservice, and how the Church drifted from the words of Jesus Christ and\nsought other and strange gods for counsel. For three centuries after the\nCrucifixion the disciples held closely together in little groups or\nchurches in the towns where they abode. Many of them dwelt in Rome, down\nin the dark subterranean city of the catacombs, with its maze of narrow\nlanes, blind alleys, and cryptic sanctuaries, hidden under the gay,\ncruel city of sunlit streets and open air.  Here they lived, striving\nfaithfully and patiently to attain pure, blameless, holy lives before\nGod in a pagan world, whose sins they renounced and whose hatred they\ncourted by thrusting the new and unwelcome society of Christ into their\nhostile midst. Christians were mistaken for criminals--but there, Christ\nwas crucified as one.  Through all persecutions they held fast to the\nteachings of Jesus of Nazareth.  Nothing daunted them, nothing\ndisheartened them.  The words of Christ refreshed them in all the\nweariness of spirit.  In teeth of deadly opposition they grew in number\nuntil a questionable honour was conferred upon the Church which changed\nits fortunes and marred its simplicity.  The Roman Emperor Constantine\nbecame a convert to the new religion, and now and henceforth the\nreligion of Jesus Christ is honourable in the sight of all men.  It is\nthe fashionable craze of Rome.  The Emperor's Court followed the\nEmperor's example and joined up. The Roman world followed the royal lead\nand professed conversion.  This is the flowering-time of Christianity.\nThe Christian sect, yesterday the outcasts and scum of the earth, are\nnow received into polite society, dine in the best houses, and are\nwelcomed everywhere. The bishops of the Church are dug out of their deep\nburrows in the stuffy underground where they practised the simple life;\nthey put off their poverty of pocket and meekness of spirit, and are\nrobed in gorgeous raiment and rank amongst the rulers of the earth.\nThey are transfigured men in mind and in manners.  The Bishop of Rome\nleaps into fame, wins for himself a palace and a throne in the city of\nthe Caesars, and a court of red-robed cardinals surge round him with\nroyal observances and diplomatic intrigue. Our bishops in England become\nprinces of the Church, have princely palaces, and princely revenues to\nmaintain the dignity of their princely estate.  These gilded grandees of\nthe Church are considered to be spiritually the lineal descendants of\nthe Peasant of Galilee who at nightfall had not where to lay His head.\nFlattery worked the Church's undoing, for in the hour of her worldly\ntriumph she gave away all that the early Christian martyrs had died to\nwin.\n\nThe mass of people who obsequiously played up to Constantine and joined\nthe Church were not converted to the Christian faith; they did not\nbelieve in Christ with all their heart.  To many of them Christ was only\na new Deity added to the many gods they already worshipped.  In heart\nthey remained pagan, but behaved prudently and changed their coat at the\nEmperor's bidding. They did not forsake their old religion when they\naccepted the new creed; they amalgamated the two.  They carried their\npagan superstitions with them into the Christian Church, and, planted in\nnew soil, there they took root and flourished vigorously in the garden\nof the Lord.  The old gods became saints; the pagan shrines and images\nand festivals were whitewashed and christianized and given a place in\nthe Church calendar; the magic by which their pagan priests trained the\nspirit of the gods to enter the idol at call, the same priestly magic\ntransferred to the new religion brought the body of the Lord into the\nbread and the wine at the service of the Lord's Supper.\n\nSuch galloping progress did the heresy make amongst the mixed multitudes\nwho mingled their devotions with the elect in the Church that before\nlong the bread and wine were given to the dead.  The Sacrament, it is\nsupposed, was placed on the breast of dead persons, as a charm against\nevil spirits. This superstitious custom was rooted deeply in the\nreligion of the day, for the Church was compelled to legislate on the\nsubject. The custom was forbidden in Africa by the Council of Hippo,\nA.D. 393; the Council of Carthage, A.D. 397; and in Gaul at the Council\nof Auxerre, A.D. 578; yet it lingered tenaciously in the hearts of the\npeople as a sacred custom to be observed regardless of hostility to it\nin high places.  Again at the Council in Trullo, A.D. 691, it was\nforbidden.  An incident in the life of St. Benedict, who died about the\nyear 540, discloses much to us. A boy who had been disobedient died\nsuddenly, and his corpse could not rest, in the grave, so St. Benedict\nordered the body of the Lord (the Sacrament) to be placed on the breast\nof the boy, and the corpse rested immediately, and remained quietly\nburied.\n\nThe miraculous legend of the Lord's Supper obtains in the Church to-day\nwith perfumed pomp and splendour of worship.  The magic of the Real\nPresence bites deep into the core of the Church's creed.  As the ages\nroll the legend develops new forms of expression. Its inferences are not\nalways expressed, nor is its significance posted on the surface, but it\nis the deeply sunk tap-root of the green bay-tree of sacerdotalism which\nflourishes in the Church of Christ and binds the people round and round\nwith disciplinary fetters of steel, captives to priestly power.\n\nThe consecrated bread and wine still are worshipped as being the body of\nthe Lord. When the priest consecrates the bread and wine on the altar\nfor the Communion Service, sometimes a part of it is reverently kept\nback and is called the reserved sacrament; this reserved sacrament is\nconjured with.  It is placed in a small box of ornate workmanship called\na shrine or tabernacle, and is deposited on an altar in the church,\nwhich is called \"God's resting-place,\" and is worshipped as the body of\nour Lord.\n\nIn preference, a secluded and quiet place in the church is chosen for\nthe altar of the reserved sacrament.  \"Admirable arrangements have been\nmade in some English churches.  In one church there is a side-chapel\nsomewhat out of sight from the main entrance of the church.  In another\nthere is a crypt chapel....  In another there is a chapel reached by\nsteps ascending from the church.  By such arrangements, when the door of\nthe chapel is kept unlocked and the fact of reservation is known, there\nis at once protection to the sacred presence of our Lord, and\naccessibility to those who will use it well.\"  To these lonely\nside-altars in shadowy places of the sanctuary at any hour during the\nday stray worshippers come and kneel before the tabernacle and worship\nthe body of Christ enclosed therein.  \"All that Christ can claim of\nhuman love and adoration is due to Him in His sacramental presence,\"\nsays an Oxford advocate of the intruding heresy; \"the worship which the\nChristian soul pays to Him when the sacrament is consecrated is paid\nalso as it is reserved.  It includes the utmost response of which the\nsoul is capable.\"\n\nIn past times plain-speaking people called these worshippers of the\nsacrament idolaters. That word may reveal the thoughts of many hearts\nto-day.  Dr. Darwell Stone, in his book \"The Reserved Sacrament,\"\nadvocates an ample toleration widely extended in the Church of England\non behalf of these idolaters. Facing the accusation of idolatry cast by\nhis opponents, he throws out a challenge.  Speaking of those who make\nthe charge of idolatry, \"from their own point of view,\" he states, \"they\nare perfectly right.  If the consecrated elements are only bread and\nwine after consecration as before, whatever gifts or virtues may be\nattached to the profitable reception of them, those who imagine that\nthey are worshipping our Lord are wholly wrong in seeking the object of\ntheir adoration in His presence in the Sacrament.  But if it be true\nthat by consecration the bread and wine become His Body and Blood, if\nour Lord Himself, eternal God, very Man, glorified, spiritual, risen,\nascended, is present in the Sacrament, then in the adoration there is no\nidolatry, but rather the worship which is the bounden duty of a\nChristian.\"\n\nBack to the New Testament, back to the words of Christ, and in reading\nthem we find no evidence that Jesus at that farewell meal He partook\nwith His disciples founded an elaborate and miraculous ordinance; we\ncannot read into the words of Christ any intention on His part to place\nin the hands of Churchmen a spiritual weapon to be used offensively and\ndefensively in all their struggle and strategy for the Church's temporal\naggrandizement, as it has been used to subdue and flatten down the\npeople under their spiritual charge.  The miracle of the Real Presence\nis of man's device.  It is an offspring born of priestcraft and pride.\nChrist has no part or lot in it.  The impression the gospels compel in\nus is that Christ was fighting the sacerdotal error in religion\nthroughout His whole ministry, and for the Church to claim Him as its\nfounder is the greatest irony of Christianity.\n\nBut time works changes.  As the story of the crucifixion of Christ\nreceded with the lapse of lengthening years and became a distant\ntradition in Church history, the desire possessed men's minds for\nsomething tangible to nail their faith to; the desire was to bring\nChrist back again somehow into touch with living men and women.  The\nblank of the long, silent ages grew intolerable.  The chilling doubt of\nThomas haunted men afresh; the longing to see and touch the wounded\nChrist gathered force.  To gratify the religious devotion of the people,\nart did its best to portray in coloured pictures Jesus Christ the man\nwho walked in Galilee and died in Jewry; and the Fathers of the Church\nresponded promptly to the longing, and found to hand a ready-made\nmystery which answered the purpose and helped to stay the profound\nreligious hunger of the day--a mystery which could be amplified to meet\nevery expanding need of the people, and the people accepted with greedy\nfaith the doctrine of the indwelling bodily presence of Jesus Christ in\nthe bread and wine on the altar. These elements, they were assured,\nbecame changed into the real flesh and blood of Christ when consecrated\nby the priest, and the people acclaimed with reverent joy the wonderful\ntransformation which brought Christ so near, and drew what religious\nconsolation they could from the sacred illusion imposed upon them.  The\nolden gods were returning in a new form.\n\nThe people did not know and did not want to know the truth about their\ncreed.  They had neither the leisure nor the brains to think for\nthemselves.  The cake is baked; it is eaten with relish.  Hungry men at\ntable do not analyze their food; they eat it and are thankful.  The\npeople did not know, but the people had feeling.  The Church stirred\ntheir feelings to the uttermost, played upon the heart-strings of joy\nand sorrow, hope and fear, faith and love, until their tumultuous\nemotions were aroused and they believed blindly according to priestly\norders. We would make neither more nor less importance of the Lord's\nSupper, only just what Christ made of it to His disciples and to plain\npeople through all time.  Let us try and possess the ancient feeling\nthat possessed the disciples when they sat at table with the Master,\nand, stripped of ecclesiastical emblazonment, we touch the Supper in its\nprimitive simplicity as instituted in the upper room with the shadow of\ndeath shrouding the Founder of the Feast.  He commanded His disciples\nafter His death to meet together thus and to break bread in remembrance\nof Him.\n\nIt is in memory of Christ, if the New Testament report of it is correct.\nChrist appointed the solemn rite to be an ever-living witness to His own\nlove to man, and we in response make it our pledge of undying love and\ndevotion to Him.  It is the Sacrament of the ages.  It never varies in\npurpose; it never stales by observance.  The Lord's Table is the\nprepared place on earth where the Church Catholic should assemble to\ncommemorate the great Sacrifice of Golgotha, and to commune with one\nanother in spiritual fellowship and brotherly unity.  It is a\ncommemorative act, and as such, uncorrupted and undefiled by human\ninventions, it should have come down to us, but the Church has tampered\nwith the holy thing.  Christ did not intend us to idolize the bread and\nwine. It is the legend of the Brazen Serpent repeating itself in modern\nversion.  Human folly boasts of little originality.  It borrows its sins\nfrom its ancestors and charges them up to the children's children.  The\nBrazen Serpent that Moses lifted on a pole in the wilderness for the\nhealing of the people was a symbol of God's saving mercy to the nation.\nAlas! the people turned the brass image into an idol and in course of\ntime worshipped it, and so did evil in the sight of the Lord. Christ did\nnot intend us to idolize the Sacrament; Christ commanded us to eat and\ndrink the bread and wine, not to worship it. The Sacrament is in memory\nof Christ's sacrifice: it is not a repetition of it.\n\nTo many Churchmen it is the simplicity of the service that savours of an\noffence. Human vanity dearly loves display, pomp, emotion, with which to\nsalt its devotion to the Almighty and make it palatable to the Deity and\nto itself.  Naaman the Syrian is not the only man who demands splendour\nof ceremony to colour a religious function in which he engages.  His\npampered soul feeds on fulsome flattery, and if he does not get it he is\nangry to the uttermost.\n\n\n\n\n         BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, ENGLAND.\n\n\n\n\n           *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *\n\n\n\n\n                          *OUR VILLA IN ITALY*\n\n                           *BY JOSEPH LUCAS*\n\n              _New and Revised Edition.  With 25 full-page\n                    Illustrations.  Cloth, 5s. net._\n\n\"Full of the lure of Florence and, indeed, of all Italy....  Mr. Lucas\nhas written a book which will delight every English lover of that\ncountry.\"--_The Guardian_.\n\n\"Mr. Lucas has much to tell us of the Italian people, and the\ndescriptions of his neighbours and servants bring them very vividly\nbefore us.\"--_The Outlook_.\n\n\"The author has a good knowledge of Italian furniture, which is rare\neven among Italians.... His account of his search for rare 'cassoni' and\nTuscan sideboards, chests of drawers ('cassettoni') and chairs is\ndelightful; and the photographs of his finds, which include a noble\n'cassapanca' and two very fine tables, are among the most interesting\nfeatures of his book.\"--_The Athenaeum_.","title":"Lures of Life","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":37412}