THE UPTON LETTERS

By

ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON

aedae muri' eseidon oneirata, koudepo aos. 

1905

PREFACE

These letters were returned to me, shortly after the death of thefriend to whom they were written, by his widow. It seems that he hadbeen sorting and destroying letters and papers a few days before hiswholly unexpected end. "We won't destroy these, " he had said to her, holding the bulky packet of my letters in his hand; "we will keep themtogether. T---- ought to publish them, and, some day, I hope he will. "This was not, of course, a deliberate judgement; but his sudden death, a few days later, gives the unconsidered wish a certain sanctity, and Ihave determined to obey it. Moreover, she who has the best right todecide, desires it. A few merely personal matters and casual detailshave been omitted; but the main substance is there, and the letters arejust as they were written. Such hurried compositions, of course, aboundin literary shortcomings, but perhaps they have a certain spontaneitywhich more deliberate writings do not always possess. I wrote my best, frankest, and liveliest in the letters, because I knew that Herbertwould value both the thought and the expression of the thought. And, further, if it is necessary to excuse so speedy a publication, I feelthat they are not letters which would gain by being kept. Theirinterest arises from the time, the circumstance, the occasion that gavethem birth, from the books read and criticised, the educationalproblems discussed; and thus they may form a species of comment on acertain aspect of modern life, and from a definite point of view. But, after all, it is enough for me that he appreciated them, and, if hewished that they should go out to the world, well, let them go! Inpublishing them I am but obeying a last message of love. 

T. B. MONK'S ORCHARD, UPTON, Feb. 20, 1905. 

THE UPTON LETTERS

MONK'S ORCHARD, UPTON, Jan. 23, 1904. 

MY DEAR HERBERT, --I have just heard the disheartening news, and I writeto say that I am sorry toto corde. I don't yet know the full extent ofthe calamity, the length of your exile, the place, or the conditionsunder which you will have to live. Perhaps you or Nelly can find timeto let me have a few lines about it all? But I suppose there is a goodside to it. I imagine that when the place is once fixed, you will beable to live a much freer life than you have of late been obliged tolive in England, with less risk and less overshadowing of anxiety. Ifyou can find the right region, renovabitur ut acquila juventus tua; andyou will be able to carry out some of the plans which have been sooften interrupted here. Of course there will be drawbacks. Books, society, equal talk, the English countryside which you love so well, and, if I may use the expression, so intelligently; they will all haveto be foregone in a measure. But fortunately there is no difficultyabout money, and money will give you back some of these delights. Youwill still see your real friends; and they will come to you with theintention of giving and getting the best of themselves and of you, notin the purposeless way in which one drifts into a visit here. You willbe able, too, to view things with a certain detachment--and that is areal advantage; for I have sometimes thought that your literary workhas suffered from the variety of your interests, and from your beingrather too close to them to form a philosophical view. Your love ofcharacteristic points of natural scenery will help you. When you haveonce grown familiar with the new surroundings, you will penetrate thesecret of their charm, as you have done here. You will be able, too, tolive a more undisturbed life, not fretted by all the cross-currentswhich distract a man in his own land, when he has a large variety ofties. I declare I did not know I was so good a rhetorician; I shall endby convincing myself that there is no real happiness to be found exceptin expatriation!

Seriously, my dear Herbert, I do understand the sadness of the change;but one gets no good by dwelling on the darker side; there are and willbe times, I know, of depression. When one lies awake in the morning, before the nerves are braced by contact with the wholesome day; whenone has done a tiring piece of work, and is alone, and in that frame ofmind when one needs occupation but yet is not brisk enough to turn tothe work one loves; in those dreary intervals between one's work, whenone is off with the old and not yet on with the new--well I know allthe corners of the road, the shadowy cavernous places where the demonslie in wait for one, as they do for the wayfarer (do you remember?), inBewick, who, desiring to rest by the roadside, finds the dingle allalive with ambushed fiends, horned and heavy-limbed, swollen with theoppressive clumsiness of nightmare. But you are not inexperienced orweak. You have enough philosophy to wait until the frozen mood thaws, and the old thrill comes back. That is one of the real compensations ofmiddle age. When one is young, one imagines that any depression will becontinuous; and one sees the dreary, uncomforted road winding aheadover bare hills, till it falls to the dark valley. But later on one canbelieve that "the roadside dells of rest" are there, even if one cannotsee them; and, after all, you have a home which goes with you; and itwould seem to be fortunate, or to speak more truly, tenderly prepared, that you have only daughters--a son, who would have to go back toEngland to be educated, would be a source of anxiety. Yet I find myselfeven wishing that you had a son, that I might have the care of him overhere. You don't know the heart-hunger I sometimes have for young thingsof my own to watch over; to try to guard their happiness. You would saythat I had plenty of opportunities in my profession; it is true in asense, and I think I am perhaps a better schoolmaster for beingunmarried. But these boys are not one's own; they drift away; they comeback dutifully and affectionately to talk to their old tutor; and weare both of us painfully conscious that we have lost hold of thethread, and that the nearness of the tie that once existed exists nomore. 

Well, I did not mean in this letter to begin bemoaning my own sorrows, but rather to try and help you to bear your own. Tell me as soon as youcan what your plans are, and I will come down and see you for the lasttime under the old conditions; perhaps the new will be happier. Godbless you, my old friend! Perhaps the light which has hitherto shone(though fitfully) ON your life will now begin to shine THROUGH itinstead; and let me add one word. My assurance grows firmer, from dayto day, that we are in stronger hands than our own. It is true that Isee things in other lives which look as if those hands were wantonlycruel, hard, unloving; but I reflect that I cannot see all theconditions; I can only humbly fall back upon my own experience, andtestify that even the most daunting and humiliating things have apurifying effect; and I can perceive enough at all events to encourageme to send my heart a little farther than my eyes, and to believe thata deep and urgent love is there. --Ever affectionately yours, T. B. 

UPTON, Jan. 26, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --So it is to be Madeira at present? Well, I know Madeiraa little, and I can honestly congratulate you. I had feared it might beSwitzerland. I could not LIVE in Switzerland. It does me good to gothere, to be iced and baked and washed clean with pure air. But theterrible mountains, so cold and unchanged, with their immemorialpatience, their frozen tranquillity; the high hamlets, perched on theirlonely shelves; the bleak pine-trees, with their indomitablestrength--all these depress me. Of course there is much homely beautyamong the lower slopes; the thickets, the falling streams, the flowers. But the grim black peaks look over everywhere; and there is seldom afeeling of the rich and comfortable peace such as one gets in England. Madeira is very different. I have been there, and must truthfullyconfess that it does not suit me altogether--the warm air, theparadisal luxuriance, the greenhouse fragrance, are not a fit settingfor a blond, lymphatic man, who pants for Northern winds. But it willsuit you; and you will be one of those people, spare and compact as youare, who find themselves vigorous and full of energy there. I have manyexquisite vignettes from Madeira which linger in my mind. The highhill-villages, full of leafy trees; the grassy downs at the top; thedroop of creepers, full of flower and fragrance, over white walls; thesapphire sea, under huge red cliffs. You will perhaps take one of thoseembowered Quintas high above the town, in a garden full of shelter andfountains. And I am much mistaken if you do not find yourself in a veryshort time passionately attached to the place. Then the people aresimple, courteous, unaffected, full of personal interest. Housekeepinghas few difficulties and no terrors. 

I can't get away for a night; but I will come and dine with you one daythis week, if you can keep an evening free. 

And one thing I will promise--when you are away, I will write to you asoften as I can. I shall not attempt any formal letters, but I shallbegin with anything that is in my mind, and stop when I feel disposed;and you must do the same. We won't feel bound to ANSWER each other'sletters; one wastes time over that. What I shall want to know is whatyou are thinking and doing, and I shall take for granted you desire thesame. 

You will be happier, now that you KNOW; I need not add that if I can beof any use to you in making suggestions, it will be a realpleasure. --Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, Feb. 3, 1904. 

MY DEAR HERBERT, --It seems ages since we said good-bye--yet it is not aweek ago. And now I have been at work all day correcting exercises, teaching, talking. I have had supper with the boys, and I have beenwalking about since and talking to them--the nicest part of my work. They are at this time of the day, as a rule, in good spirits, charitable, sensible. What an odd thing it is that boys are sodelightful when they are alone, and so tiresome (not always) when theyare together. They seem, in public, to want to show their worst side, to be ashamed of being supposed to be good, or interested, orthoughtful, or tender-hearted. They are so afraid of seeming betterthan they are, and pleased to appear worse than they are. I wonder whythis is? It is the same more or less with most people; but one seesinstincts at their nakedest among boys. As I go on in life, the onething I desire is simplicity and reality; pose is the one fatal thing. The dullest person becomes interesting if you feel that he is reallyhimself, that he is not holding up some absurd shield or other in frontof his shivering soul. And yet how hard it is, even when oneappreciates the benefits and beauty of sincerity, to say what onereally thinks, without reference to what one supposes the person one istalking to would like or expect one to think--and to do it, too, without brusqueness or rudeness or self-assertion. 

Boys are generally ashamed of saying anything that is good about eachother; and yet they are as a rule intensely anxious to be POPULAR, andpathetically unaware that the shortest cut to popularity is to see thegood points in every one and not to shrink from mentioning them. I oncehad a pupil, a simple-minded, serene, ordinary creature, who attainedto extraordinary popularity. I often wondered why; after he had left, Iasked a boy to tell me; he thought for a moment, and then he said, "Isuppose, sir, it was because when we were all talking about otherchaps--and one does that nearly all the time--he used to be as muchdown on them as any one else, and he never jawed--but he always hadsomething nice to say about them, not made up, but as if it just cameinto his head. "

Well, I must stop; I suppose you are forging out over the Bay, andsleeping, I hope, like a top. There is no sleep like the sleep on asteamer--profound, deep, so that one wakes up hardly knowing where orwho one is, and in the morning you will see the great purpleleague-long rollers. I remember them; I generally felt very unwell; butthere was something tranquillising about them, all the same--and thenthe mysterious steamers that used to appear alongside, pitching andtumbling, with the little people moving about on the decks; and a mileaway in a minute. Then the water in the wake, like marble, with itswhite-veined sapphire, and the hiss and smell of the foam; all that isvery pleasant. Good night, Herbert!--Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, Feb. 9, 1904. 

MY DEAR HERBERT, --I hope you have got Lockhart's Life of Scott withyou; if not, I will send it out to you. I have been reading it lately, and I have a strong wish that you should do the same. It has not allthe same value; the earlier part, the account of the prosperous years, is rather tiresome in places. There is something boisterous, undignified--even, I could think, vulgar--about the aims and ambitionsdepicted. It suggests a prosperous person, seated at a well-filledtable, and consuming his meat with a hearty appetite. The desire tostand well with prominent persons, to found a family, to take a placein the county, is a perfectly natural and wholesome desire; but it is acommonplace ambition. There is a charm in the simplicity, thegeniality, the childlike zest of the man; but there is nothing greatabout it. Then comes the crash; and suddenly, as though a curtain drewup, one is confronted with the spectacle of an indomitable andunselfish soul, bearing a heavy burden with magnificent tranquillity, and settling down with splendid courage to an almost intolerable task. The energy displayed by our hero in attempting to write off the load ofdebt that hung round his neck is superhuman, august. We see himcompleting in a single day what would take many writers a week tofinish, and doing it day by day, with bereavements, sorrows, ill-health, all closing in upon him. The quality of the work he thusdid matters little; it was done, indeed, at a time of life when undernormal circumstances he would probably have laid his pen down. But thespectacle of the man's patient energy and divine courage is one thatgoes straight to the heart. It is then that one realises that theearlier and more prosperous life has all the value of contrast; onerecognises that here was a truly unspoilt nature; and that, if we candare to look upon life as an educative process, the tragic sorrows thatoverwhelmed him were not the mere reversal of the wheel of fortune, butgifts from the very hand of the Father--to purify a noble soul from thedross that was mingled with it; to give a great man the opportunity ofliving in a way that should furnish an eternal and imperishable example. 

I do not believe that in the whole of literature there is a more nobleand beautiful document of its kind than the diary of these later years. The simplicity, the sincerity of the man stand out on every page. Thereare no illusions about himself or his work. He hears that Southey hasbeen speaking of him and his misfortunes with tears, and he saysplainly that such tears would be impossible to himself in a parallelcase; that his own sympathy has always been practical rather thanemotional; his own tendency has been to help rather than to console. Again, speaking of his own writings, he says that he realises that ifthere is anything good about his poetry or prose, "It is a hurriedfrankness of composition, which pleases soldiers, sailors, and youngpeople of bold and active disposition. " He adds, indeed, a contemptuoustouch to the above, which he was great enough to have spared: "I havebeen no sigher in shades--no writer of

 Songs and sonnets and rustical roundelays Framed on fancies and whistled on reeds. "

A few days later, speaking of Thomas Campbell, the poet, he says that"he has suffered by being too careful a corrector of his work. "

That is a little ungenerous, a little complacent; noble and large asScott's own unconsidered writings are, he ought to have been aware thatmethods differ. What, for instance, could be more extraordinary thanthe contrast between Scott and Wordsworth--Scott with his "You know Idon't care a curse about what I write;" and Wordsworth, whose chiefreading in later days was his own poetry. Whenever the two are broughtinto actual juxtaposition, Wordsworth is all pose and self-absorption;Scott all simplicity and disregard of fame. Wordsworth staying atAbbotsford declines to join an expedition of pleasure, and stays athome with his daughter. When the party return, they find Wordsworthsitting and being read to by his daughter, the book his own Excursion. A party of travellers arrive, and Wordsworth steals down to the chaise, to see if there are any of his own volumes among the books they havewith them. When the two are together, Scott is all courteous deference;he quotes Wordsworth's poems, he pays him stately compliments, whichthe bard receives as a matter of course, with stiff, complacent bows. But, during the whole of the time, Wordsworth never lets fall a singlesyllable from which one could gather that he was aware that his hosthad ever put pen to paper. 

Yet, while one desires to shake Wordsworth to get some of his pomposityout of him, one half desires that Scott had felt a little more deeplythe dignity of his vocation. One would wish to have infused Wordsworthwith a little of Scott's unselfish simplicity, and to have put just alittle stiffening into Scott. He ought to have felt--and he didnot--that to be a great writer was a more dignified thing than to be asham seigneur. 

But through the darkening scene, when the woods whisper together, andTweed runs hoarsely below, the simple spirit holds uncomplaining andundaunted on his way: "I did not like them to think that I could everbe beaten by anything, " he says. But at length the hand, tired with thepen, falls, and twilight creeps upon the darkening mind. 

I paid a pious pilgrimage last summer, as you perhaps remember, toAbbotsford. I don't think I ever described it to you. My first feelingwas one of astonishment at the size and stateliness of the place, testifying to a certain imprudent prosperity. But the sight of therooms themselves; the desk, the chair, the book-lined library, thelittle staircase by which, early or late, Scott could steal back to hishard and solitary work; the death-mask, with its pathetic smile; theclothes, with hat and shoes, giving, as it were, a sense of the veryshape and stature of the man--these brought the whole thing up with astrange reality. 

Of course, there is much that is pompous, affected, unreal about theplace; the plaster beams, painted to look like oak; the uglyemblazonries; the cruel painted glass; the laboriously collectedobjects--all these reveal the childish side of Scott, the superficialself which slipped from him so easily when he entered into the cloud. 

And then the sight of his last resting-place; the ruined abbey, sodeeply embowered in trees that the three dim Eildon peaks areinvisible; the birds singing in the thickets that clothe the ruinedcloisters--all this made a parable, and brought before one with anintensity of mystery the wonder of it all. The brief life, so full ofplans for permanence; the sombre valley of grief; the quiet end, whenwith failing lips he murmured that the only comfort for the dying heartwas the thought that it had desired goodness, however falteringly, above everything. 

I can't describe to you how deeply all this affects me--with what ahunger of the heart, what tenderness, what admiration, what wonder. Thevery frankness of the surprise with which, over and over again, thebrave spirit confesses that he does not miss the delights of life asmuch as he expected, nor find the burden as heavy as he had feared, isa very noble and beautiful thing. I can conceive of no book more likelyto make a spirit in the grip of sorrow and failure more gentle, hopeful, and brave; because it brings before one, with quiet andpathetic dignity, the fact that no fame, no success, no recognition, can be weighed for a moment in the balance with those simple qualitiesof human nature which the humblest being may admire, win, anddisplay. --Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, Shrove Tuesday, Feb. 16, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --One of those incredible incidents has just happenedhere, an incident that makes one feel how little one knows of humanbeings, and that truth, in spite of the conscientious toil of Mr. H. G. Wells, does still continue to keep ahead of fiction. Here is the story. Some money is missed in a master's house; circumstances seem to pointto its having been abstracted by one of the boys. A good-natured, flighty boy is suspected, absolutely without reason, as it turns out;though he is the sort of boy to mislay his own books and other portableproperty to any extent, and to make no great difficulty under pressureof immediate need, and at the last moment, about borrowing some oneelse's chattels. On this occasion the small boys in the house, of whomhe is one, solemnly accuse him of the theft, and the despoiled ownerentreats that the money may be returned. He protests that he has nottaken it. The matter comes to the ears of the house-master, whoinvestigates the matter in the course of the evening, and interviewsthe supposed culprit. The boy denies it again quite unconcernedly andfrankly, goes away from the interview, and wandering about, finds thesmall boys of the house assembled in one of the studies discussing amatter with great interest. "What has happened?" says our suspectedfriend. "Haven't you heard?" says one of them; "Campbell's grandmother"(Campbell is another of the set) "has sent him a tip of L2. " "Oh, hasshe?" says the boy, with a smile of intense meaning; "I shall have togo my rounds again. " This astonishing confession of his guilt isreceived with the interest it deserves, and Campbell is advised to lockup his money, or to hand it over to the custody of the house-master. Inthe course of the evening another amazing event occurs; the boy whosemoney was stolen finds the whole of it, quite intact, in the pocket ofhis cricketing flannels, where he now remembers having put it. Thesupposed culprit is restored to favour, and becomes a reliable memberof society. One of the small boys tells the matron the story of ourhero's amazing remark on the subject, in his presence. The matronstares at him, bewildered, and asks him what made him say it. "Oh, onlyto rag them, " says the boy; "they were all so excited about it. " "Butdon't you see, you silly boy, " says the kind old dame, "that if themoney had not been found, you would have been convicted out of your ownmouth of having been the thief?" "Oh yes, " says the boy cheerfully;"but I couldn't help it--it came into my head. "

Of course this is an exceptional case; but it illustrates a curiousthing about boys--I mentioned it the other day--which is, theirextraordinary willingness and even anxiety to be thought worse thanthey are. Even boys of unexceptionable principle will talk as if theywere not only not particular, but positively vicious. They don't likeaspersions on their moral character to be made by others, but theyrejoice to blacken themselves; and not even the most virtuous boys canbear to be accused of virtue, or thought to be what is called "Pi. "This does not happen when boys are by themselves; they will then talkunaffectedly about their principles and practice, if their interlocutoris also unaffected. But when they are together, a kind of disease ofself-accusation attacks them. I suppose that it is the perversion of awholesome instinct, the desire not to be thought better than they are;but part of the exaggerated stories that one hears about the low moraltone of public schools arises from the fact that innocent boys comingto a public school infer, and not unreasonably, from the talk of theircompanions that they are by no means averse to evil, even when, as isoften the case, they are wholly untainted by it. 

The same thing seems to me to prevail very widely nowadays. Theold-fashioned canting hypocrisy, like that of the old servant in theMaster of Ballantrae, who, suffering under the effects of drink, bearshimself like a Christian martyr, has gone out; just as the kind ofpride is extinct against which the early Victorian books used to warnchildren, and which was manifested by sitting in a carriage surveying abeggar with a curling lip--a course of action which was invariablyfollowed by the breaking of a Bank, or by some mysterious financialoperation involving an entire loss of fortune and respectability. 

Nowadays the parable of the Pharisee and the publican is reversed. ThePharisee tells his friends that he is in reality far worse than thepublican, while the publican thanks God that he is not a Pharisee. Itis only, after all, a different kind of affectation, and perhaps evenmore dangerous, because it passes under the disguise of a virtue. Weare all miserable sinners, of course; but it is no encouragement togoodness if we try to reduce ourselves all to the same level ofconscious corruption. The only advantage would be if, by our humility, we avoided censoriousness. Let us frankly admit that our virtues areinherited, and that any one who had had our chances would have done aswell or better than ourselves; neither ought we to be afraid ofexpressing our admiration of virtue, and, if necessary, our abhorrenceof vice, so long as that abhorrence is genuine. The cure for thepresent state of things is a greater naturalness. Perhaps it would endin a certain increase of priggishness; but I honestly confess thatnowadays our horror of priggishness, and even of seriousness, has grownout of all proportion; the command not to be a prig has almost takenits place in the Decalogue. After all, priggishness is often littlemore than a failure in tact, a breach of good manners; it is priggishto be superior, and it is vulgar to let a consciousness of superiorityescape you. But it is not priggish to be virtuous, or to have a highartistic standard, or to care more for masterpieces of literature thanfor second-rate books, any more than it is priggish to be rich orwell-connected. The priggishness comes in when you begin to compareyourself with others, and to draw distinctions. The Pharisee in theparable was a prig; and just as I have known priggish hunting men, andpriggish golfers, and even priggish card-players, so I have knownpeople who were priggish about having a low standard of private virtue, because they disapproved of people whose standard was higher. The onlycure is frankness and simplicity; and one should practise the art oftalking simply and directly among congenial people of what one admiresand believes in. 

How I run on! But it is a comfort to write about these things to someone who will understand; to "cleanse the stuff'd bosom of the perilousstuff that weighs upon the heart. " By the way, how careless therepetition of "stuff'd" "stuff" is in that line! And yet it can't beunintentional, I suppose?

I enjoy your letters very much; and I am glad to hear that you arebeginning to "take interest, " and are already feeling better. Yourviews of the unchangeableness of personality are very surprising; but Imust think them over for a little; I will write about them before long. Meanwhile, my love to you all. --Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, Feb. 25, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --You ask what I have been reading. Well, I have beengoing through Newman's Apologia for the twentieth time, and as usualhave fallen completely under the magical spell of that incomparablestyle; its perfect lucidity, showing the very shape of the thoughtwithin, its simplicity (not, in Newman's case, I think, the result oflabour, but of pure instinctive grace), its appositeness, its dignity, its music. I oscillate between supreme contentment as a reader, andenvious despair as a writer; it fills one's mind up slowly and richly, as honey fills a vase from some gently tilted bowl. There is no senseof elaborateness about the book; it was written swiftly and easily outof a full heart; then it is such a revelation of a human spirit, aspirit so innocent and devoted and tender, and, moreover, charged witha sweet naive egotism as of a child. It was written, as Newman himselfsaid, IN TEARS; but I do not think they were tears of bitterness, but ahalf-luxurious sorrow, the pathos of the past and its heavinesses, viewed from a quiet haven. I have no sympathy whatever with theintellectual attitude it reveals, but as Roderick Hudson says, I don'talways heed the sense: it is indeed a somewhat melancholy spectacle ofa beautiful mind converted in reality by purely aestheticconsiderations, by the dignity, the far-off, holy, and venerableassociations of the great Church which drew him quietly in, while allthe time he is under the impression that it is a logical clue which heis following. And what logic! leaping lightly over difficult places, taking flowery by-paths among the fields, the very stairs on which hetreads based on all kinds of wide assumptions and unverifiablehypotheses. Then it is distressing to see his horror of Liberalism, ofspeculation, of development, of all the things that constitute theprimal essence of the very religion that he blindly followed. Onecannot help feeling that had Newman been a Pharisee, he would havebeen, with his love of precedent, and antiquity, and tradition, one ofthe most determined and deadly opponents of the spirit of Christ. Forthe spirit of Christ is the spirit of freedom, of elasticity, ofunconventionality. Newman would have upheld in the Sanhedrim withpathetic and exquisite eloquence that it was not time to break with theold, that it was miserable treachery to throw over the ancientsafeguards of faith, to part with the rich inheritance of the nationalfaith delivered by Abraham and Moses to the saints. Newman was a truefanatic, and the most dangerous of fanatics, because his character wasbased on innocence and tenderness and instinctive virtue. It is ratherpathetic than distressing to see Newman again and again deluded by theantiquity of some petty human logician into believing his utterance tobe the very voice of God. The struggle with Newman was not the struggleof faith with scepticism, but the struggle between two kinds ofloyalty, the personal loyalty to his own past and his own friends andthe Church of his nativity, and the loyalty to the infinitely moreancient and venerable tradition of the Roman Church. It was, as I havesaid, an aesthetic conversion; he had the mind of a poet, and theparticular kind of beauty which appealed to him was not the beauty ofnature or art, but the beauty of old tradition and the far-off dimfigures of saints and prelates reaching back into the dark and remotepast. 

He had, too, the sublime egotism of the poet. His own salvation--"ShallI be safe if I die to-night?"--that, he confesses, was the thoughtwhich eventually outweighed all others. He had little of the priestlyhunger to save souls; the way in which others trusted him, confided inhim, watched his movements, followed him, was always something of aterror to him, and yet in another mood it ministered to hisself-absorption. He had not the stern sense of being absolutely in theright, which is the characteristic of the true leaders of men, but hehad a deep sense of his own importance, combined with a perfectly realsense of weakness and humility, which even disguised, I would think, his own egotism from himself. 

Again his extraordinary forensic power, his verbal logic, his exquisitelucidity of statement, all these concealed from him, as they haveconcealed from others, his lack of mental independence. He had anastonishing power of submitting to his imagination, a power ofbelieving the impossible, because the exercise of faith seemed to himso beautiful a virtue. It is not a case of a noble mind overthrown, butof the victory of a certain kind of poetical feeling over all rationalinquiry. 

To revert to Newman's literary genius, he seems to me to be one of thefew masters of English prose. I used to think, in old University days, that Newman's style was best tested by the fact that if one had a pieceof his writing to turn into Latin prose, the more one studied it, turned it over, and penetrated it, the more masterly did it become;because it was not so much the expression of a thought as the thoughtitself taking shape in a perfectly pure medium of language. Bunyan hadthe same gift; of later authors Ruskin had it very strongly, andMatthew Arnold in a lesser degree. There is another species ofbeautiful prose, the prose of Jeremy Taylor, of Pater, even ofStevenson; but this is a slow and elaborate construction, pinched andpulled this way and that; and it is like some gorgeous picture, ofstately persons in seemly and resplendent dress, with magnificentlywrought backgrounds of great buildings and curious gardens. But thework of Newman and of Ruskin is a white art, like the art of sculpture. 

I find myself every year desiring and admiring this kind of lucidityand purity more and more. It seems to me that the only function of awriter is to express obscure, difficult, and subtle thoughts easily. But there are writers, like Browning and George Meredith, who seem tohold it a virtue to express simple thoughts obscurely. Such writershave a wide vogue, because so many people do not value a thought unlessthey can feel a certain glow of satisfaction in having grasped it; andto have disentangled a web of words, and to find the bright thing lyingwithin, gives them a pleasing feeling of conquest, and, moreover, stamps the thought in their memory. But such readers have not the rootof the matter in them; the true attitude is the attitude of desiring toapprehend, to progress, to feel. The readers who delight in obscurity, to whom obscurity seems to enhance the value of the thing apprehended, are mixing with the intellectual process a sort of acquisitive andcommercial instinct very dear to the British heart. These bewilderingand bewildered Browning societies who fling themselves upon Sordello, are infected unconsciously with a virtuous craving for "taking higherground. " Sordello contains many beautiful things, but by omitting thenecessary steps in argument, and by speaking of one thing allusively interms of another, and by a profound desultoriness of thought, the poetproduces a blurred and tangled impression. The beauties of Sordellowould not lose by being expressed coherently and connectedly. 

This is the one thing that I try with all my might to impress on boys;that the essence of all style is to say what you mean as forcibly aspossible; the bane of classical teaching is that the essence ofsuccessful composition is held to be to "get in" words and phrases; itis not a bad training, so long as it is realised to be only a training, in obtaining a rich and flexible vocabulary, so that the writer has achoice of words and the right word comes at call. But this is not madeclear in education, and the result on many minds is that they supposethat the essence of good writing is to search diligently for sparklingwords and sonorous phrases, and then to patch them into a duller fabric. 

But I stray from my point: all paths in a schoolmaster's mind lead outupon the educational plain. 

All that you tell me of your new surroundings is intensely interesting. I am thankful that you feel the characteristic charm of the place, andthat the climate seems to suit you. You say nothing of your work; but Isuppose that you have had no time as yet. The mere absorbing of newimpressions is a fatiguing thing, and no good work can be done until ascene has become familiar. I will discharge your commissionspunctually; don't hesitate to tell me what you want. I don't do it froma sense of duty, but it is a positive pleasure for me to have anythingto do for you. I long for letters; as soon as possible send mephotographs, and not merely inanimate photographs of scenes and places, but be sure that you make a part of them yourself. I want to see youstanding, sitting, reading in the new house; and give me an exact anddetailed account of your day, please; the food you eat, the clothes youwear; you know my insatiable appetite for trifles. --Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, March 5, 1904. 

MY DEAR HERBERT, --I have been thinking over your last letter: and bythe merest chance I stumbled yesterday on an old diary; it was in1890--a time, do you remember, when our paths had drifted somewhatapart; you had just married, and I find a rather bitter entry, which itamuses me to tell you of now, to the effect that the marriage of afriend, which ought to give one a new friend, often simply deprives oneof an old one--"nec carus aeque nec superstes integer, " I add. Then Iwas, I suppose, hopelessly absorbed in my profession; it was at thetime when I had just taken a boarding-house, and suffered much from thedejection which arises from feeling unequal to the new claims. 

It amuses me now to think that I could ever have thought of losing yourfriendship; and it was only temporary; it was only that we were fullyoccupied; you had to learn camaraderie with your wife, for want ofwhich one sees dryness creep into married lives, when the first divineardours of passion have died away, and when life has to be lived in thecommon light of day. Well, all that soon adjusted itself; and then I, too, found in your wife a true and congenial friend, so that I canhonestly say that your marriage has been one of the most fortunateevents of my life. 

But that was not what I meant to write to you about; the point is this. You say that personality is a stubborn thing. It is indeed. I findmyself reflecting and considering how much one's character reallychanges as life goes on; in reading this diary of fourteen years ago, though I have altered in some superficial respects, I was confrontedwith my unalterable self. I have acquired certain aptitudes; I havelearnt, for instance, to understand boys better, to sympathise withthem, to put myself in their place, to manage them. I don't think Icould enunciate my technique, such as it is. If a young master, justentering upon the work of a boarding-house, asked my advice, I couldutter several maxims which he would believe (and rightly) to be theflattest and most obvious truisms; but the value of them to me is thatthey are deduced from experience, and not stated as assumptions. Thewhole secret lies in the combination of them, the application of themto a particular case; it is not that one sees a thing differently, butthat one knows instinctively the sort of thing to say, the kind of lineto pursue, the kind of statement that appeals to a boy as sensible andmemorable, the sort of precautions to take, the delicate adjustment ofprinciples to a particular case, and so forth. It is, I suppose, something like the skill of an artist; he does not see nature moreclearly, if indeed as clearly, as he did when he began, but he knowsbetter what kind of stroke and what kind of tint will best produce theeffect which he wishes to record. Of course both artist andschoolmaster get mannerised; and I should be inclined to say in thelatter case that a schoolmaster's success (in the best sense) dependsalmost entirely upon his being able to arrive at sound principles andat the same time to avoid mannerism in applying them. For instance, itis of no use to hold up for a boy's consideration a principle which isquite outside his horizon; what one has to do is to try and give him aprinciple which is just a little ahead of his practice, which he canadmire and also believe to be within his reach. 

Besides this experience which I have acquired, I have acquired asimilar experience in the direction of teaching--I know now the sort ofstatement which arrests the attention and arouses the interest of boys;I know how to put a piece of knowledge so that it appears bothintelligible and also desirable to acquire. 

Then I have learnt, in literary matters, the art of expression to acertain extent. I can speak to you with entire frankness andunaffectedness, and I will say that I am conscious that I can nowexpress lucidly, and to a certain extent attractively, an idea. Mydeficiency is now in ideas and not in the power of expressing them. Ihave quality though not quantity. It amuses me to read this old diaryand see how impossible I found it to put certain thoughts into words. 

But apart from these definite acquirements, I cannot see that mycharacter has altered in the smallest degree. I detect the same little, hard, repellent core of self, sitting enthroned, cold, unchanging, andunchanged, "like a toad within a stone, " to borrow Rossetti's greatsimile. I see exactly the same weaknesses, the same pitiful ambitions, the same faults. I have learnt, I think, to conceal them a littlebetter; but they are not eradicated, nor even modified. Even withregard to their concealment, I have a terrible theory. I believe thatthe faults of which one is conscious, which one admits, and even thefaults of which one faintly suspects oneself, and yet supposes that oneconceals from the world at large, are the very faults that areabsolutely patent to every one else. If one dimly suspects that one isa liar, a coward, or a snob, and gratefully believes that one has notbeen placed in a position which inevitably reveals thesecharacteristics in their full nakedness, one may be fairly certain thatother people know that one is so tainted. 

The discouraging point is that one is not similarly conscious of one'svirtues. I take for granted that I have some virtues, because I seethat most of the people whom I meet have some sprinkling of them, but Ideclare that I am quite unable to say what they are. A fault is patentand unmistakable. The old temptation comes upon one, and one yields asusual; but with one's virtues, if they ever manifest themselves, one'sown feeling is that one might have done better. Moreover, if one triesdeliberately to take stock of one's good points, they seem to be onlynatural and instinctive ways of behaving; to which no credit canpossibly attach, because by temperament one is incapable of actingotherwise. 

Another melancholy fact which I believe to be true is this--that theonly good work one does is work which one finds easy and likes. I haveone or two patiently acquired virtues which are not natural to me, suchas a certain methodical way of dealing with business; but I never findmyself credited with it by others, because it is done, I suppose, painfully and with effort, and therefore unimpressively. 

I look round, and the same phenomenon meets me everywhere. I do notknow any instance among my friends where I can trace any radical changeof character. "Sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper et in saeculasaeculorum. "

Indeed the only line upon which improvement is possible seems to me tobe this--that a man shall definitely commit himself to a course of lifein which he shall be compelled to exercise virtues which are foreign tohis character, and any lapses of which will be penalised in astraightforward, professional way. If a man, for instance, isirritable, impatient, unpunctual, let him take up some line where he isbound to be professionally bland, patient, methodical. That would bethe act of a philosopher; but, alas, how few of us choose ourprofession from philosophical motives!

And even so I should fear that the tendencies of temperament are onlytemporarily imprisoned, and not radically cured; after all, it fits inwith the Darwinian theory. The bird of paradise, condemned to live in acountry of marshes, cannot hope to become a heron. The most he can hopeis that, by meditating on the advantages which a heron would enjoy, andby pressing the same consideration on his offspring, the time may comein the dim procession of years when the beaks of his descendants willgrow long and sharp, their necks pliant, their legs attenuated. 

And anyhow, one is bound in honour to have a try; and the hopefulnessof my creed (you may be puzzled to detect it) lies in the fact that oneHAS a sense of honour about it all; that one's faults are repugnant, and that missing virtues are desirable--possunt quia posse videntur!

Thank you for the photographs. I begin to realise your house; but Iwant some interiors as well; and let me have the view from yourterrace, though I daresay it is only sea and sky. --Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, March 15, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --You say I am not ambitious enough; well, I wish I couldmake up my mind clearly on the subject of ambition; it has been broughtbefore me rather acutely lately. A post here has just fallen vacant--apost to which I should have desired to succeed. I have no doubt that ifI had frankly expressed my wishes on the subject, if I had even told aleaky, gossipy colleague what I desired, and begged him to keep it tohimself, the thing would have got out, and the probability is that thepost would have been offered to me. But I held my tongue, not, Iconfess, from any very high motive, but merely from a natural dislikeof being importunate--it does not seem to me consistent with goodmanners. 

Well, I made no sign; and another man was appointed. I have no doubtthat a man of the world would say frankly that I was a fool, and, though I am rather inclined to agree with him, I don't think I couldhave acted otherwise. 

I am inclined to encourage ambition of every kind among the boys. Ithink it is an appropriate virtue for their age and temperament. It isnot a Christian virtue; for it is certain that, if one person succeedsin an ambitious prospect, there must be a dozen who are disappointed. But though I don't approve of it on abstract grounds, yet I think it isso tremendous a motive for activity and keenness that it seems to methat boys are the better for it. I don't believe that in education thehighest motive is always the best; indeed, the most effective motive, in dealing with immature minds, is the thing which we have to discoverand use. 

I mean, for instance, that I think it is probably more effective to sayto a boy who is disposed to be physically indolent, "You have a chanceof getting your colours this half, and I should like to see you getthem, " than to say, "I don't want you to think about colours. I wantyou to play football for the glory of God, because it makes you into astronger, more wholesome, more cheerful man. " It seems to me that boysshould learn for themselves that there are often better and biggerreasons for having done a thing than the reason that made them do it. 

What makes an object seem desirable to a boy is that others desire tohave it too, and that he should be the fortunate person to get it. Idon't see how the sense of other people's envy and disappointment canbe altogether subtracted from the situation--it certainly is one of theelements which makes success seem desirable to many boys--though agenerous nature will not indulge the thought. 

But I am equally sure that, as one gets older, one ought to put asidesuch thoughts altogether. That one ought to trample down ambitiousdesires and even hopes. That glory, according to the old commonplace, ought to follow and not to be followed. 

I think one ought to pursue one's own line, to do one's own business tothe best of one's ability, and leave the rest to God. If He means oneto be in a big place, to do a big work, it will be clearly enoughindicated; and the only chance of doing it in a big way is to besimple-minded, sincere, generous, and contented. 

The worst of that theory is this. One sees people in later life whohave just missed big chances; some over-subtle delicacy of mind, someuntimely reticence or frankness, some indolent hanging-back, somescrupulousness, has just checked them from taking a bold step forwardwhen it was needed. And one sees them with large powers, noblecapacities, wise thoughts, relegated to the crowd of unconsidered andinconsiderable persons whose opinion has no weight, whose suggestionshave no effectiveness. Are they to be blamed? Or has one humbly andfaithfully to take it as an indication that they are just not fit, fromsome secret weakness, some fibre of feebleness, to take the tiller?

I am speaking with entire sincerity when I say to you that I think I ammyself rather cast in that mould. I have always just missed gettingwhat used to be called "situations of dignity and emolument, " and Ihave often been condoled with as the person who ought to have had them. 

Well, I expect that this is probably a very wholesome discipline forme, but I cannot say that it is pleasant, or that use has made iteasier. 

The worst of it is that I have an odd mixture of practicality andmysticism within me, and I have sometimes thought that one has damagedthe other. My mysticism has pulled me back when I ought to have taken adecided step, urging "Leave it to God"--and then, when I have failed toget what I wanted, my mysticism has failed to comfort me, and thepractical side of me has said, "The decided step was what God clearlyindicated to you was needed; and you were lazy and would not take it. "

I have a highly practical friend, the most absolutely and admirablyworldly person I know. In talk he sometimes lets fall very profoundmaxims. We were talking the other day about this very point, and hesaid musingly, "It is a very good rule in this world not to ask foranything unless you are pretty sure to get it. " That is the cream ofthe worldly attitude. Such a man is not going to make himself tiresomeby importunity. He knows what he desires, he works for it, and, whenthe moment comes, he just gives the little push that is needed, andsteps into his kingdom. 

That is exactly what I cannot do. It is not a sign of high-mindedness, for I am by nature greedy, acquisitive, and ambitious. But it is a wantof firmness, I suppose. Anyhow, there it is, and one cannot alter one'stemperament. 

The conclusion which I come to for myself and for all like-mindedpersons--not a very happy class, I fear--is that one should absolutelysteel oneself against disappointment, not allow oneself to indulge inpleasing visions, not form plans or count chickens, but try to lay holdof the things which do bring one tranquillity, the simple joys ofordinary and uneventful life. One may thus arrive at a certain degreeof independence. And though the heart may ache a little at the chancesmissed, yet one may console oneself by thinking that it is happier notto realise an ambition and be disappointed, than to realise it and bedisappointed. 

It all comes from over-estimating one's own powers, after all. If oneis decently humble, no disappointment is possible; and such littlesuccesses as one does attain are like gleams of sunlight on a mistyday. --Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, March 25, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --You are quite right about conventionality in education. 

One of my perennial preoccupations here is how to encourage originalityand independence among my boys. The great danger of public-schooleducation nowadays, as you say, is the development of a type. It is notat all a bad type in many ways; the best specimens of the public-schooltype are young men who are generous, genial, unembarrassed, courageous, sensible, and active; but our system all tends to level character, andI do not feel sure whether it levels it up or levels it down. In olddays the masters concerned themselves with the work of the boys only, and did not trouble their heads about how the boys amused themselvesout of school. Vigorous boys organised games for themselves, andindolent boys loafed. Then it came home to school authorities thatthere was a good deal of danger in the method; that lack of employmentwas an undesirable thing. Thereupon work was increased, and, at thesame time, the masters laid hands upon athletics and organised them. Side by side with this came a great increase of wealth and leisure inEngland, and there sprang up that astonishing and disproportionateinterest in athletic matters, which is nowadays a real problem for allsensible men. But the result of it all has been that there has grown upa stereotyped code among the boys as to what is the right thing to do. They are far less wilful and undisciplined than they used to be; theysubmit to work, as a necessary evil, far more cheerfully than they usedto do; and they base their ideas of social success entirely onathletics. And no wonder! They find plenty of masters who are just asserious about games as they are themselves; who spend all their sparetime in looking on at games, and discuss the athletic prospects ofparticular boys in a tone of perfectly unaffected seriousness. The onlytwo regions which masters have not organised are the intellectual andmoral regions. The first has been tacitly and inevitably extruded. Agood deal more work is required from the boys, and unless a boy'sability happens to be of a definite academical order--in which case heis well looked after--there is no loop-hole through which intellectualinterest can creep in. A boy's time is so much occupied by definitework and definite games that there is neither leisure nor, indeed, vigour left to follow his own pursuits. Life is lived so much more inpublic that it becomes increasingly difficult for SETS to exist; smallassociations of boys with literary tastes used to do a good deal in thedirection of fostering the germs of intellectual life; the net resultis, that there is now far less interest abroad in intellectual things, and such interests as do exist, exist in a solitary way, and generallymean an intellectual home in the background. 

In the moral region, I think we have much to answer for; there is acode of morals among boys which, if it is not actively corrupting, isat least undeniably low. The standard of purity is low; a vicious boydoesn't find his vicious tendencies by any means a bar to socialsuccess. Then the code of honesty is low; a boy who is habituallydishonest in the matter of work is not in the least reprobated. I donot mean to say that there are not many boys who are both pure-mindedand honest; but they treat such virtues as a secret preference of theirown, and do not consider that it is in the least necessary to interferewith the practice of others, or even to disapprove of it. And thencomes the perennial difficulty of schoolboy honour; the oneunforgivable offence is to communicate anything to masters; and aninnocent-minded boy whose natural inclination to purity gave way beforeperpetual temptation and even compulsion might be thought to haveerred, but would have scanty, if any, expression of either sympathy orpity from other boys; while if he breathed the least hint of hismiserable position to a master and the fact came out, he would beuniversally scouted. 

This is a horrible fact to contemplate; yet it cannot be cured byenactment, only from within. It is strange that in this respect it isentirely unlike the code of the world. No girl or woman would bescouted for appealing to police protection in similar circumstances; noman would be required to submit to violence or even to burglary; noreprobation would fall upon him if he appealed to the law to help him. 

Is it not possible to encourage something of this feeling in a school?Is it not possible, without violating schoolboy honour, which is inmany ways a fine and admirable thing, to allow the possibility of anappeal to protection for the young and weak against vile temptations?It seems to me that it would be best if we could get the boys toorganise such a system among themselves. But to take no steps to arriveat such an organisation, and to leave matters severely alone, is a verydark responsibility to bear. 

It is curious to note that in the matter of bullying and cruelty, whichused to be so rife at schools, public opinion among boys does seem tohave undergone a change. The vice has practically disappeared, and thegood feeling of a school would be generally against any case of grossbullying; but the far more deadly and insidious temptation of impurityhas, as far as one can learn, increased. One hears of simplyheart-rending cases where a boy dare not even tell his parents of whathe endures. Then, too, a boy's relations will tend to encourage him tohold out, rather than to invoke a master's aid, because they are afraidof the boy falling under the social ban. 

This is the heaviest burden a schoolmaster has to bear; to beresponsible for his boys, and to be held responsible, and yet to beprobably the very last person to whom the information of what ishappening can possibly come. 

One great difficulty seems to be that boys will only, as a rule, combine for purposes of evil. In matters of virtue a boy has to act forhimself; and I confess, too, with a sigh, that a set of virtuous boysbanding themselves together to resist evil and put it down has analarmingly priggish sound. 

The most that a man can do at present, it seems to me, is to have goodsensible servants; to be vigilant and discreet; to try and cultivate apaternal relation with all his boys; to try and make the bigger boysfeel some responsibility in the matter; but the worst of it is that thesubject is so unpleasant that many masters dare not speak of it at all;and excuse themselves by saying that they don't want to put ideas intoboys' heads. I cannot conscientiously believe that a man who has beenthrough a big public school himself can honestly be afraid of that. Butwe all seem to be so much afraid of each other, of public opinion, ofpossible unpopularity, that we find excuses for letting a painful thingalone. 

But to leave this part of the subject, which is often a kind ofnightmare to me, and to return to my former point; I do honestly thinkit a great misfortune that we tend to produce a type. It seems to methat to aim at independence, to know one's own mind, to form one's ownideas--liberty, in short--is one of the most sacred duties in life. Itis not only a luxury in which a few can indulge, it ought to be aquality which every one should be encouraged to cultivate. I declarethat it makes me very sad sometimes to see these well-groomed, well-mannered, rational, manly boys all taking the same view of things, all doing the same things, smiling politely at the eccentricity of anyone who finds matter for serious interest in books, in art or music:all splendidly reticent about their inner thoughts, with a courteousrespect for the formalities of religion and the formalities of work;perfectly correct, perfectly complacent, with no irregularities orangular preferences of their own; with no admiration for anything butathletic success, and no contempt for anything but originality ofideas. They are so nice, so gentlemanly, so easy to get on with; andyet, in another region, they are so dull, so unimaginative, sonarrow-minded. They cannot all, of course, be intellectual orcultivated; but they ought to be more tolerant, more just, more wise. They ought to be able to admire vigour and enthusiasm in everydepartment instead of in one or two; and it is we who ought to makethem feel so, and we have already got too much to do--though I amafraid that you will think, after reading this vast document, that I, at all events, have plenty of spare time. But it is not the case; onlythe end of the half is at hand; we have finished our regular work, andI have done my reports, and am waiting for a paper. When you next hearI shall be a free man. I shall spend Easter quietly here; but I have somuch to do and clear off that I probably shall not be able to writeuntil I have set off on my travels. --Ever yours, T. B. 

THE RED DRAGON, COMPTON FEREDAY, April 10, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --I was really too busy to write last week, but I am goingto try and make up for it. This letter is going to be a diary. Expectmore of it. --T. B. 

April 7. --I find myself, after all, compelled to begin my walking touralone. At the last moment Murchison has thrown me over. His father isill, and he is compelled to spend his holidays at home. I do notaltogether like to set off by myself, but it is too late to try andarrange for another companion. I had rather, however, go by myself thanwith some one who is not absolutely congenial. One requires on theseoccasions to have a companion whose horizon is the same as one's own. Idaresay I could find an old friend, who is not also a colleague, to gowith me, but it would mean a certain amount of talk to bring us intoline. Then, too, I have had a very busy term; besides my form work, Ihave had a good deal of extra teaching to do with the Army Class boys. It is interesting work, for the boys are interested, not in thesubjects so much, as in mastering them for examination purposes. Yet itmatters little how the interest is obtained, as long as the boysbelieve in the usefulness of what they are doing. But the result isthat I am tired out. I have lived with boys from morning to night, andmy spare time has been taken up with working at my subjects. I have hadhardly any exercise, and but a scanty allowance of sleep. Now I mean tohave both. I shall spend my days in the open air, and I shall sleep, Ihope, like a top at nights. Gradually I shall recover my power ofenjoyment; for the worst of such weeks as I have been passing throughis that they leave one dreary and jaded; one finds oneself in that dullmood when one cannot even realise beautiful things. I hear a thrushsing in a bush, or the sunset flames broadly behind the elms, and I sayto myself, "That is very beautiful if only I could feel it to be so!"Boys are exhausting companions--they are so restless, so full-blooded, so pitilessly indifferent, so desperately interested in the narrowround of school life; and I have the sort of temperament that willefface itself to any extent, if only the people that I am concernedwith will be content. I suppose it is a feeble trait, and that the bestschoolmasters have a magnetic influence over boys which makes the boysinterested in the master's subjects, or at least hypnotises them intoan appearance of interest. I cannot do that. It is like a leaden weightupon me if I feel that a class is bored; the result is that I arrive atthe same end in my own way. I have learnt a kind of sympathy with boys;I know by instinct what will interest them, or how to put a tiresomething in an interesting way. 

But I shudder to think how sick I am of it all! I want a long bath ofsilence and recollection and repose. I want to fill my cistern againwith my own thoughts and my own dreams, instead of pumping up the muddywaters of irrigation. I don't think my colleagues are like that. I satewith half-a-dozen of them last night at supper. They were full of allthey meant to do. Two of the most energetic were going off to playgolf, and the chief pleasure of the place they were going to was thatit was possible to get a round on Sundays; they were going to fill theevening with bridge, and one of them said with heart-felt satisfaction, "I am only going to take two books away with me--one on golf and theother on bridge--and I am going to cure some of my radical faults. " Ithought to myself that if he had forborne to mention the subjects ofhis books, one might have supposed that they would be a Thomas-a-Kempisand a Taylor's Holy Living, and then how well it would have seemed! Twomore were going for a rapid tour abroad in a steamer chartered forassistant masters. That seemed to me to be almost more depressing. Theywere going to ancient historical places, full of grave and beautifulassociations; places to go to, it seemed to me, with some singlelike-minded associate, places to approach with leisurely and untroubledmind, with no feeling of a programme or a time-table--and least of allin the company of busy professional people with an academical cicerone. 

Still, I suppose that this is true devotion to one's profession. Theywill be able, they think, to discourse easily and, God help us, picturesquely about what they have seen, to intersperse a Thucydideslesson with local colour, and to describe the site of the temple ofDelphi to boys beginning the Eumenides. It is very right and proper, nodoubt, but it produces in me a species of mental nausea to think of theconditions under which these impressions will be absorbed. Thearrangements for luncheon, the brisk interchange of shop, the cheerycomments of fellow-tradesmen, the horrible publicity and banality ofthe whole affair!

My two other colleagues were going, one to spend a holiday atBrighton--which he said was very bracing at Easter, adding that heexpected to fall in with some fellows he knew. They will all stroll onthe Parade, smoke cigarettes together, and adjourn for a game ofbilliards. No doubt a very harmless way of passing the time, but not tome enlivening. But Walters is a conventional person, and, as long as heis doing what he would call "the correct thing, " he is perfectly andserenely content. The sixth and last is going to Surbiton to spend theholidays with a mother and three sisters, and I think he is the mostvirtuously employed of all. He will walk out alone, with a terrier dog, before lunch; and after lunch he will go out with his sisters; andperhaps the vicar will come to tea. But then it will be home, and thegirls will be proud of their brother, and will have the dishes helikes, and he will have his father's old study to smoke in. I am notsure that he is not the happiest of all, because he is not onlypursuing his own happiness. 

But I have no such duties before me. I might, I suppose, go down to mysister Helen at the Somersetshire vicarage where she lives so full alife. But the house is small, there are four children, and not muchmoney, and I should only be in the way. Charles would do his best towelcome me, but he will be in a great fuss over his Easter services;and he will ask me to use his study as though it was my own room, whichwill necessitate a number of hurried interviews in the drawing-room, mysister will take her letters up to her bedroom, and the doors will haveto be carefully closed to exclude my tobacco smoke. 

This is all very sordid, no doubt, but I am confronted with sordidthings to-day. The boys have just cleared off, and they are beginningto sweep out the schoolrooms. The inky, dreary desks, the ragged books, the odd fives-shoes in the pigeon-holes, the wheelbarrows full offestering orange-peel and broken-down fives-balls: this is not a placefor a self-respecting person to be in. I want to be mooning aboutcountry lanes, with the smell of spring woods blowing down the valley. I want to be holding slow converse with leisurely rustic persons, to besurveying from the side of a high grassy hill the rich plain below, tohear the song of birds in the thickets, to try and feel myself one withthe life of the world instead of a sordid sweeper of a corner of it. This is all very ungrateful to my profession, which I love, but it is anecessary reaction; and what at this moment chiefly makes me gratefulto it is that my pocket is full enough to let me have a holiday on aliberal scale, without thinking of small economies. I may give penniesto tramps or children, or a shilling to a sexton for showing me achurch. I may travel what class I choose, and put up at a hotel withoutcounting the cost; and oh! the blessedness of that. I would rather havea three-days' holiday thus than three weeks with an anxious calculationof resources. 

April 8. --I am really off to the Cotswolds. I packed my belovedknapsack yesterday afternoon. I put in it--precision is the essence ofdiarising--a spare shirt, which will have to serve if necessary as anightgown, a pair of socks, a pair of slippers, a toothbrush, a smallcomb, and a sponge; that is sufficient for a philosopher. A pocketvolume of poetry--Matthew Arnold this time--and a map completed myoutfit. And I sent a bag containing a more liberal wardrobe to adistant station, which I calculated it would take me three days toreach. Then I went off by an afternoon train, and, by sunset, I foundmyself in a little town, Hinton Perevale, of stone-built houses, withan old bridge. I had no sense of freedom as yet, only a blessed feelingof repose. I took an early supper in a small low-roofed parlour withmullioned windows. By great good fortune I found myself the only guestat the inn, and had the room to myself; then I went early andgratefully to bed, utterly sleepy and content, with just enough senseleft to pray for a fine day. 

My prayer is answered this morning. I slept a dreamless sleep, and wasroused by the cheerful crowing of cocks, which picked about the backyard of the inn. I dressed quickly, only suspending my task to watchthe little dramas of the inn yard--the fowls on the pig-sty wall; thehorse waiting meekly, with knotted traces hanging round it, to beharnessed; the cat, on some grave business of its own, squeezinggracefully under a closed barn door; the weary, flat-footed duck, nuzzling the mud of a small pool as delicately as though it were a richcustard. I was utterly free; I might go and come as I liked. Time hadceased to exist for me, and it was pleasant to reflect, as I finishedmy simple breakfast, that I should under professional conditions havebeen hurrying briskly into school for an hour of Latin Prose. Theincredible absurdity and futility of it all came home to me. Half theboys that I teach so elaborately would be both more wholesomely andhappily employed if they were going out to farm-work for the day. Butthey are gentlemen's sons, and so must enter what are called theliberal professions, to retire at the age of sixty with a poordigestion, a peevish wife, and a family of impossible children. But itis only in such inconsequent moments that I allow myself to think thusslightingly of Latin Prose. It is a valuable accomplishment, and, whenI have repaired the breaches made by professional work in the mentalequilibrium, I shall rejoin my colleagues with a full sense of itsparamount importance. 

I scribble this diary with a vile pen, and ink like blacking, on thecorner of my breakfast-table. I have packed my knapsack, and in a fewminutes I shall set out upon my march. 

April 9. --I spent an almost perfect day yesterday. It was a cool brightday, with a few clouds like cotton-wool moving sedately in a blue sky. I first walked quietly about my little town, which was full of delicatebeauties. The houses are all built of a soft yellow stone, whichweathers into a species of rich orange. Heaven knows where thedesigners came from, but no two houses seem alike; some of them aregabled, buttressed, stone-mullioned, irregular in outline, but yet witha wonderful sense of proportion. Some are Georgian, with classicalpilasters and pediments. Yet they are all for use and not for show; andthe weak modern shop-windows, which some would think disfigure thedelicate house-fronts, seem to me just to give the requisite sense ofcontrast. At the end of the street stands the church, with a statelyPerpendicular tower, and a resonant bell which tells the hour. Thisoverlooks a pile of irregular buildings, now a farm, but once a greatmanor-house, with a dovecote and pavilions; but the old terrace is nowan orchard, and the fine oriel of the house looks straight into thebyre. Inside the church--it is open and well-kept--you can trace thehistory of the manor and its occupants, from Job Best, a rich mercer ofLondon, whose monument, with marble pillars and obelisks, adorns thesouth aisle; his son was ennobled, whose effigy--more majestic still, robed and coroneted, with his Viscountess by his side, and her dog(with his name, Jakke, engraven on his shoulder)--lies smiling, theslender hands crossed in prayer. But the house was not destined tosurvive. The Viscount's only daughter, the Lady Penelope, looks downfrom the wall, a fair and delicate lady, the last of her brief race, who, as the old inscription says with a tender simplicity, "dyed amayd. " I cannot help wondering, my pretty lady, what your story was;and it will do you no hurt if one, who looks upon your gentle face, sends a wondering message of tenderness behind the veil to your purespirit, regret for your vanished charm, and the fragrance of your softbloom, and sadness for all sweet things that fade. 

The manor, so I learn, was burnt wantonly by the Roundheads--there wasa battle hereabouts--on the charge that it had harboured some followersof the king; and so our dreams of greatness and permanence arefulfilled. 

The whole church was very neat and spruce; it had suffered arestoration lately. The walls were stripped of their old plaster andpointed, so that the inside is now rougher than the outside, a thingthe ancient builders never intended. The altar is fairly draped withgood hangings behind, and the chancel fitted with new oak stalls andseats, all as neat as a new pin. As I lingered in the church, readingthe simple monuments, a rosy, burly vicar came briskly in, and seeingme there, courteously showed me all the treasures of his house, likeHezekiah. He took me into the belfry, and there, piled up against thewall, were some splendid Georgian columns and architraves, richlycarved in dark brown wood. I asked what it was. "Oh, a horrible pompousthing, " he said; "it was behind the altar--most pagan and unsuitable;we had it all out as soon as I came. The first moment I entered thechurch, I said to myself, 'THAT must go, ' and I have succeeded, thoughit was hard enough to collect the money, and actually some of the oldpeople here objected. " I did not feel it was worth while to cast coldwater on the good man's satisfaction--but the pity of it! I do notsuppose that a couple of thousand pounds could have reproduced it; andit is simply heart-rending to see such a noble monument of piety andcareful love sacrificed to a wave of so-called ecclesiastical taste. The vicar's chief pride was a new window, by a fashionable modern firm;quite unobjectionable in design, and with good colour, but desperatelyuninteresting. It represented some mild, unemphatic, attenuated saints, all exactly alike, languidly and decorously conversing together, weighed down by heavy drapery, as though wrapped in bales of carpets. In the lower compartments knelt some dignified persons, similarlyhabited, in face exactly like the saints above, except that they werefitted out with unaccountable beards--all pretty and correct, but withno character or force. I suppose that fifty years hence, when our tastehas broadened somewhat, this window will probably be condemned asimpossible too. There can be no absolute canon of beauty; the onlyprinciple ought to be to spare everything that is of careful and solidworkmanship, to give it a chance, to let time and age have theirperfect work. It is the utter conventionality of the whole thing thatis so distressing; the same thing is going on all over the country, theattempt to put back the clock, and to try and restore things as theywere; history, tradition, association, are not considered. The oldbuilders were equally ruthless, it is true; they would sweep away aNorman choir to build a Decorated one; but at all events they wereadvancing and expanding, not feebly recurring to a past period oftaste, and trying to obliterate the progress of the centuries. 

About noon I left the little town, and struck out up a winding lane tothe hills. The copses were full of anemones and primroses; birds sangsharply in the bushes which were gemmed with fresh green; now and thenI heard the woodpecker laugh as if at some secret jest among thethickets. Presently the little town was at my feet, looking small andtranquil in the golden noon; and soon I came to the top. It was grassy, open down-land up here, and in an instant the wide view of a richwooded and watered plain spread before me, with shadowy hills on thehorizon. In the middle distance I saw the red roofs of a great town, the smoke going peacefully up; here was a shining river-reach, like acrescent of silver. It was England indeed--tranquil, healthy, prosperous England. 

The rest of the day I need not record. It was full of delicateimpressions--an old, gabled, mullioned house among its pastures; ahamlet by a stream, admirably grouped; a dingle set with primroses; andover all, the long, pure lines of upland, with here and there, througha gap, the purple, wealthy plain. 

I write this in the evening, at a little wayside inn, in a hamlet underthe hill. The name alone, Wenge Grandmain, is worth a shilling. It isvery simple, but clean, and the people are kind; not with theprofessional manner of those who bow, smiling, to a paying guest, butof those who welcome a wanderer and try to make him a home. And so, ina dark-panelled little parlour, with a sedate-ticking clock, I sitwhile the sounds of life grow fainter and rarer in the little street. 

THE CROSSFOXES INN, BOURTON-ON-THE-WOLD, April 16, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --I have now been ten days on my travels, but for the lastweek I have pitched my moving tent at Bourton. Do you shudder with thefear that I am going to give you pages of description of scenery? It isnot a SHUDDER with me when I get a landscape-letter; it is merely thatleaden dulness which falls upon the spirit when it is confronted withstatements which produce no impression upon the mind. I always, forinstance, skip the letters of travel which appear about the thirdchapter of great biographies, when the young gentleman goes for theGrand Tour after taking his degree. 

But imagine this: a great, rich, wooded, watered plain; on the farhorizon the shadowy forms of hills; behind you, gently rising heights, with dingles and folds full of copsewood, rising to soft green downs. There, on the skirts of the upland, above the plain, below the hill, sits the little village, with a stately Perpendicular church tower. Thevillage itself of stone houses, no two alike, all with character;gabled, mullioned, weathered to a delicate ochre--some standing back, some on the street. Intermingled with these are fine Georgian houses, with great pilasters, all of stone too; in the centre of the street awall, with two tall gate-posts, crowned with stone balls; a short limeavenue leads to a stately, gabled manor-house, which you can seethrough great iron gates. The whole scene incredibly romantic, exquisitely beautiful. 

My favourite walk is this. I leave the little town by a road whichwinds along the base of the hill. I pass round a shoulder, wooded andcovered to the base with tangled thickets, where the birds singshrilly. I turn up to the left into a kind of "combe. " At the veryfarthest end of the little valley, at the base of the steeper slopesbut now high above the plain, stands an ancient church among yews. Onone side of it is a long, low-fronted, irregular manor-house, with aformal garden in front, approached by a little arched gate-house whichstands on the road; on the other side of the church, and below it, a noless ancient rectory, with a large Perpendicular window, anciently achapel, in the gable. In the warm, sheltered air the laurels growluxuriantly; a bickering stream, running in a deep channel, makes adelicate music of its own; a little farther on stands a farm, with barnand byre; in the midst of the buildings is a high, stone-tileddovecote. The roo-hooing of the pigeons fills the whole place with aslumberous sound. I wind up the hill by a little path, now amongthickets, now crossing a tilted pasture. I emerge on the top of a down;in front of me lie the long slopes of the wold, with that purity andtranquillity of outline which only down-land possesses. Here on a spurstands a grass-grown camp, with ancient thorn-trees growing in it. Turning round, the great plain runs for miles, with here and there aglint of water, where the slow-moving Avon wanders. Hamlets, roads, towers lie out like a map at my feet--all wearing that secluded, peaceful air which tempts me to think that life would be easy and happyif it could only be lived among those quiet fields, with the goldenlight and lengthening shadows. 

I find myself wondering in these quiet hours--I walk alone as arule--what this haunting, incommunicable sense of beauty is. Is it amere matter of temperament, of inner happiness, of physical well-being;or has it an absolute existence? It comes and goes like the wind. Somedays one is acutely, almost painfully, alive to it--painfully, becauseit makes such constant and insistent demands upon one's attention. Somedays, again, it is almost unheeded, and one passes through it blind andindifferent. It is an expression, I cannot help feeling, of the verymind of God; and yet the ancient earthwork in which I stand, bearswitness to the fact that in far-off days men lived in danger andanxiety, fighting and striving for bare existence. We have establishedby law and custom a certain personal security nowadays; is our sense ofbeauty born of that security? I cannot help wondering whether the oldwarriors who built this place cared at all for the beauty of the earth;and yet over it all hangs the gentle sadness of all sweet things thathave an end. All those warriors are dust; the boys and girls whowandered a century ago where I wander to-day, they are at rest too inthe little churchyard that lies at my feet; and my heart goes out toall who have loved and suffered, and to those who shall hereafter loveand suffer here. An idle sympathy, perhaps, but none the less strongand real. 

But now for a little human experience that befell me here. I found theother day, not far from the church, an old artist sketching. A refined, sad-looking old fellow, sunburned and active, with white hair andpointed beard, and a certain pathetic attempt, of a faded kind, todress for his part--low collar, a red tie, rough shooting-jacket, andso forth. He seemed in a sociable mood, and I sate down beside him. Howit came about I hardly know, but he was soon telling me the story ofhis life. He was the tenant, I found, of the old manor-house, which heheld at a ridiculous rent, and he had lived here nearly forty years. Hehad found the place as a young man, wandering about in search of thepicturesque. I gathered that he had bright dreams and wide ambitions. He had a small independence, and he had meant to paint great picturesand make a name for himself. He had married; his wife was long dead, his children out in the world, and he was living on alone, painting thesame pictures, bought, so far as I could make out, mostly by Americanvisitors. His drawing was old-fashioned and deeply mannerised. He waspainting not what was there, but some old and faded conception of hisown as to what it was like--missing, I think, half the beauty of theplace. He seemed horribly desolate. I tried, for his consolation and myown, to draw out a picture of the beautiful refined life he led; andthe old fellow began to wear a certain jaunty air of dignity anddistinction, which would have amused me if it had not made me feelinclined to cry. But he soon fell back into what is, I suppose, ahabitual melancholy. "Ah, if you had known what my dreams were!" hesaid once. He went on to say that he now wished that he had taken upsome simple and straightforward profession, had made money, and had hisgrandchildren about him. "I am more ghost than man, " he said, shakinghis dejected head. 

I despair of expressing to you the profound pathos that seemed to me tosurround this old despondent creature, with his broken dreams and hisregretful memories. Where was the mistake he made? I suppose that heover-estimated his powers; but it was a generous mistake after all; andhe has had to bear the slow sad disillusionment, the crushing burden offutility. He set out to win glory, and he is a forgotten, shabby, irresolute figure, subsisting on the charity of wealthy visitors! Andyet he seems to have missed happiness by so little. To live as he doesmight be a serene and beautiful thing. If such a man had large reservesof hope and tenderness and patience; if he could but be content withthe tranquil beauty of the wholesome earth, spread so richly before hiseyes, it would be a life to be envied. 

It has been a gentle lesson to me, that one must resolutely practiseone's heart and spirit for the closing hours. In the case of successfulmen, as they grow older, it often strikes me with a sense of pain howpassionately they cling to their ambitions and activities. How manypeople there are who work too long, and try to prolong the energies ofmorning into the afternoon, and the toil of afternoon into the peace ofevening. I earnestly desire to grow old gracefully; to know when tostop, when to slip into a wise and kindly passivity, with sympathy forthose who are in the forefront of the race. And yet if one does notpractise wonder and receptivity and hope, one cannot expect them tocome suddenly and swiftly to one's call. There comes a day when a manought to be able to see that his best work is behind him, that hisactive influence is on the wane, that he is losing his hold on themachine. There ought to come a patient, beautiful, and kindly dignity, a love of young things and fresh flowers; not an envious and regretfulunhappiness at the loss of the eager life and its brisk sensations, which betrays itself too often in a trickle of exaggeratedreminiscences, a "weary, day-long chirping. "

This is a harder task, I suppose, for an old bachelor than for a fatherof children. I have sometimes felt that adoption, with all its risks, of some young creature that you can call your own, would be a solutionfor many loveless lives, because it would stir them out of thecomfortable selfishness that is the bane of the barren heart. 

Of course, a schoolmaster suffers from this less than most professionalmen; but, even so, it is melancholy to reflect how the boys one hascared for, and tried to help, drift out of one's sight and ken. I haveno touch of the feeling which they say was characteristic ofJowett--and indeed is amply evidenced by his correspondence--that oncea man's tutor he was always his tutor, even though his pupil becamegrey-headed and a grandfather. One must do the best for the boys andlook for no gratitude; it often comes, indeed, in rich measure, but theschoolmaster who craves for it is lost. 

Well, it is time to stop. I sit in a little, low raftered parlour ofthe old inn; the fire in the big hearth flickers into ash, and mycandles flare to their sockets. I leave the place to-morrow; and suchis the instinct for permanence in the human mind, that I feel depressedand melancholy, as though I were leaving home. --Ever your affectionate, T. B. 

THE BLUE BOAR, STANTON HARDWICK, April 21, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --I have made a pilgrimage to Stratford-on-Avon. I nowfeel overwhelmed with shame to reflect that, though my chiefpreoccupations apart from my profession have been literary, I havenever visited the sacred place before. For an Englishman who cares forliterature not to have been to Stratford-on-Avon is as gross a neglectas for an Englishman who has any sense of patriotism not to havevisited Westminster Abbey. 

And now that I have been there and returned, and have leisure to thinkit all over, I feel that I have been standing on the threshold of amystery. Who, when all is said and done, was this extraordinary man?What were his thoughts, his aims, his views of himself and of theworld? If Shakespeare was Shakespeare, he seems, to speak frankly, tohave had a humanity distinct and apart from his genius. Here we havethe son of a busy, quarrelsome, enterprising tradesman--who eventuallyindeed came to grief in trade--of a yeoman stock, and bearing a commonname. His mother could not write her own signature. Of his youth wehear little that is not disreputable. He married under unpleasantcircumstances, after an entanglement which took place at a very earlyage; he was addicted to poaching, or, at all events, to the illegalpursuit of other people's game. Then he drifts up to London and joins atheatrical company--then a rascally kind of trade--deserting his wifeand family. His life in London is full of secrets. He is a man ofmysterious passions and dangerous friendships. He writes plays ofincomparable depth and breadth, touching every chord of humour, tragedyand pathos; certain rather elaborate poems of a precieux type, andstrange sonnets, revealing a singular poignancy of unconventionalfeelings. But here, again, it is difficult to conceive that the writerof the Sonnets, who touched life so intensely at one feverish point, should have had the amazing detachment and complexity of mind and soulthat the plays reveal. The notices of his talk and character are fewand unenlightening, and testify to a certain easy brilliance of wit, but no more. Before he is thirty he is spoken of as both "upright" and"facetious"--a singular combination. 

Then he suddenly appears in another aspect; at the age of thirty-two heis a successful, well-to-do man. And then his ambition, if he had any, seems to shift its centre, and he appears to be only bent uponrestoring the fortunes of his family, and attaining a solid municipalposition. He buys the biggest house in his native place; from theproceeds of his writings, his professional income as an actor, and fromhis share in the playhouse of which he is part owner, he purchaseslands and houses, he engages in lawsuits, he concerns himself withgrants of arms. Still the flood of stupendous literature flows out; heseems to be under a contract to produce plays, for which he receivesthe magnificent sum of L10 (L100 of our money). He writes easily andnever corrects. He seems to set no store on his writings, which streamfrom him like light from the sun. He adapts, collaborates, and has noidea of what would be called a high vocation. 

At forty-seven it all ceases; he writes no more, but lives prosperouslyin his native town, with occasional visits to London. At fifty-two hishealth fails. He makes business-like arrangements in the event ofdeath, and faces the darkness of the long sleep like any other goodcitizen. 

Who can co-ordinate or reconcile these things? Who can conceive thelikeness of the man, who steps in this light-hearted, simple way on tothe very highest platform of literature--so lofty and unattainable aplace he takes without striving, without arrogance, a throne among thethrones where Homer, Virgil, and Dante sit? And yet his mind is set, not on these things, but on acres and messuages, tithes andinvestments. He seems not only devoid of personal vanity, but even ofthat high and solemn pride which made Keats say, with faltering lips, that he believed he would be among the English poets after his death. 

I came through the pleasant water-meadows and entered the streets ofthe busy town. Everything, from bank to eating-shop, bears the name ofShakespeare; and one cannot resist the thought that such local andhomely renown would have been more to our simple hero's taste than thelaurel and the throne. I groaned in spirit over the monstrousplayhouse, with its pretentious Teutonic air; I walked through thechurchyard, vocal with building rooks, and came to the noble church, full of the evidences of wealth and worship and honour. I do not liketo confess the breathless awe with which I drew near to the chancel andgazed on the stone that, nameless, with its rude rhyme, covers thesacred dust. I cannot say what my thoughts were, but I was lost in aformless, unuttered prayer of true abasement before the venerablerelics of the highest achievements of the human spirit. There beneathmy feet slept the dust of the brain that conceived Hamlet and Macbeth, and the hand that had traced the Sonnets, and the eye that had plumbedthe depths of life. That was a solemn moment, and I do not think I everexperienced so deep a thrill of speechless awe. I could not tear myselfaway; I could only wonder and desire. 

Presently, by the kind offices of a pleasant simple verger, I did more. I mounted on some steps he brought, and looked face to face at the bustin the monument. 

I cannot share in the feelings of those who would consider it formal orperfunctory. There was the high-domed forehead, like that of Periclesand Walter Scott; there were the steady eyes, the clear-cut nose; andas for the lips--I never for an instant doubted the truth of what Isaw--I am as certain as I can be that they are the lips of a corpse, drawn up in the stiff tension of death, showing the teeth below. I amabsolutely convinced that here we get as near to the man as we can get, and that the head is taken from a death-mask. What injures the dignityand beauty of the face is the plumpness of the chin that testifies tothe burgher prosperity, the comfortable life, the unexercised brain ofthe later days. I saw afterwards the various portraits; I suppose it isa matter of evidence, but nothing convinced me of truth, not even thebilious, dilapidated, dyspeptic, white face of the folio engraving, with the horrible hydrocephalous development of skull. That is acaricature only. The others seem mere fancies. 

Then I saw patiently the other relics, the foundations of New Place, the schoolhouse--but all without emotion, except a deep sense of shamethat the only records allowed to stand in the long, low-latticed roomin which the boy Shakespeare probably saw a play first acted, areboards recording the names of school football and cricket teams. Theineptitude of such a proceeding, the hideous insistence of the athleticcraze of England, drew from me a despairing smile; but I think thatShakespeare himself would have viewed it with tolerance and evenamusement. 

But most of these relics, like Anne Hathaway's Cottage, are restoredout of all interest, and only testify to the silly and frivolousdemands of trippers. 

But, my dear Herbert, the treasure is mine. Feeble as the confessionis, I do not think I ever realised before the humanity of Shakespeare. He seemed to me before to sit remote, enshrined aloof, the man whocould tell all the secrets of humanity that could be told, and whoseveriest hints still seem to open doors into mysteries both high andsweet and terrible. But now I feel as if I had been near him, had beenable to love what I had only admired. 

I feel somehow that it extends the kingdom of humanity to have realisedShakespeare; and yet I am baffled. But I seem to trace in the later andwhat some would call the commonplace features of the man's life, adesire to live and be; to taste life itself, not merely to write ofwhat life seemed to be, and of what lay behind it. I am sure that somesuch allegory was in his mind when he wrote of Prospero, who sowillingly gave up the isle full of noises, the power over the dreaming, sexless spirits of air and wood, to go back to his tiresome dukedom, and his petty court, and all the dull chatter and business of life. Iam sure that Shakespeare thought of his art as an Ariel--that dainty, delicate spirit, out of the reach of love and desire, that slept incowslip-bells and chased the flying summer on the bat's back, and thatyet had such power to delude and bemuse the human spirit. After all, Ariel could not come near the more divine inheritance of the humanheart, sorrow and crying, love and hate. Ariel was but a merry child, lost in passionless delights, yearning to be free, to escape; andProspero felt, and Shakespeare felt, that life, with all its stains anddreariness and disease and darkness, was something better and truerthan the fragrant dusk of the copse, and the soulless laughter of thesummer sea. Ariel could sing the heartless, exquisite song of thesea-change that could clothe the bones and eyes of the doomed king; butProspero could see a fairer change in the eyes and heart of his lonelydarling. 

And I am glad that even so Shakespeare could be silent, and buy andsell, and go in and out among his fellow-townsmen, and make merry. Thatis better than to sit arid and prosperous, when the brain stiffens withstupor, and the hand has lost its cunning, and to read oldnewspaper-cuttings, and long for adequate recognition. God give me andall uneasy natures grace to know when to hold our tongues; and to takethe days that remain with patience and wonder and tenderness; notmaking haste to depart, but yet not fearing the shadow out of which wecome and into which we must go; to live wisely and bravely and sweetly, and to close our eyes in faith, with a happy sigh, like a child after along summer day of life and delight. --Ever yours, T. B. 

THE BLUE BOAR, STANTON HARDWICK, April 25, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --Since I last wrote I have been making pious pilgrimagesto some of the great churches hereabouts: to Gloucester, Worcester, Tewkesbury, Malvern, Pershore. It does me good to see these great poemsin stone, beautiful in their first conception, and infinitely morebeautiful from the mellowing influences of age, and from the humantradition that is woven into them and through them. There are fewgreater pleasures than to make one's way into a Cathedral city, withthe grey towers visible for miles across the plain, rising high abovethe house roofs and the smoke. At first one is in the quiet country;then the roads begin to have a suburban air--new cottages rise by thewayside, comfortable houses, among shrubberies and plantations. Thenthe street begins; the houses grow taller and closer, and one has aglimpse of some stately Georgian front, with pediment and cornice;perhaps there is a cluster of factories, high, rattling buildingsovertopped by a tall chimney, with dusty, mysterious gear, of which onecannot guess the purport, travelling upwards into some tall, blankorifice. Then suddenly one is in the Close, with trees and flowers andgreen grass, with quaint Prebendal houses of every style and date, breathing peace and prosperity. A genial parson or two pace gravelyabout; and above you soars the huge church, with pinnacle and parapet, the jackdaws cheerily hallooing from the lofty ledges. You are a littleweary of air and sun; you push open the great door, and you are in thecool, dark nave with its holy smell; you sit for a little and let thespirit of the place creep into your mind; you walk hither and thither, read the epitaphs, mourn with the bereaved, give thanks for the recordof long happy lives, and glow with mingled pain and admiration for someyoung life nobly laid down. The monuments of soldiers, the sight ofdusty banners moving faintly in the slow-stirring air, always move meinexpressibly; the stir and fury of war setting hither, like a quiettide, to find its last abiding-place. Then there is the choir to visit. I do not really like the fashion which now generally prevails of payinga small sum, writing your name in a book, and being handed over to theguidance of some verger, a pompous foolish person, who has learnt hislesson, delivers it like a machine, and is put out by any casualquestion. I do not want to be lectured; I want to wander about, ask aquestion if I desire it, and just have pointed out to me anything ofwhich the interest is not patent and obvious. The tombs of old knights, the chantries of silent abbots and bishops, are all very affecting;they stand for so much hope and love and recollection. Then sometimesone has a glow at seeing some ancient and famous piece of historypresented to one's gaze. The figure of the grim Saxon king, with hisarchaic beard and shaven upper-lip, for all the world like someCalvinistic tradesman; or Edward the Second, with his weak, handsomeface and curly locks; or the mailed statue of Robert of Normandy, withscarlet surcoat, starting up like a warrior suddenly aroused. Suchtombs send a strange thrill through one, a thrill of wonder and pityand awe. What of them now? Sleepest thou, son of Atreus? Dost thousleep, and dream perchance of love and war, of the little life thatseemed so long, and over which the slow waves of time have flowed?Little by little, in the holy walls, so charged with faith andtenderness and wistful love, the pathetic vision of mortality creepsacross the mind, and one loses oneself in a dream of wonder at thebrief days so full of life, the record left for after time, and thesilence of the grave. 

Then, when I have drunk my fill of sweet sights, I love to sit silent, while the great bell hums in the roof, and gathering footsteps of youngand old patter through the echoing aisles. There is a hush ofexpectation. A few quiet worshippers assemble; the western light growslow, and lights spring to life, one after another, in the misty choir. Then murmurs a voice, an Amen rises in full concord, and as it diesaway the slumberous thunder of a pedal note rolls on the air; thecasements whirr, the organ speaks. That fills, as it were, to the brim, as with some sweet and fragrant potion, the cup of beauty; and thedreaming, inquiring spirit sinks content into the flowing, the aspiringtide, satisfied as with some heavenly answer to its sad questionings. Then the stately pomp moves slowly to its place--so familiar, perhapstrivial an act to those who perform it, so grave and beautiful a thingto those who see it. The holy service proceeds with a sense ofexquisite deliberation, leading one, as by a ladder, through theancient ways, up to the message of to-day. Through psalm and canticleand anthem the solemnity passes on; and perhaps some single slendervoice, some boyish treble, unconscious of its beauty and pathos, throwninto relief, like a fountain springing among dark rocks, by the slowthunders of the organ, comes to assure the heart that it can rest, ifbut for a moment, upon a deep and inner peace, can be gently rocked, asit were, in a moving boat, between the sky and translucent sea. Thenfalls the rich monotone of prayer; and the organ wakes again for onelast message, pouring a flood of melody from its golden throats, anddying away by soft gradations into the melodious bourdon of its close. 

Does this seem to you very unreal and fantastic? I do not know; it isvery real to me. Sometimes, in dreary working hours, my spiritlanguishes under an almost physical thirst for such sweetness of soundand sight. I cannot believe that it is other than a pure and holypleasure, because in such hours the spirit soars into a region in whichlow and evil thoughts, ugly desires, and spiteful ambitions, die, likepoisonous flowers in a clear and wholesome air. I do not say that itinspires one with high and fierce resolution, that it fits one forbattling with the troublesome world; but it is more like the greenpastures and waters of comfort; it is pleasure in which there is notouch of sensual appetite or petty desire; it is a kind of heavenlypeace in which the spirit floats in a passionate longing for what isbeautiful and pure. It is not that I would live my life in suchreveries; even while the soft sound dies away, the calling of harshervoices makes itself heard in the mind. But it refreshes, it calms, itpacifies; it tells the heart that there is a peace into which it ispossible to enter, and where it may rest for a little and fold itsweary wings. 

Yet even as I write, as the gentle mood lapses and fades, I find myselfbeset with uneasy and bewildering thoughts about the whole. What wasthe power that raised these great places as so essential and vital apart of life? We have lost it now, whatever it was. Churches like thesewere then an obvious necessity; kings and princes vied with each otherin raising them, and no one questioned their utility. They are now amere luxury for ecclesiastically minded persons, built by slowaccretion, and not by some huge single gift, to please the pride of acounty or a city; and this in days when England is a thousandfoldricher than she was. They are no longer a part of the essence of life;life has flowed away from their portals, and left them a beautifulshadow, a venerable monument, a fragrant sentiment. No doubt it waslargely superstition that constructed them, a kind of insurance paidfor heavenly security. No one now seriously thinks that to endow acollege of priests to perform services would affect his spiritualprospects in the life to come. The Church itself does not countenancethe idea. Moreover, there is little demand in the world at large forthe kind of beauty which they can and do minister to such as myself. The pleasure for which people spend money nowadays has to have astirring, exciting, physical element in it to be acceptable. If it wereotherwise, then our cathedrals could take their place in the life ofthe nation; but they are out of touch with railways, and newspapers, and the furious pursuit of athletics. They are on the side of peace anddelicate impressions and quiet emotions. I wish it were not so; but itwould be faithless to believe that we are not in the hand of God still, and that our restless energies develop against His will. 

And then there falls a darker, more bewildering thought. Suppose thatone could bring one of the rough Galilean fishermen who sowed the seedof the faith, into a place like this, and say to him, "This is thefruit of your teaching; you, whose Master never spoke a word of art ormusic, who taught poverty and simplicity, bareness of life, and anunclouded heart, you are honoured here; these towers and bells arecalled after your names; you stand in gorgeous robes in these storiedwindows. " Would they not think and say that it was all a terriblemistake? would they not say that the desire of the world, the lust ofthe eye and ear, had laid subtle and gentle hands on a stern and ruggedcreed, and bade it serve and be bound?

 "Thy nakedness involves thy Spouse In the soft sanguine stuff she wears. "

So says an eager and vehement poet, apostrophising the tortured limbs, the drooping eye of the Crucified Lord; and is it true that thesestately and solemn houses, these sweet strains of unearthly music, serve His purpose and will? Nay, is it not rather true that the serpentis here again aping the mildness of the dove, and using all thedelicate, luxurious accessories of life to blind us to the truth?

I do not know; it leaves me in a sad and bewildered conflict of spirit. And yet I somehow feel that God is in these places, and that, if onlythe heart is pure and the will strong, such influences can minister tothe growth of the meek and loving spirit. --Ever yours, T. B. 

I don't know what has happened to your letters. Perhaps you have notbeen able to write? I go back to work to-morrow. 

UPTON, May 2, 1904. 

MY DEAR HERBERT, --My holidays are over, and I am back at work again. Ihave got your delightful letter; it was silly to be anxious. . . . 

To-day I was bicycling; I was horribly preoccupied, as, alas, I oftenam, with my own plans and thoughts. I was worrying myself about mywork, fretting about the thousand little problems that beset aschoolmaster, trying to think out a chapter of a book which I amendeavouring to write, my mind beating and throbbing like a feverishpulse. I kept telling myself that the copses were beautiful, that theflowers were enchanting, that the long line of distant hills seenacross the wooded valleys and the purple plain were ravishinglytranquil and serene; but it was of no use; my mind ran like amill-race, a stream of thoughts jostling and hurrying on, in spite ofmy efforts to shut the sluice. 

Suddenly I turned a corner by a little wood, and found myself lookingover into the garden of a small, picturesque cottage, which has beensmartened up lately, and has become, I suppose, the country retreat ofsome well-to-do people. It was a pretty garden; a gentle slope ofgrass, borders full of flowers, and an orchard behind, whitening intobloom, with a little pool in the shady heart of it. On the lawn werethree people, obviously and delightfully idle; an elderly man sate in achair, smiling, smoking, reading a paper. The other two, a younger manand a young woman, were walking side by side, their heads closetogether, laughing quietly at some gentle jest. A perambulator stood bythe porch. Both the men looked like prosperous professional people, clean-shaven, healthy, and contented. I inferred, for no particularreason, that the young pair were man and wife, lately married, and thatthe elder man was the father-in-law. I had this passing glimpse, nomore, of an interior; and then I was riding among the spring woodsagain. 

Of course it was only an impression, but this happy, sunshiny scene, sosuddenly opened to my gaze, so suddenly closed again, was like aparable. I felt as if I should have liked to stop, to take off my hat, and thank my unknown friends for making so simple, pleasant, and sweeta picture. I dare say they were as preoccupied in professional matters, as careful and troubled as myself, if I had known more about them. Butin that moment they were finding leisure simply to taste and enjoy thewholesome savours of life, and were neither looking backward in regretnor forward in anticipation. I dare say the jokes that amused them weremild enough, and that I should have found their conversation tediousand tiresome if I had been made one of the party. But they weresymbolical; they stood for me, and will stand, as a type of what weought to aim at more; and that is simply LIVING. It is a lesson whichyou yourself are no doubt learning in your fragrant, shady garden. Youhave no need to make money, and your only business is to get better. But for myself, I know that I work and think and hope and fear toomuch, and that in my restless pursuit of a hundred aims and ambitionsand dreams and fancies, I am constantly in danger of hardly living atall, but of simply racing on, like a man intoxicated with affairs, without leisure for strolling, for sitting, for talking, for watchingthe sky and the earth, smelling the scents of flowers, noting the funnyways of animals, playing with children, eating and drinking. Yet thisis our true heritage, and this is what it means to be a man; and, afterall, one has (for all one knows) but a single life, and that a shortone. It is at such moments as these that I wake as from a dream, andthink how fast my life flows on, and how very little conscious of itsessence I am. My head is full from morning to night of everythingexcept living. For a busy man this is, of course, to a certain extentinevitable. But where I am at fault is in not relapsing at intervalsinto a wise and patient passivity, and sitting serenely on the shore ofthe sea of life, playing with pebbles, seeing the waves fall and theships go by, and wondering at the strange things cast up by the waves, and the sharp briny savours of the air. Why do I not do this? Because, to continue my confession, it bores me. I must, it seems, be always ina fuss; be always hauling myself painfully on to some petty ambition orsome shadowy object that I have in view; and the moment I have reachedit, I must fix upon another, and begin the process over again. It isthis lust for doing something tangible, for sitting down quickly andwriting fifty, for having some definite result to show, which is theruin of me and many others. After all, when it is done, what worth hasit? I am not a particularly successful man, and I can't delude myselfinto thinking that my work has any very supreme value. And meanwhileall the real experiences of life pass me by. I have never, God forgiveme, had time to be in love! That is a pitiful confession. 

Sometimes one comes across a person with none of these uneasyambitions, with whom living is a fine art; then one realises what amuch more beautiful creation it is than books and pictures. It is akind of sweet and solemn music. Such a man or woman has time to read, to talk, to write letters, to pay calls, to walk about the farm, to goand sit with tiresome people, to spend long hours with children, to sitin the open air, to keep poultry, to talk to servants, to go to church, to remember what his or her relations are doing, to enjoy gardenparties and balls, to like to see young people enjoying themselves, tohear confessions, to do other people's business, to be a welcomepresence everywhere, and to leave a fragrant memory, watered with sweettears. That is to live. And such lives, one is tempted to think, weremore possible, more numerous, a hundred years ago. But now one expectstoo much, and depends too much on exciting pleasures, whether of workor play. Well, my three persons in a garden must be a lesson to me;and, whatever may really happen to them, in my mind they shall walk forever between the apple-trees and the daffodils, looking lovingly ateach other, while the elder man shall smile as he reads in theChronicle of Heaven, which does not grow old. --Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, May 9, 1904. 

MY DEAR HERBERT, --I am going back to the subject of ambition--do youmind?

Yesterday in chapel one of my colleagues preached rather a fine sermonon Activity. The difficulty under which he laboured is a common one insermons; it is simply this--How far is a Christian teacher justified inrecommending ambition to Christian hearers? I think that, if one readsthe Gospel, it is clear that ambition is not a Christian motive. Theroot of the teaching of Christ seems to me to be that one should haveor acquire a passion for virtue; love it for its beauty, as an artistloves beauty of form or colour; and the simplicity which is to be thedistinguishing mark of a Christian seems to me to be inconsistent withpersonal ambition. I do not see that there is any hint of a Christianbeing allowed to wish to do, what is called in domestic language"bettering" himself. The idea rather is that the all-wise andall-loving Father puts a man into the world where he intends him to be;and that a man is to find his highest pleasure in trying to serve theFather's will, with a heart full of love for all living things. A richman is to disembarrass himself of his riches, or at least be sure thatthey are no hindrance to him; a poor man is not to attempt to win them. Of course it may be possible that the original Christians were intendedto take a special line while the faith was leavening the world, andthat a different economy was to prevail when society had beenChristianised. This is a point of view which can be subtly defended, but I think it is hard to find any justification for it in the Gospel. Ambition practically means that, if one is to shoulder to the front, one must push other people out of the way; one must fight for one's ownhand. To succeed at no one's expense is only possible to people of veryhigh character and genius. 

But it is difficult to see what motive to set before boys in thematter; the ideas of fame and glory, the hope of getting what alldesire and what all cannot have, are deeply rooted in the childishmind. Moreover, we encourage ambition so frankly, both in work andplay, that it is difficult to ascend the school pulpit and take quite adifferent line. To tell boys that they must simply do their best forthe sake of doing their best, without any thought of the rewards ofsuccess--it is a very fine ideal, but is it a practical one? If we gaveprizes to the stupid boys who work without hope of success, and if wegave colours to the boys who played games hard without attainingcompetence in them, we might then dare to speak of the rewards ofvirtue. But boys despise unsuccessful conscientiousness, and all therewards we distribute are given to aptitude. Some preachers think theyget out of the difficulty by pointing to examples of lives that battlednobly and unsuccessfully against difficulties; but the point always isthe ultimate recognition. The question is not whether we can provide amotive for the unsuccessful; but whether we ought not to discourageambition in every form? Yet it is the highest motive power in the caseof most generous and active-minded boys. 

In the course of the sermon the preacher quoted some lines of OmarKhayyam in order to illustrate the shamefulness of the indolent life. That is a very dangerous thing to do. The lovely stanzas, sweet ashoney, flowed out upon the air in all their stately charm. The oldsinner stole my heart away with his gentle, seductive, Epicurean grace. I am afraid that I felt like Paolo as he sate beside Francesca. I heardno more of the sermon that day; I repeated to myself many of theincomparable quatrains, and felt the poem to be the most beautifulpresentment of pure Agnosticism that has ever been given to the world. The worst of it is that the delicate traitor makes it so beautiful thatone does not feel the shame and the futility of it. 

This evening I have been reading the new life of FitzGerald, so you mayguess what was the result of the sermon for me. It is not a whollypleasing book, but it is an interesting one; it gives a better pictureof the man than any other book or article, simply by the greatminuteness with which it enters into details. And now I find myselfconfronted by the problem in another shape. Was FitzGerald's life anunworthy one? He had great literary ambitions, but he made nothing ofthem. He lived a very pure, innocent, secluded life, delighting innature and in the company of simple people; loving his friends with apassion that reminds one of Newman; doing endless little kindnesses toall who came within his circle; and tenderly loved by severalgreat-hearted men of genius. He felt himself that he was to blame; heurged others to the activities which he could not practise. And yet theresults of his life are such as many other more busy, moreconscientious men have not achieved. He has left a large body of goodliterary work, and one immortal poem of incomparable beauty. He alsoleft, quite unconsciously, I believe, many of the most beautiful, tender, humorous, wise letters in the English tongue; and I find myselfwondering whether all this could have been brought to pass in any otherway. 

Yet I could not conscientiously advise any one to take FitzGerald'slife as a model It was shabby, undecided, futile; he did many silly, almost fatuous things; he was deplorably idle and unstrung. At the sametime a terrible suspicion creeps upon me that many busy men are livingworse lives. I don't mean men who give themselves to activities, however dusty, which affect other people. I will grant at once thatdoctors, teachers, clergymen, philanthropists, even Members ofParliament are justified in their lives; then, too, men who do thenecessary work of the world--farmers, labourers, workmen, fishermen, are justifiable. But business men who make fortunes for their children;lawyers, artists, writers, who work for money and for praise--are theseafter all so much nobler than our indolent friend? To begin with, FitzGerald's life was one of extraordinary simplicity. He lived onalmost nothing, he had no luxuries; he was like a lily of the field. Ifhe had been a merely selfish man it would have been different; but heloved his fellow-men deeply and tenderly, and he showered unobtrusivekindness on all round him. 

I find it very hard to make up my mind; it is true that the fabric ofthe world would fall to pieces if we were all FitzGeralds. But so, too, as has often been pointed out, would it fall to pieces if we all livedliterally on the lines of the Sermon on the Mount. Activities are formany people a purely selfish thing, to fill the time because they areotherwise bored; and it is hard to see why a man who can fill his lifewith less strenuous pleasures, books, music, strolling, talking, shouldnot be allowed to do so. 

Solve me the riddle, if you can! The simplicity of the Gospel seems tome to be inconsistent with the Expansion of England; and I dare not sayoff-hand that the latter is the finer ideal. --Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, May 15, 1904. 

MY DEAR HERBERT, --You ask if I have read anything lately? Well, I havebeen reading Stalky & Co. With pain, and, I hope, profit. It is anamazing book; the cleverness, the freshness, the incredible originalityof it all; the careless ease with which scene after scene is touchedoff and a picture brought before one at a glance, simply astounds me, and leaves me gasping. But I don't want now to discourse about theliterary merits of the book, great as they are. I want to relieve mymind of the thoughts that disquiet me. I think, to start with, it isnot a fair picture of school life at all. If it is reallyreminiscent--and the life-likeness and verisimilitude of the book isundeniable--the school must have been a very peculiar one. In the firstplace, the interest is concentrated upon a group of very unusual boys. The Firm of Stalky is, I humbly thank God, a combination of boys of arare species. The other figures of boys in the book form a merebackground, and the deeds of the central heroes are depicted like thedeeds of the warriors of the Iliad. They dart about, slashing andhewing, while the rank and file run hither and thither like sheep, their only use being in the numerical tale of heads that they canafford to the flashing blades of the protagonists; and even so thechief figures, realistic though they are, remind me not so much ofspirited pictures as of Gillray's caricatures. They are highlycoloured, fantastic, horribly human and yet, somehow, grotesque. Everything is elongated, widened, magnified, exaggerated. Thedifficulty is, to my mind, to imagine boys so lawless, so unbridled, sofond at intervals of low delights, who are yet so obviouslywholesome-minded and manly. I can only humbly say that it is my belief, confirmed by experience, that boys of so unconventional and daring atype would not be content without dipping into darker pleasures. ButKipling is a great magician, and, in reading the book, one canthankfully believe that in this case it was not so; just as one canalso believe that, in this particular case, the boys were as mature andshrewd, and of as complete and trenchant a wit as they appear. My ownexperience here again is that no boys could keep so easily on so high alevel of originality and sagacity. The chief characteristic of all theboys I have ever known is that they are so fitful, so unfinished. Aclever boy will say incredibly acute things, but among a dreary tractof wonderfully silly ones. The most original boys will have long lapsesinto conventionality, but the heroes of Kipling's book are neverconventional, never ordinary; and then there is an absence ofrestfulness which is one of the greatest merits of Tom Brown. 

But what has made the book to me into a kind of Lenten manual is thepresentation of the masters. Here I see, portrayed with remorselessfidelity, the faults and foibles of my own class; and I am sorry to saythat I feel deliberately, on closing the book, that schoolmasteringmust be a dingy trade. My better self cries out against thisconclusion, and tries feebly to say that it is one of the noblest ofprofessions; and then I think of King and Prout, and all my highestaspirations die away at the thought that I may be even as these. 

I suppose that Kipling would reply that he has done full justice to theprofession by giving us the figures of the Headmaster and the Chaplain. The Headmaster is obviously a figure which his creator regards withrespect. He is fair-minded, human, generous; it is true that he isenveloped with a strange awe and majesty; he moves in a mysterious way, and acts in a most inconsequent and unexpected manner. But he generallyhas the best of a situation; and though there is little that ispastoral about him, yet he is obviously a wholesome-minded, manly sortof person, who whips the right person at the right time, and generallyscores in the end. But he is a Roman father, at best. He has littlecompassion and no tenderness; he is acute, brisk, and sensible; but hehas (at least to me) neither grace nor wisdom; or, if he has, he keepsthem under a polished metallic dish-cover, and only lifts it inprivate. I do not feel that the Headmaster has any religion, except thereligion of all sensible men. In seeming to despise all sentiment, Kipling seems to me to throw aside several beautiful flowers, tiedcarelessly up in the same bundle. There should be a treasure in theheart of a wise schoolmaster; not to be publicly displayed nor drearilyrecounted; but at the right moment, and in the right way, he ought tobe able to show a boy that there are sacred and beautiful things whichrule or ought to rule the heart. If the Head has such a treasure hekeeps it at the bank and only visits it in the holidays. 

The "Padre" is a very human figure--to me the most attractive in thebook; he has some wisdom and tenderness, and his little vanities arevery gently touched. But (I daresay I am a very pedantic person) Idon't really like his lounging about and smoking in the boys' studies. I think that what he would have called tolerance is rather a deplorableindolence, a desire to be above all things acceptable. He earns hisinfluence by giving his colleagues away, and he seems to me to thinkmore of the honour of the boys than of the honour of the place. 

But King and Prout, the two principal masters--it is they who spoil thetaste of my food and mingle my drink with ashes. They are, in theirway, well-meaning and conscientious men. But is it not possible to lovediscipline without being a pedant, and to be vigilant without being asneak? I fear in the back of my heart that Kipling thinks that thetrade of a schoolmaster is one which no generous or self-respecting mancan adopt. And yet it is a useful and necessary trade; and we should bein a poor way if it came to be regarded as a detestable one. I wishwith all my heart that Kipling had used his genius to make our pathsmoother instead of rougher. The path of the schoolmaster is indeed setround with pitfalls. A man who is an egotist and a bully finds richpasturage among boys who are bound to listen to him, and over whom hecan tyrannise. But, on the other hand, a man who is both brave andsensitive--and there are many such--can learn as well as teachabundance of wholesome lessons, if he comes to his task with some hopeand love. King is, of course, a verbose bully; he delights in pettytriumphs; he rejoices in making himself felt; he is a cynic as well, agreedy and low-minded man; he takes a disgusting pleasure in detectivework; he begins by believing the worst of boys; he is vain, shy, irritable; he is cruel, and likes to see his victim writhe. I haveknown many schoolmasters and I have never known a Mr. King, exceptperhaps at a private school. But even King has done me good; he hasconfirmed me in my belief that more can be done by courtesy and decentamiability than can ever be done by discipline enforced by hard words. He teaches me not to be pompous, and not to hunger and thirst afterfinding things out. He makes me feel sure that the object of detectionis to help boys to be better, and not to have the satisfaction ofpunishing them. 

Prout is a feeble sentimentalist, with a deep belief in phrases. He isa better fellow than King, and is only an intolerable goose. Both themen make me wish to burst upon the scene, when they are grosslymishandling some simple situation; but while I want to kick King, whenhe is retreating with dignity, my only desire is to explain to Prout aspatiently as I can what an ass he is. He is a perfect instance ofabsolutely ineffective virtue, a plain dish unseasoned with salt. 

There are, of course, other characters in the book, each of themgrotesque and contemptible in his own way, each of them a notableexample of what not to be. But I would pardon this if the book were notso unjust; if Kipling had included in his gathering of masters onekindly, serious gentleman, whose sense of vocation did not make him aprig. And if he were to reply that the Headmaster fulfils theseconditions, I would say that the Headmaster is a prig in this onepoint, that he is so desperately afraid of priggishness. The manly man, to my mind, is the man who does not trouble his head as to whether heis manly or not, not the man who wears clothes too big for him, andheavy boots, treads like an ox, and speaks gruffly; that is a pose, notbetter or worse than other poses. And what I want in the book is a manof simple and direct character, interested in his work, and not ashamedof his interest; attached to the boys, and not ashamed of seeming tocare. 

My only consolation is that I have talked to a good many boys who haveread the book; they have all been amused, interested, delighted. Butthey say frankly that the boys are not like any boys they ever knew, and, when I timidly inquire about the masters, they laugh rathersheepishly, and say that they don't know about that. 

I am sure that we schoolmasters have many faults; but we are reallytrying to do better, and, as I said before, I only wish that a man ofKipling's genius had held out to us a helping hand, instead of givingus a push back into the ugly slough of usherdom, out of which many goodfellows, my friends and colleagues, have, however feebly, beenstruggling to emerge. --Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, May 21, 1904. 

MY DEAR HERBERT, --I have been wondering since I wrote last whether Icould possibly write a school story. I have often desired to try. Thething has hardly ever been well done. Tom Brown remains the best. DeanFarrar's books, vigorous in a sense as they are, are too sentimental. Stalky & Co. , as I said in my last letter, in spite of its amazingcleverness of insight, is not typical. Gilkes' books are excellentstudies of the subject, but lack unity of theme; Tim is an interestingbook, but reflects a rather abnormal point of view; A Day of My Life atEton is too definitely humorous in conception, though it has greatverisimilitude. 

In the first place the plot is a difficulty; the incidents of schoollife do not lend themselves to dramatic situations. Then, too, thetrivialities of which school life is so much composed, the minutenessof the details involved, make the subject a singularly complicated one;another great difficulty is to give any idea of the conversations ofboys, which are mainly concerned with small concrete facts andincidents, and are lacking in humour and flexibility. 

Again, to speak frankly, there is a Rabelaisian plainness of speech oncertain subjects, which one must admit to be apt to characterise boys'conversation, which it is impossible to construct or include, and yetthe omission of which subtracts considerable reality from the picture. Genius might triumph over all these obstacles, of course, but even agenius would find it very difficult to put himself back into line withthe immaturity and narrow views of boys; their credulity, theirpreoccupations, their conventionality, their inarticulateness--allthese qualities are very hard to indicate. Only a boy could formulatethese things, and no boy has sufficient ease of expression to do so, orsufficient detachment both to play the part and describe it. A veryclever undergraduate, with a gift of language, might write a truthfulschool-book; but yet the task seems to require a certain mellowness andtolerance which can only be given by experience; and then the veryexperience would tend to blunt the sharpness of the impressions. 

As a rule, in such books, the whole conception of boyhood seems atfault; a boy is generally represented as a generous, heedless, unworldly creature. My experience leads me to think that this is verywide of the mark. Boys are the most inveterate Tories. They lovemonopoly and privilege, they are deeply subservient, they have littleidea of tolerance or justice or fair-play, they are intensely andnarrowly ambitious; they have a certain insight into character, butthere are some qualities, like vulgarity, which they seem incapable ofdetecting. They have a great liking for jobs and small indications ofpower. They are not, as a rule, truthful; they have no compassion forweakness. It is generally supposed that they have a strong sense ofliberty, but this is not the case; they are, indeed, tenacious of theirrights, or what they suppose to be their rights, but they have littleidea of withstanding tyranny, they are incapable of democraticcombination, and submit blindly to custom and tradition. Neither do Ithink them notably affectionate or grateful; everything that is donefor them within the limits of a prescribed and habitual system theyaccept blindly and as a matter of course, while at the same time theyare profoundly affected by any civility or sympathy shown them outsidethe ordinary course of life. I mean that they do not differentiatebetween a master who takes immense trouble over his work, anddischarges his duties with laborious conscientiousness, and a masterwho saves himself all possible trouble; they are not grateful forlabour expended on them, and they do not resent neglect. But a masterwho asks boys to breakfast, talks politely to them, takes an interestin them in a sociable way, will win a popularity which a laborious andinarticulate man cannot attain to. They are extremely amenable to anyindications of personal friendship, while they are blind to the virtuesof a master who only studies their best interests. They will work, forinstance, with immense vigour for a man who praises and appreciatesindustry; but a man who grimly insists on hard and conscientious workis looked upon as a person who finds enjoyment in a kind ofslave-driving. 

Boys are, in fact, profound egoists and profound individualists. Ofcourse there are exceptions to all this; there are boys of deepaffection, scrupulous honesty, active interests, keen and far-reachingambitions; but I am trying to sketch not the exception but the rule. 

You will ask what there is left? What there is that makes boysinteresting and attractive to deal with? I will tell you. There is, ofcourse, the mere charm of youthfulness and simplicity. And thequalities that I have depicted above are really the superficialqualities, the conventions that boys adopt from the society about them. The nobler qualities of human nature are latent in many boys; but theyare for the most part superficially ruled by an intensely strongmauvaise honte, which leads them to live in two worlds, and to keep theinner life very sharply and securely ruled off from the outer. Theymust be approached tactfully and gently as individuals. It is possibleto establish a personal and friendly relation with many boys, so longas they understand that it is a kind of secret understanding, and willnot be paraded or traded upon in public. In their inner hearts thereare the germs of many high and beautiful things, which tend, unless aboy has some wise and tender older friend--a mother, a father, asister, even a master--to be gradually obscured under the insistentdemands of his outer life. Boys are very diffident about these matters, and require to be encouraged and comforted about them. The danger ofpublic schools, with overworked masters, is that the secret life is aptto get entirely neglected, and then these germs of finer qualities getneither sunshine or rain. Public spirit, responsibility, intellectualinterests, unconventional hopes, virtuous dreams--a boy is apt to thinkthat to speak of such things is to incur the reproach of priggishness;but a man who can speak of them naturally and without affectation, whocan show that they are his inner life too, and are not allowed to flowin a sickly manner into his outer life, who has a due and wise reserve, can have a very high and simple power for good. 

But to express all this in the pages of a book is an almost impossibletask; what one wants is to get the outer life briskly and sharplydepicted, and to speak of the inner in hints and flashes. Unfortunately, the man who really knows boys is apt to get sopenetrated with the pathos, the unrealised momentousness, the sadshipwrecks of boy life that he is not light-hearted enough to depictthe outer side of it all, and a book becomes morbid and sentimental. Then, too, to draw a boy correctly would often be to produce a sense ofcontrast which would almost give a feeling of hypocrisy, because thereare boys--and not unfrequently the most interesting--who, if fairlydrawn, would appear frivolous, silly, conventional in public, evencoarse, who yet might have very fine things behind, though rarelyvisible. Moreover, the natural, lively, chattering boys, whom it wouldbe a temptation to try and draw, are not really the most interesting. They tend to develop into bores of the first water in later life. Butthe boy who develops into a fine man is often ungainly, shy, awkward, silent in early life, acutely sensitive, and taking refuge in bluntnessor dumbness. 

The most striking instances that have come under my own experience, where a boy has really revealed the inside of his mind and spirit, areabsolutely incapable of being expressed in words. If I were to writedown what boys have said to me, on critical occasions, the record wouldbe laughed at as impossible and unnatural. 

So you see that the difficulties are well-nigh insuperable. Narrativewould be trivial, conversation affected, motives inexplicable; for, indeed, the crucial difficulty is the absolute unaccountableness ofboys' actions and words. A schoolmaster gets to learn that nothing isimpossible; a boy of apparently unblemished character will behavesuddenly in a manner that makes one despair of human nature, a blacksheep will act and speak like an angel of light. The interest is themystery and the impenetrability of it all; it is so impossible toforesee contingencies or to predict conduct. This impulsiveness, as arule, diminishes in later life under the influence of maturity andmaterial conditions. But the boy remains insoluble, now a demon, now anangel; and thus the only conclusion is that it is better to take thingsas they come, and not to attempt to describe the indescribable. --Everyours, T. B. 

UPTON, May 28, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --I am bursting with news. I am going to tell you asecret. I have been offered an important Academical post; that is tosay, I received a confidential intimation that I should be elected if Istood. The whole thing is confidential, so that I must not even tellyou what the offer was. I should have very much liked to talk it overwith you, but I had to make up my mind quickly; there was no time towrite, and, moreover, I feel sure that when I had turned out the prosand cons of my own feelings for your inspection, you would have decidedas I did. 

You will say at once that you do not know how I reconciled my refusalwith the cardinal article of my faith, that our path is indicated to usby Providence, and that we ought to go where we are led. Well, Iconfess that I felt this to be a strong reason for accepting. Theinvitation came to me as a complete surprise, absolutely unsought, andfrom a body of electors who know the kind of man they want and have alarge field to choose from; there was no question of private influenceor private friendship. I hardly know one of the committee; and theytook a great deal of trouble in making inquiries about men. 

But, to use a detestable word, there is a strong difference between anoutward call and an inward call. It is not the necessary outcome of abelief in Providence that one accepts all invitations, and undertakeswhatever one may be asked to do. There is such a thing as temptation;and there is another kind of summons, sent by God, which seems to comein order that one may take stock of one's own position and capacitiesand realise what one's line ought to be. It is like a passage in alabyrinth which strikes off at right angles from the passage one isfollowing; the fact that one MAY take a sudden turn to the left is notnecessarily a clear indication that one is meant to do so. It may beonly sent to make one consider the reasons which induce one to followthe path on which one is embarked. 

I had no instantaneous corresponding sense that it was my duty tofollow this call. I was (I will confess it) a little dazzled; but, assoon as that wore off, I felt an indescribable reluctance to undertakethe task, a consciousness of not being equal to it, a strong sense thatI was intended for other things. 

I don't mean to say that there was not much that was attractive aboutthe offer in a superficial way. It meant money, power, position, andconsequence--all good things, and good things which I unreservedlylike. I am like every one else in that respect; I should like a largehouse, and a big income, and professional success, and respect andinfluence as much as any one--more, indeed, than many people. 

But I soon saw that this would be a miserable reason for being temptedby the offer, the delight of being called Rabbi. I don't pretend to behigh-minded, but even I could see that, unless there was a good dealmore than that in my mind, I should be a wretched creature to beinfluenced by such considerations. These are merely the conveniences;the real point was the work, the power, the possibility of carrying outcertain educational reforms which I have very much at heart, and doingsomething towards raising the general intellectual standard, which Ibelieve to be lower than it need be. 

Now, on thinking it out carefully, I came to the conclusion that I wasnot strong enough for this role. I am no Atlas; I have no deep store ofmoral courage; I am absurdly sensitive, ill-fitted to cope withunpopularity and disapproval. Bitter, vehement, personal hostilitywould break my spirit. A fervent Christian might say that one had noright to be faint-hearted, and that strength would be given one; thatis perfectly true in certain conditions, and I have often experiencedit when some intolerable and inevitable calamity had to be faced. Butit is an evil recklessness not to weigh one's own deficiencies. No onewould say that a man ignorant of music ought to undertake to play theorgan, if the organist failed to appear, believing that power would begiven him. Christ Himself warned His disciples against embarking in anenterprise without counting the cost. But here I confess was thedarkest point of my dilemma--was it cowardice and indolence to refuseto attempt what competent persons believed I could do? or was itprudent and wise to refuse to attempt what I, knowing my owntemperament better, felt I could not attempt successfully?

Now in my present work it is different. I know that my strength isequal to the responsibility; I know that I can do what I undertake. Theart of dealing with boys is very different from the art of dealing withmen, the capacity for subordinate command is very different from thecapacity for supreme command. Of course, it is a truism to say that ifa man can obey thoroughly and loyally he can probably command. Butthen, again, there is a large class of people, to which I believemyself to belong, who are held to be, in the words of Tacitus, Capaximperii, nisi imperasset. 

Then, too, I felt that a great task must be taken up in a certainbuoyancy and cheerfulness of spirit, not in heaviness and diffidence. There are, of course, instances where a work reluctantly undertaken hasbeen crowned with astonishing success. But one has no business to thinkthat reluctance and diffidence to undertake a great work are a proofthat God intends one to do it. 

I am quite aware of the danger which a temperament like my own runs, ofdealing with such a situation in too complex and subtle a way. That isthe hardest thing of all to get rid of, because it is part of the verytexture of one's mind. I have tried, however, to see the whole thing inas simple a light as possible, and to ask myself whether acceptance wasin any sense a plain duty. If the offer had been a constraining appeal, I should have doubted. But it was made in an easy, complimentary way, as if there was no doubt that I should fall in with it. 

Well, I had a very anxious day; but I simply (I may say that to you)prayed that my way might be made clear; and the result was aconviction, which rose like a star and then, as it were, waxed into asun, that the quest was not for me. 

And so I refused; and I am thankful to say that I have had, ever since, the blessed and unalterable conviction that I have done right. Even theconveniences have ceased to appeal to me; they have not even, like theold Adam in the Pilgrim's Progress, pinched hold of me and given me adeadly twitch. Though the picturesque mind of one who, like myself, isvery sensitive to "the attributes of awe and majesty, " takes a certainpeevish pleasure in continuing to depict my unworthy self clothed uponwith majesty, and shaking all Olympus with my nod. 

But if Olympus had refused to shake, even though I had nodded like amandarin?

I am sure that I shall not regret it; and I do not even think that myconscience will reproach me; nor do I think that (on this ground alone)I shall be relegated to the dark circle of the Inferno with those whohad a great opportunity given them and would not use it. 

Please confirm me if you can! Comfort me with apples, as the Song says. I am afraid you will only tell me that it proves that you are right, and that I have no ambition. --Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, June 4, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --I have nothing to write about. The summer is come, andwith it I enter into purgatory; I am poured out like water, and myheart is like melting wax; I have neither courage nor kindness, exceptin the early morning or the late evening. I cannot work, and I cannotbe lazy. The only consolation I have--and I wish it were a moresustaining one--is that most people like hot weather better. 

I will put down for you in laborious prose what if I were an artist Iwould do in half-a-dozen strokes. There is a big place near here, Rushton Park. I was bicycling with Randall past the lodge, blaming thefair summer, like the fisherman in Theocritus, when he asked if Ishould like to ride through. The owner, Mr. Payne, is a friend of his, and laid a special injunction on him to go through whenever he liked. We were at once admitted, and in a moment we were in a Paradise. Payneis famed for his gardeners, and I think I never saw a more beautifulplace of its kind. The ground undulates very gracefully, and we passedby velvety lawns, huge towering banks of rhododendron all ablaze withflower, exquisite vistas and glades, with a view of far-off hills. Itseemed to me to be an enchanted pleasaunce, like the great Palace inThe Princess. Now and then we could see the huge facade of the houseabove us, winking through its sunblinds. There was not a soul to beseen; and this added enormously to the magical charm of the place, asthough it were the work of a Genie, not made with hands. We passed ahuge fountain dripping into a blue-tiled pool, over a great cockleshellof marble; then took a path which wound into the wood, all a mist offresh green, and in a moment we were in a long old-fashioned garden, with winding box hedges, and full of bright flowers. To the left, wherethe garden was bordered by the wood, was set a row of big marble urns, grey with age, on high pedestals, all dripping with flowering creepers. It was very rococo, like an old French picture, but enchanting for allthat. To the right was a long, mellow brick wall, under which stoodsome old marble statues, weather-stained and soft of hue. The steadysun poured down on the sweet, bright place, and the scent of theflowers filled the air with fragrance, while a dove, hidden in somegreen towering tree, roo-hooed delicately, as though her little heartwas filled with an indolent contentment. 

The statue that stood nearest us attracted my attention. I cannotconceive what it was meant to represent. It was the figure of an old, bearded man, with a curious brimless hat on his head, and a flowingrobe; in his hands he held and fingered some unaccountable object of anondescript shape; and he had an unpleasant fixed smile, which heseemed to turn on us, as though he knew a secret connected with thegarden which he might not reveal, and which if revealed would fill thehearers with a secret horror. I do not think that I have often seen afigure which affected me so disagreeably. He seemed to be saying thatwithin this bright and fragrant place lay some tainted mystery which itwere ill to tamper with. It was as though we opened a door out of somestately corridor, and found a strange, beast-like thing running to andfro in a noble room. 

Well, I do not know! But it seems to me a type of many things, and Idoubt not that the wise-hearted patrician, the former owner, who laidout the garden and set the statue in its place, did so with a purpose. It is for us to see that there lies no taint behind our pleasures; buteven if this be not the message, the heart of the mystery, may not thefigure stand perhaps for the end, the bitter end, which lies ahead ofall, when the lip is silent and the eye shut, and the heart is stilledat last?

The quiet figure with its secret, wicked smile, somehow slurred for methe sunshine and the pleasant flowers, and I was glad when we turnedaway. --Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, June 11, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --Yes, I am sure you are right. The thing I get more andmore impatient of every year is conventionality in every form. It israther foolish, I am well aware, to be impatient about anything; andgreat conventionality of mind is not inconsistent with entiresincerity, for the simple reason that conventionality is whatninety-nine hundredths of the human race enjoy. Most people have nowish to make up their own minds about anything; they do not care toknow what they like or why they like it. This is often the outcome of adeep-seated modesty. The ordinary person says to himself, "Who am Ithat I should set up a standard? If all the people that I know likecertain occupations and certain amusements, they are probably right, and I will try to like them too. " I don't mean that this feeling isoften put into words, but it is there; and there is for most people animmense power in habit. People grow to like what they do, and seldominquire if they really like it, or why they like it. 

Of course, to a certain extent, conventionality is a useful, peacefulthing. I am not here recommending eccentricity of any kind. Peopleought to fall in simply and quietly with ordinary modes of life, dress, and behaviour; it saves time and trouble; it sets the mind free. Butwhat I rather mean is that, when the ordinary usages of life have beencomplied with, all sensible people ought to have a line of their ownabout occupation, amusements, friends, and not run to and fro likesheep just where the social current sets. What I mean is best explainedby a couple of instances. I met at dinner last night our oldacquaintance, Foster, who was at school with us. He was in my house; Idon't think you ever knew much of him. He was a pleasant, good-humouredboy enough; but his whole mind was set on discovering the exact code ofsocial school life. He wanted to play the right games, to wear theright clothes, to know the right people. He liked being what he called"in the swim. " He never made friends with an obscure or unfashionableboy. He was quite pleasant to his associates when he was himselfobscure; but he waited quietly for his opportunity to recommend himselfto prominent boys, and, when the time came, he gently threw over allhis old companions and struck out into more distinguished regions. Hewas never disagreeable or conceited; he merely dropped his humblefriends until they too were approved as worthy of greater distinction, and then he took them up again. He succeeded in his ambitions, as mostcool and clear-headed persons do. He became what would be called verypopular; he gave himself no airs; he was always good company; he wasnever satirical or critical. The same thing has gone on ever since. Hemarried a nice wife; he secured a good official position. Last night, as I say, I met him here. He came into the room with the same oldpleasant smile, beautifully dressed, soberly appointed. His look andgestures were perfectly natural and appropriate. He has never made anyattempt to see me or keep up old acquaintance; but here, where I have acertain standing and position, it was obviously the right thing totreat me with courteous deference. He came up to me with a genialwelcome, and, but for a little touch of prosperous baldness, I couldhave imagined that he was hardly a day older than when he was a boy. Hereminded me of some cheerful passages of boyhood; he asked with kindlyinterest after my work; he paid me exactly the right compliments; and Ibecame aware that I was, for the moment, one of the pawns in his game, to be delicately pushed about where it suited him. We talked of othermatters; he held exactly the right political opinions, a mild andcautious liberalism; he touched on the successes of certain politiciansand praised them appropriately; he deplored the failure of certain oldfriends in political life. "A very good fellow, " he said of Hughes, "but just a little--what shall I say?--impracticable?" He had seen allthe right plays, heard the right music, read the right books. Hedeplored the obscurity of George Meredith, but added that he was anundoubted genius. He confessed himself to be an ardent admirer ofWagner; he thought Elgar a man of great power; but he had not made uphis mind about Strauss. I found that "not making up his mind about" aperson was one of his favourite expressions. If he sees that some manis showing signs of vigour and originality in any department of life, he keeps his eye upon him; if he passes safely through the shallows, hepraises him, saying that he has watched his rise; if he fails, ourfriend will be ready with the reasons for his failure, adding that healways feared that so-and-so was a little unpractical. 

I can't describe to you the dreariness and oppression that fell uponme. The total absence of generosity, of independent interest, weighedon my soul. The one quality that this equable and judicious critic wason the look-out for was the power of being approved. Foster's viewseemed to knock the bottom out of life, to deprive everything equallyof charm and individuality. 

The conversation turned on golf, and one of the guests, whom I amshortly about to describe, said bluffly that he considered golf anddrink to be the two curses of the country. Our polite friend turnedcourteously towards him, treated the remark as an excellent sally, andthen said that he feared he must himself plead guilty to a greatdevotion to golf. "You see all kinds of pleasant people, " he said, "insuch a pleasant way; and then it tempts one into the open air; and itis such an excellent investment, in the way of exercise, for one's age;a man can play a very decent game till he is sixty--though, of course, it is no doubt a little overdone. " We all felt that he was right; hetook the rational, the sensible view; but it tempted me, though Isuccessfully resisted the temptation, to express an exaggerated dislikeof golf which I do not feel. 

The guest whose remark had occasioned this discourse is one of mycolleagues, Murchison by name--you don't know him--a big, rugged, shy, sociable fellow, who is in many ways one of the best masters here. Heis always friendly, amusing, courteous. He holds strong opinions, whichhe does not produce unless the occasion demands it. He keeps a gooddeal to himself, follows his own pursuits, and knows his own mind. Heis very tolerant, and can get on with almost everybody. The boysrespect him, like his teaching, think him clever, sensible, andamusing. There are a great many things about which he knows nothing, and is always ready to confess his ignorance. But whenever he doesunderstand a subject, and he has a strong taste for art and letters, you always feel that his thoughts and opinions are fresh and living. They are not produced like sardines from a tin, with a painfulsimilarity and regularity. He has strong prejudices, for which he canalways give a reason; but he is always ready to admit that it is amatter of taste. He does not tilt in a Quixotic manner at establishedthings, but he goes along trying to do his work in the best mannerattainable. He is no genius, and his character is by no means a perfectone; he has pronounced faults, of which he is perfectly conscious, andwhich he never attempts to disguise. But he is simple, straightforward, affectionate, and sincere. If he were more courageous, more fiery, hewould be, I think, a really great man; but this he somehow misses. 

The two men, Foster and Murchison, are as great a contrast as can wellbe imagined. They serve to illustrate exactly what I mean. Our friendFoster is perfectly correct and admirably pleasant. You would neverthink of confiding in him, or saying to him what you really felt; but, on the other hand, there is no one whom I would more willingly consultin a small and delicate point of practical conduct--and his advicewould be excellent. 

But Murchison is a real man; he knows his limitations, but he takesnothing second-hand. He brings his own mind and character to bear onevery problem, and judges people and things on their own merits. 

Of course one does not desire that conventional people should striveafter unconventionality. That produces the most sickeningconventionality of all, because it is merely an attempt to construct apose that shall be accepted as unconventional. The only thing is to benatural; and, after all, if one merely desires to see how the cat jumpsand then to jump after it, it is better to do so frankly and make nopretence about it. 

But I am sure that it is one's duty as a teacher to try and show boysthat no opinions, no tastes, no emotions are worth much unless they areone's own. I suffered acutely as a boy from the lack of being shownthis. I found--I am now speaking of intellectual things--that certainauthors were held up to me as models which I was unfortunate enough todislike. Instead of making up my own mind about it, instead of tryingto see what I did admire and why I admired it, I tried feebly for yearsto admire what I was told was admirable. The result was waste of timeand confusion of thought. In the same way I followed feebly, as a boy, after the social code. I tried to like the regulation arrangements, andthought dimly that I was in some way to blame because I did not. Notuntil I went up to Cambridge did the conception of mental liberty stealupon me--and then only partly. Of course if I had had more originalityI should have perceived this earlier. But the world appeared to me agreat, organised, kindly conspiracy, which must be joined, in howeverfeeble a spirit. I have learnt gradually that, after a decentcompliance with superficial conventionalities, there are not only nopenalties attached to independence, but that there, and there alone, ishappiness to be found; and that the rewards of a free judgement and anauthentic admiration are among the best and highest things that theworld has to bestow. . . . --Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, June 18, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --I am sick at heart. I received one of those letters thismorning which are the despair of most schoolmasters. I have in my housea boy aged seventeen, who is absolutely alone in the world. He hasneither father or mother, brother or sister. He spends his holidayswith an aunt, a clever and charming person, but a sad invalid (by theway, in passing, what a wretched thing in English it is that there isno female of the word "man"; "woman" means something quite different, and always sounds slightly disrespectful; "lady" is impossible, exceptin certain antique phrases). The boy is frail, intellectual, ungenial. He is quite incapable of playing games decently, having neitherstrength or aptitude; he finds it hard to make friends, and theconsequence is that, like all clever people who don't meet with anysuccess, he takes refuge in a kind of contemptuous cynicism. His auntis devoted to him and to his best interests, but she is too much of aninvalid to be able to look after him; the result is that he is allowedpractically to do exactly as he likes in the holidays; he hates schoolcordially, and I don't wonder. He fortunately has one taste, and thatis for science, and it is more than a taste, it is a real passion. Hedoes not merely dabble about with chemicals, or play tricks withelectricity; but he reads dry, hard, abstruse science, and writeselaborate monographs, which I read with more admiration thancomprehension. This is almost his only hold on ordinary life, and Iencourage it with all my might; I ask about his work, make suchsuggestions as I can, and praise his successful experiments and histreatises, so far as I can understand them, loudly and liberally. 

This morning one of his guardians writes to me about him. He is acountry gentleman, with a large estate, who married a cousin of mypupil. He is a big, pompous, bumble-bee kind of man, who prides himselfon speaking his mind, and is quite unaware that it is only his positionthat saves him from the plainest retorts. He writes to say that he ismuch exercised about his ward's progress. The boy, he says, is fancifuland delicate, and has much too good an opinion of himself. That istrue; and he goes on to lay down the law as to what he "needs. " He mustbe thrown into the society of active and vigorous boys; he must playgames; he must go to the gymnasium. And then he must learnself-reliance; he must not be waited upon; he must be taught that it ishis business to be considerate of others; he must learn to be obliging, and to look after other people. He goes on to say that all he wants isthe influence of a strong and sensible man (that is a cut at me), andhe will be obliged if I will kindly attend to the matter. 

Well, what does he want me to do? Does he expect me to run races withthe boy? To introduce him to the captain of the eleven? To have himthrust into teams of cricket and football from which his incapacity forall games naturally excludes him? When our bumble-bee friend was atschool himself--and a horrid boy he must have been--what would he havesaid if a master had told him to put a big, clumsy, and incapable boyinto a house cricket eleven in order to bring him out?

Then as to teaching him to be considerate, the mischief is all done inthe holidays; the boy is not waited on here, and he has plenty ofvigorous discipline in the kind of barrack life the boys lead. Does heexpect me to march into the boy's home, and request that the boy mayblack his own boots and carry up the coals!

The truth is that the man has no real policy; he sees the boy'sdeficiencies, and liberates his mind by requesting me, as if I were akind of tradesman, to see that they are corrected. 

Of course the temptation is to write the man an acrimonious letter, andto point out the idiotic character of his suggestions. But that isworse than useless. 

What I have done is to write and say that I have received his kind andsensible letter, that he has laid his finger on the exact difficulties, and that naturally I am anxious to put them straight. I then added thathis own recollection of his school-days will show that one cannot helpa boy in athletic or social matters beyond a certain point, that onecan only see that a boy has a fair chance, and is not overlooked, butthat other boys would not tolerate (and I know that he does not mean tosuggest this) that a boy should be included in a team for which he isunfit, simply in order that his social life should be encouraged. Ithen point out that as to discipline there is no lack of it here; andthat it is only at home that he is spoilt; and that I hope he will usehis influence, in a region where I cannot do more than makesuggestions, to minimise the evil. 

The man will approve of the letter; he will think me sensible andhimself extraordinarily wise. 

Does that seem to you to be cynical? I don't think it is. The man issincerely anxious for the boy's welfare, just as I am, and we hadbetter agree than disagree. The fault of his letter is that it isstupid, and that it is offensive. The former quality I can forgive, andthe latter is only stupidity in another form. He thinks in his own mindthat if I am paid to educate the boy I ought to be glad of advice, thatI ought to be grateful to have things that I am not likely to detectfor myself pointed out by an enlightened and benevolent man. 

Meanwhile I shall proceed to treat the boy on my own theory. I don'texpect him to play games; I don't think that it is, humanly speaking, possible to expect a sensitive, frail boy to continue to play a game inwhich he only makes himself ridiculous and contemptible from first tolast. Of course if a boy who is incapable of success in athletics doesgo on playing games perseveringly and good-humouredly, he gets asplendid training, and, as a rule, conciliates respect. But this boycould not do that. 

Then I shall try to encourage the boy in any taste he may exhibit, andtry to build up a real structure on these slender lines. The greatpoint is that he shall have SOME absorbing and wholesome instinct. Hewill be wealthy, and in a position to gratify any whim. He is not inthe least likely to do anything foolish or vicious--he has not got theanimal spirits for that. I shall encourage him to take up politics; andI shall try to put into his head a desire to do something for hisfellow-creatures, and not to live an entirely lonely and self-absorbedlife. 

I have a theory that in education it is better to encourage aptitudesthan to try merely to correct deficiencies. One can't possiblyextirpate weaknesses by trying to crush them. One must build upvitality and interest and capacity. It is like the parable of the evilspirits. It is of no use simply to cast them out and leave the soulempty and swept; one must encourage some strong, good spirit to takepossession; one must build on the foundations that are there. 

The boy is delicate-minded, able and intelligent; he is an interestingcompanion, when he is once at his ease. If only this busy, fussy, hearty old bore would leave him alone! What I am afraid of his doing isof his getting the boy to stay with him, making him go out hunting, andlaughing mercilessly at his tumbles. The misery that a stupid, genialman can inflict upon a sensitive boy like this is dreadful tocontemplate. 

At the end of the half I shall write a letter about the boy's work, anddelicately hint that, if he is encouraged in his subject, he may attainhigh distinction and eventually rise to political or scientificeminence. The old bawler will take the fly with a swirl--see if he doesnot! And, if I can secure an interview with him, I will wager that mytriumph will be complete. 

Does this all seem very dingy to you, my dear Herbert? You have neverhad to deal with tiresome, stupid people in a professional capacity, you see. There is a distinct pleasure in getting one's own way, intriumphing over an awkward situation, in leading an old buffer by thenose to do the thing which you think right, and to make him believethat you are all the time following his advice and treasuring up hisprecepts. But I can honestly say that my chief desire is not to amusemyself with this kind of diplomacy, but the real welfare of the child. I know you will believe that. --Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, June 25, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --This is not a letter; it is a sketch, an aquarelle outof my portfolio. 

Yesterday was a hot, heavy, restless day, with thunder brewing in thedark heart of huge inky clouds; a day when one craves for light, andbrisk airs, and cold bare hill-tops; when one desires to get away fromone's kind, away from close rooms and irritable persons. So I went offon my patient and uncomplaining bicycle, along a country road; and thencrossing a wide common, like the field, I thought, in the Pilgrim'sProgress across which Evangelist pointed an improving finger, I turneddown to the left to the waterside In the still air, that seemed tolisten, the blue wooded hills across the river had a dim, rich beauty. How mysterious are the fields and heights from which one is separatedby a stream, the fields in which one knows every tree and sloping lawnby sight, and where one sets foot so rarely! The road came to an end ina little grassy space among high-branching elms. On my left was a farm, with barns and byres, overhung by stately walnut trees; on the right agrange among its great trees, a low tiled house, with white casements, in a pleasant garden, full of trellised roses, a big dovecote, with aclattering flight of wheeling pigeons circling round and round. Hardby, close to the river, stands a little ancient church, with a timberedspire, the trees growing thickly about it, dreaming forgotten dreams. 

Here all was still and silent; the very children moved languidly about, not knowing what ailed them. Far off across the wide-watered plain camea low muttering of thunder, and a few big drops pattered in the greatelms. 

This secluded river hamlet has an old history; the church, which isserved from a distant parish, stands in a narrow strip of land whichruns down across the fields to the river, and dates from the time whenthe river was a real trade-highway, and when neighbouring parishes, which had no frontages on the stream, found it convenient to have awharf to send their produce, timber or bricks, away by water. But thewharf has long since perished, though a few black stakes show where itstood; and the village, having no landing-place and no inn, has droppedout of the river life, and minds its own quiet business. 

A few paces from the church the river runs silently and strongly to thegreat weir below. To-day it was swollen with rain and turbid, andplucked steadily at the withies. To-day the stream, which is generallyfull of life, was almost deserted. But it came into my head what anallegory it made. Here through the unvisited meadows, with their hugeelms, runs this thin line of glittering vivid life; you hear, hidden indark leaves, the plash of oars, the grunt of rowlocks, and the chatterof holiday folk, to whom the river-banks are but a picture throughwhich they pass, and who know nothing of the quiet fields that surroundthem. That, I thought, following a train of reflection, is like lifeitself, moving in its bright, familiar channel, so unaware of the broadtracts of mystery that hem it in. May there not be presences, unseen, who look down wondering--as I look to-day through my screen of leafyboughs--on the busy-peopled stream that runs so merrily between itsscarped banks of clay? I know not; yet it seems as though it might beso. 

Beneath the weir, with its fragrant, weedy scent, where the green riverplunges and whitens through the sluices, lies a deep pool, haunted bygenerations of schoolboys, who wander, flannelled and straw-hatted, upthrough the warm meadows to bathe. In such sweet memories I have mypart, when one went riverwards with some chosen friend, speaking withthe cheerful frankness of boyhood of all our small concerns, and all wemeant to do; and then the cool grass under the naked feet, thedelicious recoil of the fresh, tingling stream, and the quiet strollback into the ordered life so full of simple happiness. 

 "Ah! happy fields, ah! pleasing shade, Ah! fields beloved in vain!"

sang the sad poet of Eton--but not in vain, I think, for these oldbeautiful memories are not sad; the good days are over and gone, andthey cannot be renewed; but they are like a sweet spring of youth, whose waters fail not, in which a tired soul may bathe and be cleanagain. They may bring back

 "The times when I remember to have been Joyful, and free from blame. "

To be pensive, not sentimental, is the joy of later life. The thoughtof the sweet things that have had an end, of life lived out andirrevocable, is not a despairing thought, unless it is indulged with anunavailing regret. It is rather to me a sign that, whatever we may beor become, we are surrounded with the same quiet beauty and peace, ifwe will but stretch out our hands and open our hearts to it. To growold patiently and bravely, even joyfully--that is the secret; and it isas idle to repine for the lost joys as it would have been in the formerdays to repine because we were not bigger and stronger and moreambitious. Life, if it does not become sweeter, becomes moreinteresting; fresh ties are formed, fresh paths open out; and thereshould come, too, a simple serenity of living, a certainty that, whatever befall, we are in wise and tender hands. 

So I reasoned with myself beside the little holy church, not far fromthe moving stream. 

But the time warned me to be going. The thunder had drawn off to thewest; a faint breeze stirred and whispered in the elms. The daydeclined. But I had had my moment, and my heart was full; for it issuch moments as these that are the pure gold of life, when the sceneand the mood move together to some sweet goal in perfect unison. Sometimes the scene is there without the mood, or the mood comes andfinds no fitting pasturage; but to-day, both were mine; and thethought, echoing like a strain of rich sad music, passed beyond theelms, beyond the blue hills, back to its mysterious home. . . . 

There, that is the end of my sketch; a little worked up, butsubstantially true. Tell me if you like the kind of thing; if you do, it is rather a pleasure to write thus occasionally. But it may seem toyou to be affected, and, in that case, I won't send you any more ofsuch reveries. 

You seem very happy and prosperous; but then you like heat, and enjoyit like a lizard. My love to all of you. --Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, July 1, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --What you say about forming habits is very interesting. It is quite true that one gets very little done without a certainmethod; and it is equally true that, if one does manage to arrive at acertain definite programme for one's life and work, it is very easy toget a big task done. Just reflect on this fact; it would not bedifficult, in any life, to so arrange things that one could write ashort passage every day, say enough to fill a page of an ordinaryoctavo. Well, if one stuck to it, that would mean that in the course ofa year one would have a volume finished. Sometimes my colleaguesexpress surprise that I can find time for so much literary work; and onthe other hand if I tell them how much time I am able to devote to itthey are equally surprised that I can get anything done, because itseems so little. This is the fact; I can get an hour--possibly two--onTuesday, two hours on Thursday, one on Friday, two on Saturday, and oneor two on Sunday--nine hours a week under favourable circumstances, andnever a moment more. But writing being to me the purest pleasure andrefreshment, I never lose a minute in getting to work, and I use everymoment of the time. That does not include reading; but by dint ofhaving books about, and by working carefully, so that I do not need togo over the same ground twice, I get through a good deal in the week. Ihave trained myself, too, to be able to write at full speed when I amat work, and I can count on writing three octavo pages in an hour, oreven four. The result is, as you will see, that in a term of twelveweeks, I can turn out between three and four hundred pages. The curiousthing is that I do better original work in the term-time than in theholidays. I think the pressure of a good deal of mechanical work, notof an exhausting kind, clears the brain and makes it vigorous. Ofcourse it is rather scrappy work; but I lay my plans in the holidays, make my skeleton, and work up my authorities; and so I can go ahead atfull steam. 

But I have strayed away from the subject of habits; and the moral ofthe above is only that habits are easy enough if you like the taskenough. If I did not care for writing, I should find abundance ofexcellent reasons why I should not do it. 

Pater says somewhere that forming habits is failure in life; by which Isuppose he means that if one gets tied down to a petty routine of one'sown, it generally ends in one's becoming petty too--narrow-minded andconventional. I don't suppose he referred to method, because he was oneof the most methodical of men. He wrote down sentences that came intohis mind, scattered ideas, on small cards; when he had a sufficientstore of these, he sorted them and built up his essay out of them. 

But I am equally aware that habit is apt to become very tyrannicalindeed, if it is acquired. In my own case I have got into the habit ofwriting only between tea and dinner, owing to its being the only timeat my disposal, so that I can hardly write at any other time; and thatis inconvenient in the holidays. Moreover, I like writing so much, enjoy the shaping of sentences so intensely, that I tend to arrange myday in the holidays entirely with a view to having these particularhours free for writing; and thus for a great part of the year I losethe best and most enjoyable part of the day, the sweet summer evenings, when the tired world grows fragrant and cool. 

One ought to have a routine for home life certainly; but it is notwholesome when one begins to grudge the slightest variation from theprogramme. I speak philosophically, because I am in the grip of theevil myself. The reason why I care so little for staying anywhere, andeven for travelling, is because it disarranges my plan of the day, andI don't feel certain of being able to secure the time for writing whichI love. But this is wrong; it is vivendi perdere causas, and I think weought resolutely to court a difference of life at intervals, and tolearn to bear with equanimity the suspension of one's daily habits. Youare certainly wise, if you find it suits you, to secure the morning forwriting. Personally my mind is not at its best then; it is dulled andweakened by sleep, and it requires the tonic of routine work and bodilyexercise before it expands and flourishes. 

Another grievous tendency which grows on me is an incapacity foridleness. That will amuse you, when you remember the long evenings atEton which we used to spend in vacant talk. I remember so well yoursaying after tea one evening, in that poky room of yours with thebarred windows at the end of the upper passage, "How delightful tothink that there are four hours with nothing whatever to do!" Do youremember, too, that night when we sate at tea, blissfully, wholesomelytired after a college match? John and Ellen, those strange, gruffbeings, came in to wash up, carrying that horrible, steaming can oftea-dregs in which our cups were plunged: they cleared the table as wesate; it was over before six, and it was not till the prayer-bell rangat 9. 30 that we became aware we had sate the whole evening with thetable between us. What DID we talk about? I wish to Heaven I could sitand talk like that now! That is another thing which grows upon me, mydislike of mere chatting: it is not priggish to say it, because Iregret and abominate my stupidity in that respect. But there is nothingnow which induces more rapid and more desperate physical fatigue thanto sit still and know I have to pump up talk for an hour. 

The moral of all this is that YOU must take good care to form habits, and _I_ must take care to unform them. YOU must resist the temptationto read the papers, to stroll, to talk to your children; and _I_ musttry to cultivate leisurely propensities. I think that, as aschoolmaster, one might do very good work as a peripatetic talker. Ihave a big garden here--to think that you have never seen it!--with agreat screen of lilacs and some pleasant gravel walks. I never enterit, I am afraid. But if in the pleasant summer I could learn the art ofsitting there, of having tea there, and making a few boys welcome ifthey cared to come, it would be good for all of us, and would give theboys some pleasant memories. I don't think there is anything gives me apleasanter thrill than to recollect the times I spent as a boy in oldHayward's garden. He told me and Francis Howard that we might go andsit there if we liked. You were not invited, and I never dared to askhim. It was a pleasant little place, with a lawn surrounded with trees, and a summer-house full of armchairs, with an orchard behind it--nowbuilt over. Howard and I used at one time to go there a good deal, toread and talk. I remember him reading Shakespeare's sonnets aloud, though I had not an idea what they were all about--but his rich, resonant voice comes back to me now; and then he showed me a MS. Bookof his own poems. Ye Gods, how great I thought them! I copied many ofthem out and have them still. Hayward used to come strolling about; Ican see him standing there in a big straw hat, with his hands behindhim, like the jolly old leisurely fellow he was. "Don't get up, boys, "he used to say. Once or twice he sate with us, and talked lazily aboutsome book we were reading. He never took any trouble to entertain us, but I used to feel that we were welcome, and that it really pleased himthat we cared to come. Now he lives in a suburb, on a pension: why do Inever go to see him?

"La, Perry, how yer do run on!" as the homely Warden's wife said to thevoluble Chaplain. I never meant to write you such a letter; but I amglad indeed to find you really settling down. We must cultivate ourgarden, as Voltaire said; and I only wish that the garden of my ownspirit were more full of "shelter and fountains, " and less stocked withlong rows of humble vegetables; but there are a few flowers here andthere. --Ever yours, T. B. 

MONK'S ORCHARD, UPTON, July 11, 1904. 

MY DEAR HERBERT, --I am going to pour out a pent-up woe. I have justescaped from a very fatiguing experience. I said good-bye this morning, with real cordiality, to a thoroughly uncongenial and disagreeablevisitor. You will probably be surprised when I tell you his name, because he is a popular, successful, and, many people hold, a veryagreeable man. It is that ornament of the Bar, Mr. William Welbore, K. C. His boy is in my house; and Mr. Welbore (who is a widower) invitedhimself to stay a Sunday with me in the tone of one who, if anything, confers a favour. I had no real reason for refusing, and, to speaktruth, any evasion on my part would have been checked by the boy. 

It is a fearful bore here to have any one staying in the house at all, unless he is so familiar an old friend that you can dispense with allceremony. I have no guest-rooms to speak of; and a guest is always inmy study when I want to be there, talking when I want to work, orwanting to smoke at inconvenient times. One's study is also one'soffice; boys keep dropping in, and, when I have an unperceptive guest, I have to hold interviews with boys wherever I can--in passages andbehind doors. What made it worse was that it was a wet Sunday, so thatmy visitor sate with me all day, and I have no doubt thought he wasenlivening a dull professional man with some full-flavouredconversation. Then one has to arrange for separate meals; when I amalone I never, as you know, have dinner, but go in to the boys' supperand have a slice of cold meat. But on this occasion I had to have adinner-party on Saturday and another on Sunday; and the breakfast hour, when I expect to read letters and the paper, was taken up with generalconversation. I am ashamed to think how much discomposed I was; but aschoolmaster is practically always on duty. I wonder how Mr. Welborewould have enjoyed the task of entertaining me for a day or two in hischambers! But one ought not, I confess, to be so wedded to one's ownhabits; and I feel, when I complain, rather like the rich gentleman whosaid to John Wesley, when his fire smoked, "These are some of thecrosses, Mr. Wesley, that I have to bear. "

I could have stood it with more equanimity if only Mr. Welbore had beena congenial guest. But even in the brief time at my disposal I grew todislike him with an intensity of which I am ashamed. I hated hisclothes, his boots, his eye-glass, the way he cleared his throat, theway he laughed. He is a successful, downright, blunt, worldly man, andis generally called a good fellow by his friends. He arrived in timefor tea on Saturday; he talked about his boy a little; the man is inthis case, unlike Wordsworth's hero, the father of the child; and theboy will grow up exactly like him. Young Welbore does his workpunctually and without interest; he plays games respectably; he likesto know the right boys; he is not exactly disagreeable, but he deridesall boys who are in the least degree shy, stupid, or unconventional. Heis quite a little man of the world, in fact. Well, I don't like thattype of creature, and I tried to indicate to the father that I thoughtthe boy was rather on the wrong lines. He heard me with impatience, asthough I was bothering him about matters which belonged to my province;and he ended by laughing, not very agreeably, and saying: "Well, youdon't seem to have much of a case against Charlie; he appears to befairly popular. I confess that I don't much go in for sentiment ineducation; if a boy does his work, and plays his games, and doesn't getinto trouble, I think he is on the right lines. " And then he paid me anoffensive compliment: "I hear you make the boys very comfortable, and Iam sure I am obliged to you for taking so much interest in him. " Hethen went off for a little to see the boy. He appeared at dinner, and Ihad invited two or three of the most intelligent of my colleagues. Mr. Welbore simply showed off. He told stories; he made mirthless legaljokes. One of my colleagues, Patrick, a man of some originality, ventured to dispute an opinion of Mr. Welbore's, and Mr. Welbore turnedhim inside out, by a series of questions, as if he was examining awitness, in a good-natured, insolent way, and ended by saying: "Well, Mr. Patrick, that sort of thing wouldn't do in a law-court, you know;you would have to know your subject better than that. " I was notsurprised, after dinner, at the alacrity with which my colleaguesquitted the scene, on all sorts of professional excuses. Then Mr. Welbore sate up till midnight, smoking strong cigars, and giving me hisideas on the subject of education. That was a bitter pill, for heworsted me in every argument I undertook. 

Sunday was a nightmare day; every spare moment was given up to Mr. Welbore. I breakfasted with him, took him to chapel, took him to theboys' luncheon, walked with him, sate with him, talked with him. Thestrain was awful. The man sees everything from a different point ofview to my own. One ought to be able to put up with that, of course, and I don't at all pretend that I consider my point of view better thanhis; but I had to endure the consciousness that he thought his ownpoint of view in all respects superior to mine. He thought me aslow-coach, an old maid, a sentimentalist; and I had, too, the gallingfeeling that on the whole he approved of a drudge like myself taking arather priggish point of view, and that he did not expect aschoolmaster to be a man of the world, any more than he would haveexpected a curate or a gardener to be. I felt that the man was in hisway a worse prig even than I was, and even more of a Pharisee, becausehe judged everything by a certain conventional standard. His idea oflife was a place where you found out what was the right thing to do;and that if you did that, money and consideration, the only two thingsworth having, followed as a matter of course. "Of course he's not mysort, " was the way in which he dismissed almost the only person wediscussed whom I thoroughly admired. So we went on; and I can only saythat the relief I felt when I saw him drive away on Monday morning wasso great as almost to make it worth while having endured his visit. Ithink he rather enjoyed himself--at least he threatened to pay meanother visit; and I am sure he had the benevolent consciousness ofhaving brought a breath of the big world into a paltry life. The bigworld! what a terrible place it would be if it was peopled by Welbores!My only consolation is that men of his type don't achieve the greatsuccesses. They are very successful up to a certain point; they getwhat they want. Welbore will be a judge before long, and he has alreadymade a large fortune. But there is a demand for more wisdom andgenerosity in the great places--at least I hope so. Welbore's idea ofthe world is a pleasant place where such men as he can make money andhave a good time. He thinks art, religion, beauty, poetry, music, allstuff. I would not mind that if only he did not KNOW it was stuff. Godforbid that we should pretend to enjoy such things if we do not--and, after all, the man is not a hypocrite. But his view is that any one whois cut in a different mould is necessarily inferior; and what put thecrowning touch to my disgust was that on Sunday afternoon we met aCabinet Minister, who is a great student of literature. He talked aboutbooks to Mr. Welbore, and Mr. Welbore heard him with respect, becausethe Minister was in the swim. He said afterwards to me that people'sfoibles were very odd; but he so far respected the Minister's successas to think that he had a right to a foible. He would have crushed oneof my colleagues who had battled in the same way, with a laugh and afew ugly words. 

Well, let me dismiss Mr. Welbore from my mind. The worst of it is that, though I don't agree with him, he has cast a sort of blight on my mind. It is as though I had seen him spit on the face of a statue that Iloved. I don't like vice in any shape; but I equally dislike a personwho has a preference for manly vices over sentimental ones; and theroot of Mr. Welbore's dislike of vice is simply that it tends tointerfere with the hard sort of training which is necessary for success. 

Mr. Welbore, as a matter of fact, seems to me really to augur worse forthe introduction of the kingdom of heaven upon earth than any number ofdrunkards and publicans. One feels that the world is so terriblystrong, stronger even than sin; and what is worse, there seems to be solittle in the scheme of things that could ever give Mr. Welbore thelie. --Ever yours, T. B

UPTON, July 16, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --I declare that the greatest sin there is in the world isstupidity. The character that does more harm in the world than anyother is the character in which stupidity and virtue are combined. Igrow every day more despondent about the education we give at ourso-called classical schools. Here, you know, we are severely classical;and to have to administer such a system is often more than I can bearwith dignity or philosophy. One sees arrive here every year a lot ofbrisk, healthy boys, with fair intelligence, and quite disposed towork; and at the other end one sees depart a corresponding set of younggentlemen who know nothing, and can do nothing, and are profoundlycynical about all intellectual things. And this is the result of themeal of chaff we serve out to them week after week; we collect it, wechop it up, we tie it up in packets; we spend hours administering it inteaspoons, and this is the end. I am myself the victim of this kind ofeducation; I began Latin at seven and Greek at nine, and, when I leftCambridge, I did not know either of them well. I could not sit in anarm-chair and read either a Greek or a Latin book, and I had no desireto do it. I knew a very little French, a very little mathematics, avery little science; I knew no history, no German, no Italian. I knewnothing of art or music; my ideas of geography were childish. And yet Iam decidedly literary in my tastes, and had read a lot of English formyself. It is nothing short of infamous that any one should, after anelaborate education, have been so grossly uneducated. My onlyaccomplishment was the writing of rather pretty Latin verse. 

And yet this preposterous system continues year after year. I had ananimated argument with some of the best of my colleagues the other dayabout it. I cannot tell you how profoundly irritating these wiseacreswere. They said all the stock things--that one must lay a foundation, and that it could only be laid by using the best literatures; thatLatin was essential because it lay at the root of so many otherlanguages; and Greek, because there the human intellect had reached itshigh-water mark, --"and it has such a noble grammar, " one enthusiasticGrecian said; that an active-minded person could do all the rest forhimself. It was in vain to urge that in many cases the whole foundationwas insecure; and that all desire to raise a superstructure waseliminated. My own belief is that Greek and Latin are things to be ledup to, not begun with; that they are hard, high literatures, whichrequire an initiation to comprehend; and that one ought to go backwardsin education, beginning with what one knows. 

It seems to me, to use a similitude, that the case is thus. If onelives in a plain and wishes to reach a point upon a hill, one must makea road from the plain upwards. It will be a road at the base, it willbe a track higher up, and a path at last, used only by those who havebusiness there. But the classical theorists seem to me to make anelaborate section of macadamised road high in the hills, and, havingmade it, to say that the people who like can make their own road inbetween. 

How would I mend all this? Well, I would change methods in the firstplace. If one wanted to teach a boy French or German effectively, sothat he would read and appreciate, one would dispense with much of thegrammar, except what was absolutely necessary. In the case of classicsit is all done the other way; grammar is a subject in itself; boys haveto commit to memory long lists of words and forms which they neverencounter; they have to acquire elaborate analyses of different kindsof usages, which are of no assistance in dealing with the languageitself. It is beginning with the wrong end of the stick. Grammar is thescientific or philosophical theory of language; it may be aninteresting and valuable study for a mind of strong calibre, but itdoes not help one to understand an author or to appreciate a style. 

Then, too, I would sweep away for all but boys of special classicalability most kinds of composition. Fancy teaching a boy side by sidewith the elements of German or French to compose German and Frenchverse, heroic, Alexandrine, or lyrical! The idea has only to be statedto show its fatuity. I would teach boys to write Latin prose, becauseit is a tough subject, and it initiates them into the process ofdisentangling the real sense of the English copy. But I would abolishall Latin verse composition, and all Greek composition of every kindfor mediocre boys. Not only would they learn the languages much faster, but there would be a great deal of time saved as well. Then I wouldabolish the absurd little lessons, with the parsing, and I would at allhazards push on till they could read fluently. 

Of course the above improvement of methods is sketched on thehypothesis that both Greek and Latin are retained. Personally I wouldretain Latin for most, but give up Greek altogether in the majority ofcases. I would teach all boys French thoroughly. I would try to makethem read and write it easily, and that should be the linguistic stapleof their education. Then I would teach them history, mainly modernEnglish history, and modern geography; a very little mathematics andelementary science. Such boys would be, in my belief, well-educated;and they would never be tempted to disbelieve in the usefulness oftheir education. 

When I propound these ideas, my colleagues talk of soft options, and ofeducation without muscle or nerve. My retort is that the majority ofboys educated on classical lines are models of intellectual debility asit is. They are uninterested, cynical, and they cannot even read orwrite the languages which they have been so carefully taught. 

What I want is experiment of every kind; but my cautious friends saythat one would only get something a great deal worse. That I deny. Imaintain that it is impossible to have anything worse, and that themajority of the boys we turn out are intellectually in so negative acondition that any change would be an improvement. 

But I effect nothing; nothing is attempted, nothing done. I do mybest--fortunately our system admits of that--to teach my private pupilsa little history, and I make them write essays. The results aredecidedly encouraging; but meanwhile my colleagues go on in the oldways, quite contented, pathetically conscientious, laboriously slavingaway, and apparently not disquieted by results. 

I am very near the end of my tether--one cannot go on for everadministering a system in which one has lost all faith. If there weresigns of improvement I should be content. If our headmaster would eveninsist upon the young men whom he appoints obtaining a competentknowledge of French and German before they come here it would besomething, because then, when the change is made, there would be lessfriction. But even a new headmaster with liberal ideas would now behopelessly hampered by the fact that he would have a staff who couldnot teach modern subjects at all, who knew nothing but classics, andclassics only for teaching purposes. 

It does me good to pour out my woes to you; I feel my position mostacutely at this time of year, when the serious business of the place iscricket. In cricket the boys are desperately and profoundly interested, not so much in the game, as in the social rewards of playing it well. And my worthy colleagues give themselves to athletics with anearnestness which depresses me into real dejection. One meets a few ofthese beloved men at dinner; a few half-hearted remarks are made aboutpolitics and books; a good deal of vigorous gossip is talked; but if aquestion as to the best time for net-practice, or the erection of aboard for the purpose of teaching slip-catches is mentioned, a profoundseriousness falls on the group. A man sits up in his chair and speakswith real conviction and heat, with grave gestures. "The afternoon, " hesays, "is NOT a good time for nets; the boys are not at their best, andthe pros. Are less vigorous after their dinner. Whatever arrangementsare made as to the times for school, the evening MUST be given up tonets. "

The result is a pedantry, a priggishness, a solemnity about games whichis simply deplorable. The whole thing seems to me to be distorted andout of proportion. I am one of those feeble people to whom exercise isonly a pleasure and a recreation. If I don't like a game I don't playit. I do not see why I should be bored by my recreations. An immensenumber of boys are bored by their games, but they dare not say sobecause public opinion is so strong. As the summer goes on they availthemselves of every excuse to give up the regular games; and almost theonly boys who persevere are boys who are within reach of some coveted"colour, " which gives them social importance. What I desire is thatboys should be serious about their work in a practical, business-likeway, and amused by their games. As a matter of fact they are seriousabout games and profoundly bored by their work. The work is a relieffrom the tension of games, and if it were wholly given up, and gameswere played from morning to night, many boys would break down under thestrain. I don't expect all the boys to be enthusiastic about theirwork; all healthily constituted people prefer play to work, I myselfnot least. But I want them to believe in it and to be interested in it, in the way that a sensible professional man is interested in his work. What produces the cynicism about work so common in classical schools isthat the work is of a kind which does not seem to lead anywhere, andclassics are a painful necessity which the boys intend to banish fromtheir mind as soon as they possibly can. 

This is a melancholy jeremiad, I am well aware; but it is also a frameof mind which grows upon me; and, to come back to my originalproposition, it is the stupidity of virtuous men which is responsiblefor the continuance of this arid, out-of-joint system. --Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, July 22, 1904. 

MY DEAR HERBERT, --. . . I took a lonely walk to-day, and returnedthrough a new quarter of the town. When I first knew it, thirty yearsago, there was a single house here--an old farm, with a pair of prettygables of mellow brick, and a weathered, solid, brick garden-wall thatran along the road; an orchard below; all round were quiet fields; afine row of elms stood at the end of the wall. It was a place of nogreat architectural merit, but it had grown old there, having beenbuilt with solidity and dignity, and having won a simple grace from thequiet influences of rain and wind and sun. Very gradually it becameengulphed. First a row of villas came down to the farm, badly plannedand coarsely coloured; then a long row of yellow-brick houses appearedon the other side, and the house began to wear a shy, regretful air, like a respectable and simple person who has fallen into vulgarcompany. To-day I find that the elms have been felled; the old wall, sostrongly and firmly built, is half down; the little garden within isfull of planks and heaps of brick, the box hedges trodden down, theflowers trampled underfoot; the house itself is marked for destruction. 

It made me perhaps unreasonably sad. I know that population mustincrease, and that people had better live in convenient houses neartheir work. The town is prosperous enough; there is work in plenty andgood wages. There is nothing over which a philanthropist and a socialreformer ought not to rejoice. But I cannot help feeling the loss of asimple and beautiful thing, though I know it appealed to few people, and though the house was held to be inconvenient and out of date. Ifeel as if the old place must have acquired some sort of personality, and must be suffering the innocent pangs of disembodiment. I know thatthere is abundance of the same kind of simple beauty everywhere; andyet I feel that a thing which has taken so long to mature, and whichhas drunk in and appropriated so much sweetness from the gentle handsof nature, ought not so ruthlessly and yet so inevitably to sufferdestruction. 

But it brought home to me a deeper and a darker thing still--the sadchange and vicissitude of things, the absence of any permanence in thislife of ours. We enter it so gaily, and, as a child, one feels that itis eternal. That is in itself so strange--that the child himself, whois so late an inmate of the family home, so new a care to his parents, should feel that his place in the world is so unquestioned, and thatthe people and things that surround him are all part of the settledorder of life. It was, indeed, to me as a child a strange shock todiscover, as I did from old schoolroom books, that my mother herselfhad been a child so short a time before my own birth. 

Then life begins to move on, and we become gradually, very gradually, conscious of the swift rush of things. People round us begin to die, and drop out of their places. We leave old homes that we have loved. Wehurry on ourselves from school to college; we enter the world. Then, insuch a life as my own has been, the lesson comes insistently near. Boyscome under our care, little tender creatures; a few days seem to passand they are young and dignified men; a few years later they return asparents, to see about placing boys of their own; and one can hardlytrace the boyish lineaments in the firm-set, bearded faces of manhood. 

Then our own friends begin to be called away; faster and faster runsthe stream; anniversaries return with horrible celerity; and soon weknow that we must die. 

What is one to hold on to in such a swift flux of things? The pleasureswe enjoy at first fade; we settle down by comfortable firesides; wepile the tables with beloved books; friends go and come; we acquirehabits; we find out our real tastes. We learn the measure of ourpowers. And yet, however simple and clear our routine becomes, we arewarned every now and then by sharp lessons that it is all onsufferance, that we have no continuing city; and we begin to see, somelater, some earlier, that we must find something to hold on to, something eternal and everlasting in which we can rest. There must besome anchor of the soul. And then I think that many of us take refugein a mere stoical patience; we drink our glass when it is filled, andif it stands empty we try not to complain. 

Now I am turning out, so to speak, the very lining of my mind to you. The anchor cannot be a material one, for there is no security there; itcannot be purely intellectual, for that is a shifting thing too. Thewell of the spirit is emptied, gradually and tenderly; we must find outwhat the spring is that can fill it up. Some would say that one's faithcould supply the need, and I agree in so far as I believe that it mustbe a species of faith, in a life where our whole being and ending issuch an impenetrable mystery. But it must be a deeper faith even thanthe faith of a dogmatic creed; for that is shifting, too, every day, and the simplest creed holds some admixture of human temperament andhuman error. 

To me there are but two things that seem to point to hope. The first isthe strongest and deepest of human things, the power of love--not, Ithink, the more vehement and selfish forms of love, the desire of youthfor beauty, the consuming love of the mother for the infant--for thesehave some physical admixture in them. But the tranquil and purermanifestations of the spirit, the love of a father for a son, of afriend for a friend; that love which can light up a face upon the edgeof the dark river, and can smile in the very throes of pain. That seemsto me the only thing which holds out a tender defiance against changeand suffering and death. 

And then there is the faith in the vast creative mind that bade us be;mysterious and strange as are its manifestations, harsh and indifferentas they sometimes seem, yet at worst they seem to betoken a lovingpurpose thwarted by some swift cross-current, like a mighty rivercontending with little obstacles. Why the obstacles should be there, and how they came into being, is dark indeed. But there is enough tomake us believe in a Will that does its utmost, and that is assured ofsome bright and far-off victory. 

A faith in God and a faith in Love; and here seems to me to lie thestrength and power of the Christian Revelation. It is to these twothings that Christ pointed men. Though overlaid with definition, withfalse motive, with sophistry, with pedantry, this is the deep secret ofthe Christian Creed; and if we dare to link our will with the Will ofGod, however feebly, however complainingly, if we desire and endeavournot to sin against love, not to nourish hate or strife, to hold out thehand again and again to any message of sympathy or trust, not tostruggle for our own profit, not to reject tenderness, to believe inthe good faith and the good-will of men, we are then in the way. We maymake mistakes, we may fail a thousand times, but the key of heaven isin our hands. . . . --Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, July 29, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --You must forgive me if this is a very sentimentalletter, but this is the day that, of all days in the year, is to memost full of pathos--the last day of the summer half. My heart is likea full sponge and must weep a little. The last few days have been fullto the brim of work and bustle--reports to be written, papers to belooked over. Yesterday was a day of sad partings. Half-a-dozen boys areleaving; and I have tried my best to tell them the truth aboutthemselves; to say something that would linger in their minds, and yetto do it in a tender and affectionate way. And some of these boys'hearts are full to bursting too. I remember as if it were yesterday thelast meeting at Eton of a Debating Society of which I was a member. Wewere electing new members and passing votes of thanks. Scott, who wasthen President and, as you remember, Captain of the Eleven, sate in hishigh chair above the table; opposite him, with his minute-book, wasRiddell, then Secretary--that huge fellow in the Eight, you recollect. The vote of thanks to the President was carried; he said a few words ina broken voice, and sate down; the Secretary's vote of thanks wasproposed, and he, too, rose to make acknowledgment. In the middle ofhis speech we were attracted by a movement of the President. He put hishead in his hands and sobbed aloud. Riddell stopped, faltered, lookedround, and leaving his sentence unfinished, sate down, put his face onthe book and cried like a child. I don't think there was a dry eye inthe room. And these boys were not sentimental, but straightforwardyoung men of the world, honest, and, if anything, rather contemptuous, I had thought, of anything emotional. I have never forgotten thatscene, and have interpreted many things in the light of it. 

Well, this morning I woke early and heard all the bustle of departure. Depression fell on me; soon I got up, with a blessed sense of leisure, breakfasted at my ease, saw one or two boys, special friends, who cameto me very grave and wistful. Then I wrote letters and did business;and this afternoon--it is fearfully hot--I have been for a strollthrough the deserted fields and street. 

So another of these beautiful things which we call the summer half isover, never to be renewed. There has been some evil, of course. I wishI could think otherwise. But the tone is good, and there have been noneof those revelations of darkness that poison the mind. There has beenidleness (I don't much regret that), and of course the usual worries. But the fact remains that a great number of happy, sensible boys havebeen living perhaps the best hours of their life, with equal, pleasantfriendships, plenty of games, some wholesome work and discipline tokeep all sweet, with this exquisite background of old towers andhigh-branching elms, casting their shade over rich meadow-grass; thescene will come back to these boys in weary hours, perhaps in sun-bakedforeign lands, perhaps in smoky offices--nay, even on aching deathbeds, parched with fever. 

The whole place has an incredibly wistful air, as though it missed theyoung life that circulated all about it; as though it spread itsbeauties out to be used and enjoyed, and wondered why none came toclaim them. As a counterpoise to this I like to think of all thehappiness flowing into hundreds of homes; the father and mother waitingfor the sound of the wheels that bring the boy back; the children whohave gone down to the lodge to welcome the big brothers with shouts andkisses; and the boy himself, with all the dear familiar scene and homefaces opening out before him. We ought not to grudge the lonelinesshere before the thought of all those old and blessed joys of life thatare being renewed elsewhere. 

But I am here, a lonely man, wondering and doubting and desiring Ihardly know what. Some nearness of life, some children of my own. Youare apt to think of yourself as shelved and isolated; yet, after all, you have the real thing--wife, children, and home. But, in my case, these boys who are dear to me have forgotten me already. Disguise it asI will, I am part of the sordid furniture of life that they have sogladly left behind, the crowded corridor, the bare-walled schoolroom, the ink-stained desk. They are glad to think that they have not toassemble to-morrow to listen to my prosing, to bear the blows of theuncle's tongue, as Horace says. They like me well enough--for aschoolmaster; I know some of them would even welcome me, with atimorous joy, to their own homes. 

I have had the feeling of my disabilities brought home to me lately ina special way. There is a boy in my house that I have tried hard tomake friends with. He is a big, overgrown creature, with a perfectlysimple manner. He has innumerable acquaintances in the school, but onlya very few friends. He is amiable with every one, but guards his heart. He is ambitious in a quiet way, and fond of books, and, being broughtup in a cultivated home, he can talk more unaffectedly and with a moregenuine interest about books than any boy I have ever met. Well, I havedone my best, as I say, to make friends with him. I have lent himbooks; I have tried to make him come and see me; I have talked my bestwith him, and he has received it all with polite indifference; I can'twin his confidence, somehow. I feel that if I were only not in thetutorial relation, it would be easy work. But perhaps I frightened himas a little boy, perhaps I bored him; anyhow the advances are all on myside, and there seems a hedge of shyness through which I cannot break. Sometimes I have thought it is simply a case of "crabbed age andyouth, " and that I can't put myself sufficiently in line with him. Imissed seeing him last night--he was out at some school festivity, andthis morning he has gone without a word or a sign. I have made friendsa hundred times with a tenth of the trouble, and I suppose it is justbecause I find this child so difficult to approach that I fret myselfover the failure; and all the more because I know in my heart that heis a really congenial nature, and that we do think the same about manythings. Of course, most sensible people would not care a brass farthingabout such an episode, and would succeed where I have failed, because Ithink it is the forcing of attentions upon him that this proud youngperson resents. I must try and comfort myself by thinking that my verycapacity for vexing myself over the business is probably the very thingwhich makes it easy as a rule for me to succeed. 

Well, I must turn to my books and my bicycle and my writing forconsolation, and to the blessed sense of freedom which luxuriates aboutmy tired brain. But books and art and the beauties of nature, I beginto have a dark suspicion, are of the nature of melancholy consolationsfor the truer stuff of life--for friendships and loves and dearerthings. 

I sit writing in my study, the house above me strangely silent. Theevening sun lies golden on the lawn and among the apple-trees of mylittle orchard; but the thought of the sweet time ended lies ratherheavy on my heart--the wonder what it all means, why we should havethese great hopes and desires, these deep attachments in the short daysthat God gives us. "What a world it is for sorrow, " wrote a wise andtender-hearted old schoolmaster on a day like this; "and how dull itwould be if there were no sorrow. " I suppose that this is true; but tobe near things and yet not to grasp them, to desire and not to attain, and to go down to darkness in the end, like the shadow of a dream--whatcan heal and sustain one in the grip of such a mood?--Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, Aug. 4, 1904. 

MY DEAR HERBERT, --I have just been over to Woodcote; I have had a fewdays here alone at the end of the half, and was feeling so stupid andlazy this morning that I put a few sandwiches in my pocket and went offon a bicycle for the day. It is only fifteen miles from here, so that Ihad two or three hours to spend there. You know I was born at Woodcoteand lived there till I was ten years old. I don't know the presentowner of the Lodge, where we lived; but if I had written and asked togo and see the house, they would have invited me to luncheon, and allmy sense of freedom would have gone. 

It is thirty years since we left, and I have not been there, near as itis, for twenty years. I did not know how deeply rooted the whole scenewas in my heart and memory, but the first sight of the familiar placesgave me a very curious thrill, a sort of delicious pain, a yearning forthe old days--I can't describe it or analyse it. It seemed somehow asif the old life must be going on there behind the pine-woods if I couldonly find it; as if I could have peeped over the palings and seenmyself going gravely about some childish business in the shrubberies. Ifind that my memory is curiously accurate in some respects, andcuriously at fault in others. The scale is all wrong. What appears tome in memory to be an immense distance, from Woodcote to Dewhurst, forinstance, is now reduced to almost nothing; and places which I can seequite accurately in my mind's eye are now so different that I canhardly believe that they were ever like what I recollect of them. Ofcourse the trees have grown immensely; young plantations have becomewoods, and woods have disappeared. I spent my time in wandering about, retracing the childish walks we used to take, looking at the church, the old houses, the village green, and the mill-pool. One thing camehome to me very much. When I was born my father had only been settledat Woodcote for two years; but, as I grew up, it seemed to me we musthave lived there for all eternity; now I see that he was only one in along procession of human visitants who have inhabited and loved theplace. Another thing that has gone is the mystery of it all. Then, every road was a little ribbon of familiar ground stretching out to theunknown; all the fields and woods which lay between the roads and pathswere wonderful secret places, not to be visited. I find I had no ideaof the lie of the ground, and, what is more remarkable, I don't seemever to have seen the views of the distance with which the place nowabounds. I suppose that when one is a small creature, palings andhedges are lofty obstacles; and I suppose also that the little busyeyes are always searching the nearer scene for things to FIND, and donot concern themselves with what is far. The sight of the Lodge itself, with its long white front among the shrubberies and across the pastureswas almost too much for me; the years seemed all obliterated in aflash, and I felt as if it was all there unchanged. 

I suppose I had a very happy childhood; but I certainly was not in theleast conscious of it at the time. I was a very quiet, busy child, withall sorts of small secret pursuits of my own to attend to, to whichlessons and social engagements were sad interruptions; but now it seemsto me like a golden, unruffled time full of nothing but pleasure. Curiously enough, I can't remember anything but the summer days there;I have no remembrance of rain or cold or winter or leaflesstrees--except days of snow when the ponds were frozen and there was thewild excitement of skating. My recollections are all of flowers, androses, and trees in leaf, and hours spent in the garden. In the veryhot summer weather my father and mother used to dine out in the garden, and it seems now to me as if they must have done so all the year round;I can remember going to bed, with my window open on to the lawn, andhearing the talk, and the silence, and then the soft clink of thethings being removed as I sank into sleep. It is a great mystery, thatfaculty of the mind for forgetting all the shadows and rememberingnothing but the sunlight; it is so deeply rooted in humanity that it ishard not to believe that it means something; one dares to hope that ifour individual life continues after death, this instinct--if memoryremains--will triumph over the past, even in the case of lives ofsordid misery and hopeless pain. 

Then, too, one wonders what the strong instinct of permanence means, increatures that inhabit the world for so short and troubled a space; whyinstinct should so contradict experience; why human beings have notacquired in the course of centuries a sense of the fleetingness ofthings. All our instincts seem to speak of permanence; all ourexperience points to swift and ceaseless change. I cannot fathom it. 

As I wandered about Woodcote my thoughts took a sombre tinge, and thelacrimae rerum, the happy days gone, the pleasant groups broken up tomeet no more, the old faces departed, the voices that are silent--allthese thoughts began to weigh on my mind with a sad bewilderment. Onefeels so independent, so much the master of one's fate; and yet whenone returns to an old home one begins to wonder whether one has anypower of choice at all. There is this strange fence of self andidentity drawn for me round one tiny body; all that is outside of ithas no existence for me apart from consciousness. These are fruitlessthoughts, but one cannot always resist them; and why one is here, whatthese vivid feelings mean, what one's heart-hunger for the sweet worldand for beloved people means--all this is dark and secret; and thestrong tide bears us on, out of the little harbour of childhood intounknown seas. 

Dear Woodcote, dear remembered days, beloved faces and voices of thepast, old trees and fields! I cannot tell what you mean and what youare; but I can hardly believe that, if I have a life beyond, it willnot somehow comprise you all; for indeed you are my own for ever; youare myself, whatever that self may be. --Ever yours, T. B. 

P. S. --By the way, I want you to do something for me; I want a MAP ofyour house and of the sitting-rooms. I want to see where you usuallysit, to read or write. And more than that, I want a map of the roadsand paths round about, with your ordinary walks and strolls marked inred. I don't feel I quite realise the details enough. 

SENNICOTTS, HONEY HILL, EAST GRINSTEAD, Aug. 9, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --I am making holiday, with the voice of praise andthanksgiving, like the people in the Psalm, and working, oh! howgratefully, at one of my eternal books. Depend upon it, for simplepleasure, there is nothing like writing. I am staying with Bradby, whohas taken a cottage in Sussex. He has had his holiday, so that he goesup to town every day; it does not sound very friendly to say that thisarrangement exactly suits me, but so it is. I work and write in themorning, walk or bicycle in the afternoon, and then we dine together, and spend peaceful evenings, reading or talking. 

But this is not the point. I came in yesterday to tea, saw anunfamiliar hat in the hall, and found to my surprise James Cooper, whomyou remember at Eton as a boy. I knew him a little there, and saw agood deal of him at Cambridge; and we have kept up a very fitfulcorrespondence at long intervals ever since. 

I am ashamed to confess that I was bored, though I trust to Heaven Idid not show it; I had come back from my ride brimming over with ideas, and was in the condition of a person who is holding his breath, dyingto blow it all out. Cooper said that he had heard that I was in theneighbourhood, and he had accordingly come over, a considerabledistance, to see me. He is in business, and appears to be prospering. We had tea, and there was a good deal to talk about; but Cooper showedno signs of moving, and said at last that he thought he would stay andsee Bradby--perhaps dine with us. So we walked about the garden, and Igradually became aware, with regret and misery, that I was in thepresence of a bore. Yes, James Cooper is a bore! He had a great deal tosay, mostly on subjects with which I was not acquainted. He has becomea botanist, and seemed full to the brim of uninteresting information. He stayed till Bradby came, he dined, he talked. At last he decided hemust go; but he talked in the hall, he talked in the porch. He pressedus to come over and see him, and it was evidently a great pleasure tohim to meet us again. Since his visit I have been pondering deeply. What is one's duty in these matters? How far ought loyalty to oldfriends to go? I confess that I am somewhat vexed and dissatisfied withmyself for not being more simply pleased to see an old comrade--actaenon alio rege puertiae, and all that. But what if the old comrade is abore? What are the claims of friendship on busy men? I have a good manyold friends in all parts of England--ought I to use my holidays intouring about to see them? I am inclined to think that I am not boundto do so. But suppose that Cooper goes away, and says to another friendthat I am a man who forgets old ties; that he took some trouble to seeme, and found me absorbed, and not particularly glad to see him? Ihope, indeed, that this was not his impression; but boredom is a subtlething, and it is difficult to keep it out of one's manner, howeverreligiously one tries to be cheerful. Well, if he DOES feel thus, is heright and am I wrong? His whole life lies on different lines to my own, and though we had much in common in the old pleasant days, we have notmuch in common now. It is quite possible that he thinks I am a bore;and it is even possible that he is right there too. But, que faire? quepenser? I can honestly say that if Cooper wanted my help, my advice, mysympathy, I would give it him without grudging. But is it a part ofloyalty that I must desire to see him, and even to be bored by him? Iam inclined to think that if I had a simpler, more affectionate nature, I should probably NOT be bored, but that in my gladness at the sight ofan old friend and the reviving of old memories, the idea of criticismwould die a natural death. 

What I have suffered from all my life is making friends too easily. Itis so painful to me being with a person who seems to be dull, that Ihave always instinctively tried to be interested in, and to interest mycompanion. The result has been--I am making a very barefacedconfession--that I have been often supposed to be more friendly than Ireally am, and to allow a certain claim of loyalty to be establishedwhich I could not sincerely sustain. --Ever yours, T. B. 

KNAPSTEAD VICARAGE, BALDOCK, Aug. 14, 1904. 

MY DEAR HERBERT, --A curious little incident occurred to meyesterday--so curious, so inexplicable, that I cannot refrain fromtelling it to you, though it has no solution and no moral so far as Ican see. I am staying with an old family friend, Duncan by name--youdon't know him--who is a parson near Hitchin. We were to have gone fora bicycle ride together, but he was called away on sudden business, andas the only other member of the party is my friend's wife, who is muchof an invalid, I went out alone. 

I went off through Baldock and Ashwell. And I must interrupt my storyfor a moment to tell you about the latter. Above a large hamlet ofirregularly built and scattered white houses, many of them thatched, most of them picturesque, rises one of the most beautiful, moulderingchurch towers I have ever seen. It is more like a weather-worncrag-pinnacle than a tower; it is of great height, and the dim andblurred outlines of its arched windows and buttresses communicate asingular grace of underlying form to the broken and fretted stone. Ifear that it must before long be restored, if it is to hold togethermuch longer; all I can say is that I am thankful to have seen it in itshour of decay. It is infinitely patient and pathetic. Its solemn, ruinous dignity, its tender grace, make it like some aged andsanctified spirit that has borne calamity and misfortune with a sweetand gentle trust. A little farther on in the village is anotherextraordinarily beautiful thing. The road, while still almost in thestreet, passes across a little embankment; and on the left hand youlook down into a pit, like a quarry, full of ash-trees, and with athick undergrowth of bushes and tall plants. From a dozen littleexcavations leap and bicker crystal rivulets of water, hurrying downstony channels, uniting in a pool, and then moving off, a full-fedstream, among quiet water-meadows. It is one of the sources of the Cam. The water is deliciously cool and clear, running as it does straightoff the chalk. No words of mine can do justice to the wonderful purityand peace of the place. I found myself murmuring over those perfectlines of Marvell--you know them?--

 "Might a soul bathe there and be clean, And slake its drought?"

These two sights, the tower and the well-head, put my mind into tune;and I went on my way rejoicing, with that delicate elation of spiritthat rarely visits one. Everything I saw had an airy quality, aflavour, an aroma, I know not how to describe it. Now I caught thesunlight on the towering greenness of an ancient elm; now a wide viewover flat pastures, with a pool fringed deep in rushes, came in sight;now an old manorial farm held up its lichened chimneys above a row ofpollarded elms. I came at last, by lanes and byways, to a silentvillage that seemed entirely deserted. The men, I suppose, were allworking in the fields; the cottage doors stood open; near the littlecommon rose an old high-shouldered church, much overgrown with ivy. Thesun lay pleasantly upon its leaded roof, and among the grass-growngraves. I left my bicycle by the porch, and at first could not find anentrance; but at last I discovered that a low, priest's door that ledinto the chancel, was open. The church had an ancient and holy smell. It was very cool in there out of the sun. I turned into the nave, andwandered about for a few moments, noting the timbered roof, the remainsof old frescoes on the walls; the tomb of a knight who lay still andstiff, his head resting on his hand. I read an epitaph or two, with thefaint cry of love and grief echoing through the stilted phraseology ofthe tomb, and then I went back to the altar. 

On a broad slab of slate, immediately below the altar steps, laysomething dark; I bent down to look at it, and then realised, with acurious sense of horror, that it was a little pool of blood; beside itlay two large jagged stones, also stained with blood, which had driedinto a viscous paste upon them. It seemed as if the stoning of somemartyr had taken place, and that, the first horrible violence done, thedeed had been transferred to the open air. What made it still strangerto me was that in the east window was a rude representation of thestoning of Stephen; and I have since discovered that the church isdedicated to him. 

I cannot give you the smallest hint of explanation. Indeed, ponderingover it, I cannot conceive of any circumstances which can in any wayaccount for what I saw. I wandered out into the churchyard--for thesight gave me a curious chill of horror--and I could see nothing thatcould further enlighten me. A few yards beyond stood the rectory, embowered in thickets. It seemed to be deserted; the windows were darkand undraped; no smoke went up from the chimneys. It suddenly appearedto me that I must be the victim of some strange hallucination, So Istepped again within the church to see if my senses had played mefalse. But no! there were the stones, and the blood beside them. 

The sun began to decline to his setting; the shadows lengthened anddarkened, as I rode slowly away, with a shadow on my spirit. I felt Ihad somehow seen a type, a mystery. These incidents do not befall oneby chance, and I was sure, in some remote way, that I had looked, as itwere, for a moment into a dark avenue of the soul; that I was bidden tothink, to ponder. These tokens of violence and death, the bloodoutpoured, in witness of pain, in the heart of the quiet sanctuary, before the very altar of the God of peace and love. What is it that wedo that is like that? What is it that _I_ do? I will not tell you howthe message shaped itself for me; perhaps you can guess; but it came, it formed itself out of the dark, and in that silent hour a voicecalled sharply in my spirit. 

But I must not end thus. I came home; I told my tale; I found my friendreturned. He nodded gravely and wonderingly, and I think he halfunderstood. But his wife was full of curiosity. She made me tell andretell the incident. "Was there no one you could ask?" she said; "Iwould not have rested till I had solved it. " She even bade me tell herthe name of the place, but I refused. "Do you mean to say you don'tWANT to know?" she said. "No, " I said; "I had rather not know. " Towhich, rather petulantly, she said, "Oh, you MEN!" That evening aneighbouring parson, his wife, and daughter, came to dine. I was biddento tell my story again, and the same scene was re-enacted. "Was thereno one you could find to ask?" said the girl. I laughed and said, "Idaresay I could have found some one, but I did not want to know. I hadrather have my little mystery, " I added; and then we men interchanged anod, while the women looked sharply at each other. "Is it not quiteincredible?" my friend's wife said. And the daughter added, "I, forone, will not rest till I have discovered. "

That, I suppose, is the difference between the masculine and thefeminine mind. You will understand me; but read the story to your wifeand daughters, and they will say, "Was there no one he could haveasked?" and "I would not rest till I had discovered. " Meanwhile I onlyhope that my maiden's efforts will prove unavailing. --Ever yours, T. B. 

GREENHOWE, SEDBERGH, Aug. 21, 1904. 

MY DEAR HERBERT, --I suppose I am very early Victorian in my tastes; butI have just been reading Jane Eyre again with intense satisfaction. (Iwill tell you presently WHY I have been reading it. ) I read it first asa boy at Eton, and I must have read it twenty times since. I know thatmuch of it is grotesque, but it seems to me that its grotesqueness isnot absurd, any more than the stiff animals and trees or hills in theearly Italian pictures are absurd; one smiles, not contemptuously, buttenderly at it all. 

Again, there are two ways of treating a work of art. If a portrait, forinstance, is intensely realistic and true to its original, one says, "How lifelike!" If it is widely unlike the original, one can alwayssay, "How symbolical!" Of the first kind of portrait one may say thatit brings the man before you; of the latter you may say that the artisthas striven to paint the soul rather than the body. Well, I think it isfair to call Jane Eyre symbolical. Some of the people depicted are verytrue to life. The old, comfortable, good-humoured housekeeper, Mrs. Fairfax; Bessie the nursemaid; Adele, the little French girl, Mr. Rochester's ward; the two Rivers sisters--they are admirable portraits. But Mr. Rochester, the haughty Baroness Ingram of Ingram Park, MissIngram, who says to the footman, "Leave that chatter, blockhead, and domy bidding, " St. John Rivers, the blue-eyed fanatic--these arecaricatures or types, according as you like to view them. To me theyare types: characters finely conceived, and only exaggerated becauseCharlotte Bronte had never mixed with people of that species inordinary life. But I think that one can see into the souls of thesepeople in spite of the exaggerations of speech and gesture andbehaviour which disfigure them. Yet it is not primarily for thecharacter-drawing that I value the book. What attracts me is theromance, the beauty, the poetry of the whole, and a special union ofintellectual force, with passion at white heat, which breathes throughthem. The love scenes have the same strange glow that I always feel inTennyson's "Come into the garden, Maud, " where the pulse of the loverthrills under one's hand with the love that beats from the heart of theworld. And then, too, Charlotte Bronte seems to me to have had anincomparable gift of animating a natural scene with vivid humanemotions. The frost-bound day, when the still earth holds its breath, when the springs are congealed, and the causeway is black with slipperyice, in that hour when Jane Eyre first sees Mr. Rochester; and againthe scene in the summer garden, just before the thunderstorm, when Mr. Rochester calls her to look at the great hawk-moth drinking from theflower chalice. Such scenes have a vitality that makes them as real tome as scenes upon which my own eyes have rested. 

Again, I know no writer who has caught the poetry of the hearth likeCharlotte Bronte. The evening hours, when the fire leaps in thechimney, and the lamp is lit, and the homeless wind moans outside, andthe contented mind possesses its dreams--I know nothing like that inany book. 

Indeed, I do not know any books which give me quite the sense of geniusthat Charlotte Bronte's bring me. I find it difficult to define wherethe genius lies; but the love which she dares to depict seems to me tohave a different quality to any other love; it is the passionate ardourof a pure soul; it embraces body, mind, and heart alike; it is a lovethat pierces through all disguises, and is the worship of spirit forspirit at the very root of being; such love is not lightly conceived oreasily given; it is not born of chance companionship, of fleshlydesire, of a craving to share the happiness of a buoyant spirit ofsunshine and sweetness; it is rather nurtured in gloom and sadness, itdemands a corresponding depth and intensity, it requires to discern inits lover a deep passion for the beauty of virtue. It is one of thetriumphs of Jane Eyre that the love she feels for Mr. Rochester piercesthrough those very superficial vices which would be most abhorrent tothe pure nature, if it were not for the certainty that such vice wasthe disguise and not the essence of the soul. And here lies, I think, the uplifting hopefulness of Jane Eyre, the Christ-like power ofrecognising the ardent spirit of love behind gross faults of both theanimal and the intellectual nature. 

I do not know if you ever came across a book--I must send it you if youhave not seen it--which moves me and feeds my spirit more than almostany book I know--the Letters and Journals of William Cory. He was amaster at Eton, you know, but before our time; and his life was rathera disappointed one; but he had that remarkable union of qualities whichI think is very rare--hard intellectual force with passionatetenderness. I suppose that, as far as mental ability went, he was oneof the very foremost men of his day. He had a faultless memory, greatclearness and vigour of thought, and perfect lucidity of expression. But he valued these gifts very little in comparison with feeling, whichwas his real life. It always interests me deeply to find that he hadthe same opinion of Charlotte Bronte that I hold; and indeed I havealways thought that, allowing for a difference of nationality, he wasvery much the kind of man whom she depicted in Villette as PaulEmmanuel. 

Personality is, after all, the ultimate foundation of art, and I thinkthat what I value most of all in Charlotte Bronte's books is therevelation of herself that they afford. The shy, frail, indomitable, ardent creature, inured to poverty and hardness, without illusions, without material temptations, but all aglow with the sacred fire--suchis the character that here emerges. Charlotte Bronte as a writer seemsto me like a burning-glass which concentrates on one intense point thefiercest fire of the soul. I would humbly believe that there is much ofthis spirit in the world, but that it seldom co-exists with theartistic power, the intellectual force, that enables it to expressitself. 

And now I will tell you what has made me take up Jane Eyre again atthis time. I was bicycling a day or two ago in a secluded valley underthe purple heights of Ingleboro'. I passed a little village, with a bigbuilding standing by a stream below the road, called Lowood. It cameinto my head as a pleasant thought that some place like this might havebeen the scene of the schooldays of Jane Eyre; but I thought no more ofit, till a little while after I saw a tablet in the wall of a house bythe wayside. I dismounted, and behold! it was the very place, the verybuilding where Charlotte Bronte spent her schooldays. It was a low, humble building, now divided into cottages. But you can still see thewindows of the dormitory, the little kitchen garden, the brawlingstream, the path across the meadows, and, beyond all, the long line ofthe moor. In a house just opposite was a portrait of Mr. Brocklehursthimself (his real name was Carus-Wilson), so sternly, and I expectunjustly, gibbetted in the book. That was a very sacred hour for me. Ithought of Miss Temple and Helen Burns; I thought of the cold, theprivation, the rigour of that comfortless place. But I felt that it wasgood to be there. I drew nearer in that hour to the unquenched spiritthat battled so gloriously with life and with its worst terrors andsorrows, and that wrote so firmly and truly its pure hopes and immortaldreams. . . . --Ever yours, T. B. 

ASHFIELD, SETTLE, Aug. 27, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --You ask me to send you out some novels, and you have putme in a difficulty. It seems hardly worth while sending out books whichwill just be read once or twice in a lazy mood and then thrown aside;yet I can find no others. It seems to me that our novelists are at thepresent moment affected by the same wave which seems to be passing overthe whole of our national life; we have in every department a largenumber of almost first-rate people, men of talent and ability; but veryfew geniuses, very few people of undisputed pre-eminence. In literaturethis is particularly the case; poets, historians, essayists, dramatists, novelists; there are so many that reach a high level ofaccomplishment, and do excellent work; but there are no giants, or theyare very small ones. Personally, I do not read a great many novels; andI find myself tending to revert again and again to my old favourites. 

Of course there are some CONSPICUOUS novelists. There is GeorgeMeredith, though he has now almost ceased to write; to speak candidly, though I recognise his genius, his creative power, his noble and subtleconception of character, yet I do not feel the reality of his books; orrather I feel that the reality is there, but disguised from me by aveil--a dim and rich veil, it is true--which is hung between me and thescene. The veil is George Meredith's personality. I confess that it isa dignified personality enough, the spirit of a grand seigneur. But Ifeel in reading his books as if I were staying with a magnificentperson in a stately house; but that, when I wanted to go about and lookat things for myself, my host, with splendid urbanity, insisted onaccompanying me, pointed out objects that interested himself, andtranslated the remarks of the guests and the other people who appearedupon the scene into his own peculiar diction. The characters do nottalk as I think they would have talked, but as George Meredith wouldhave talked under the given circumstances. There is no repose about hisbooks; there is a sense not only of intellectual but actually of moraleffort about reading them; and further, I do not like the style; it ishighly mannerised, and permeated, so to speak, with a kind of richperfume, a perfume which stupefies rather than enlivens. Even when thecharacters are making what are evidently to them perfectly natural andstraightforward remarks, I do not feel sure what they mean; and Isuffer from paroxysms of rage as I read, because I feel that I cannotget at what is there without a mental agility which seems to meunnecessarily fatiguing. A novel ought to be like a walk; GeorgeMeredith makes it into an obstacle race. 

Then, again, Henry James is an indubitably great writer; though youamused me once by saying that you felt you really had not time to readhis later books. Well, for myself, I confess that his earlier books, such as Roderick Hudson and the Portrait of a Lady, are books that Irecur to again and again. They are perfectly proportioned and admirablylucid. If they have a fault, and I do not readily admit it, it is thatthe characters are not quite full-blooded enough. Still, there is quiteenough of what is called "virility" about in literature; and it isrefreshing to find oneself in the company of people who preserve at allevents the conventional decencies of life. But Henry James has in hislater books taken a new departure; he is infinitely subtle andextraordinarily delicate; but he is obscure where he used to be lucid, and his characters now talk in so allusive and birdlike a way, hop sobriskly from twig to twig, that one cannot keep the connection in one'smind. He seems to be so afraid of anything that is obvious orplain-spoken, that his art conceals not art but nature. I declare thatin his conversations I have not unfrequently to reckon back to see whohas got the ball; then, too, those long, closely printed pages, such asone sees in The Wings of a Dove, without paragraphs, without breathingplaces, pages of minute and refined analysis--there is a highintellectual pleasure in reading them, but there is a mental strain aswell. It is as though one wandered in tortuous passages, full ofbeautiful and curious things, without ever reaching the rooms of thehouse. What I want, in a work of imagination, is to step as simply aspossible into the presence of an emotion, the white heat of asituation. With Henry James I do not feel certain what the situationis. At the same time his books are full of fine things; he has learnt asplendid use of metaphor, when the whole page seems, as it were, stained with some poetical thought, as though one had shut a fruit intothe book, and its juice had tinted the whole of a page. But that is notsufficient; and I confess I close one of his later volumes in acondition of admiring mystification. I do not know what it has all beenabout; the characters have appeared, have nodded and smiledinscrutably, have let fall sentences which seem like sparklingfragments of remarks; I feel that there is a great conception behind, but I am still in the dark as to what it is. 

There are two or three other authors whose books I read with interest. One of these is John Oliver Hobbes. Her books do not seem to me to beexactly natural; it is all of the nature of a scenic display. But thereis abundance of nobility and even of passion; and the style isoriginal, nervous, and full of fine aphorisms. There is a feeling ofhigh and chivalrous courage about her characters; they breathe perhapstoo lofty an air, and are, if anything, too true to themselves. But itis a dignified romance, rather mediaeval than modern, and penetratedwith a pungent aromatic humour which has a quality of its own. 

Mrs. Humphry Ward is another writer whose books I always read. I amconstantly aware of a great conscientiousness in the background. Thescenery, the people, are all studied with the most sedulous and patientcare; but I somehow feel, at all events in the earlier works, that themoral attitude of the writer, a kind of Puritan agnosticism, interfereswith the humanity of the books; they seem to me to be as saturated withprinciple as Miss Yonge's books, written from a very differentstandpoint, were. I feel that I am not to be allowed my ownpreferences, and that to enjoy the books I must be in line with theauthoress. Mrs. Ward's novels, in fact, seem to me the high-water markof what great talent, patient observation, and faithful work can do;but the light does not quite shine through. Yet it is only just to saythat every book Mrs. Ward writes seems an improvement on the last. There is a wider, larger, freer conception of life; more reality, morehumanity, as well as more artistic handling; and they are worth carefulreading; I shall certainly include one or two in my consignment. 

George Moore seems to me to be one of the best writers on the stage. Esther Waters, Evelyn Innes, and Sister Theresa, are books of thehighest quality. I have a sense in these books of absolute reality. Imay think the words and deeds of the characters mysterious, surprising, and even sometimes disgusting; but they surprise and disgust me just asthe anomalies of human beings affect me. I may not like them, but I donot question the fact that the characters spoke and behaved as they aresupposed to behave. Moreover, Evelyn Innes and Sister Theresa arewritten in a style of matchless lucidity and precision; they havepassages of high poetry. Old Mr. Innes, with his tiresomepreoccupations, his pedantic taste, his mediaeval musical instruments, affects me exactly as an unrelenting idealist does in actual life. Themystical Ulick has a profound charm; the Sisters in the convent, allpreoccupied with the same or similar ideas, have each a perfectlydistinct individuality. Evelyn herself, even with all her frank andunashamed sensuality, is a deeply attractive figure; and I know nobooks which so render the evasive charm of the cloistered life. ButGeorge Moore has two grave faults; he is sometimes vulgar and he issometimes brutal. Evelyn's worldly lover is a man who makes one's fleshcreep, and yet one feels he is intended to represent the fascination ofthe world. Then it does not seem to me to be true realism to depictscenes of frank animalism. Such things may occur; but the actors insuch a carnival could not speak of them, even to each other; it may beprudish, but I cannot help feeling that one ought not to haverepresented in a book what could not be repeated in conversation ordepicted in a picture. One may be plain-spoken enough in art, but oneought not to have the feeling that one would be ashamed, in certainpassages, to catch the author's eye. If it were not for these lapses, Ishould put George Moore at the head of all contemporary novelists; andI am not sure that I do not do so as it is. Do give them another trial;I always thought you were too easily discouraged in your attempt tograpple with his books; probably my admiration for them only arousedyour critical sense; and I admit that there is much to criticise. 

Then there is another writer, lately dead, alas, whose books I used toread with absorbing interest, George Gissing. They had, when he treatedof his own peculiar stratum, the same quality of hard reality which Ivalue most of all in a work of fiction. The actors were not so muchvulgar as underbred; their ambitions and tastes were often deplorable. But one felt that they were real people. The wall of the suburban villawas gently removed, and the life was before your eyes. The moment hestrayed from that milieu, the books became fantastic and unreal. But inthe last two books, By the Ionian Sea and the Papers of Henry Rycroft, Gissing stepped into a new province, and produced exquisitely beautifuland poetical idealistic literature. 

Thomas Hardy is a poetical writer. But his rustic life, dreamy, melancholy, and beautiful as it is, with the wind blowing fragrant outof the heart of the wood, or the rain falling on the down, seems to meto be no more real than the scenes in As You Like It or The Tempest. The figures are actors playing a part. And then there is through hisbooks so strong a note of sex, and people under the influence ofpassion seem to me to behave in so incomprehensible a way, in a mannerso foreign to my own experience, that though I would not deny the truthof the picture, I would say that it is untrue for me, and thereforeunmeaning. 

I have never fallen under the sway of Rudyard Kipling. Whenever I readhis stories I feel myself for the time in the grip of a strong mind, and it becomes a species of intoxication. But I am naturally sober byinclination, and though I can unreservedly admire the strength, thevigour, the splendid imaginativeness of his conceptions, yet the wholenote of character is distasteful to me. I don't like his male men; Ishould dislike them and be ill at ease with them in real life, and I amill at ease with them in his books. This is purely a matter of taste;and as to the animal stories, terrifically clever as they are, theyappear to me to be no more true to life than Landseer's pictures ofdogs holding a coroner's inquest or smoking pipes. The only book of histhat I re-read is The Light that Failed, for its abundant vitality andtragicalness; but the same temperamental repugnance overcomes me eventhere. 

For pure imagination I should always fly to a book by H. G. Wells. Hehas that extraordinary power of imagining the impossible, and workingit out in a hard literal way which is absolutely convincing. But he isa teller of tales and not a dramatist. 

Well, you will be tired of all these fussy appreciations. But what oneseems to miss nowadays is the presence of a writer of superlativelucidity and humanity, for whose books one waits with avidity, andorders them beforehand, as soon as they are announced. For one thing, most people seem to me to write too much. The moment a real success isscored, the temptation, no doubt adroitly whispered by publishers, toproduce a similar book on similar lines, becomes very strong. Fewliving writers are above the need for earning money; but even thatwould not spoil a genius if we had him. 

These writers whom I have mentioned seem to me all like little bubblingrivulets, each with a motion, a grace, a character of its own. But whatone craves for is a river deep and wide, for some one, with a greatflood of humanity like Scott, or with a leaping cataract ofirrepressible humour like Dickens, or with a core of white-hot passionlike Charlotte Bronte, or a store of brave and wholesome gaiety andzest, such as Stevenson showed. 

Well, we must wait and hope. Meanwhile I will write to my greatbook-taster; one of the few men alive with great literary vitality, whohas never indulged the temptation to write, and has never written aline. I will show him the manner of man you are, and a box of brightvolumes shall be packed for you. The one condition is that you shallwrite me in return a sheet of similar appreciations. The only thing isto know what one likes, and strike out a line for oneself; the rest ismere sheep-like grazing--forty feeding like one. --Ever yours, T. B. 

ASHFIELD, SETTLE, Sept. 4, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --I have been reading FitzGerald's pretty essay Euphranor. It is Platonic both in form and treatment, but I never feel that it iswholly successful. Most of the people who express admiration for itknow nothing of the essay except a delicious passage at the end, like adraught of fragrant wine, about the gowned figures evaporating into thetwilight, and the nightingale heard among the flowering chestnuts ofJesus. But the talk itself is discursive and somewhat pompous. However, it is not of that that I wish to speak, it is rather of the passagefrom Digby's Godefridus which is read aloud by the narrator, which setsout to analyse the joyful and generous temperament of Youth. "They [theyoung] are easily put to Shame" (so runs the script), "for they have noresources to set aside the precepts which they have learned; and theyhave lofty souls, for they have never been disgraced or brought low, and they are unacquainted with Necessity; they prefer Honour toAdvantage, Virtue to Expediency; for they live by Affection rather thanby Reason, and Reason is concerned with Expediency, but Affection withHonour. "

All very beautiful and noble, no doubt; but is it real? was I, wereyou, creatures of this make? Could these fine things have beentruthfully said of us? Perhaps you may think it of yourself, but I canonly regretfully say that I do not recognise it. 

My boyhood and youth were, it seems to me, very faulty things. My ageis faulty still, more's the pity. But without any vain conceit, andwith all the humility which is given by a knowledge of weakness, I canhonestly say that in particular points I have improved a little. I amnot generous or noble-hearted now; but I have not lost these qualities, for I never had them. As a boy and a young man I distinctly preferredAdvantage to Honour; I was the prey of Expediency, and seldom gaveVirtue a thought. But since I have known more of men, I have come toknow that these fine powers, Honour and Virtue, do bloom in some men'ssouls, and in the hearts of many women. I have perceived theirfragrance; I have seen Honour raise its glowing face like a rose, andVirtue droop its head like a pure snowdrop; and I hope that some day, as in an early day of spring, I may find some such tender green thingbudding in the ugly soil of my own poor spirit. 

Life would be a feeble business if it were otherwise; but the one rayof hope is not that one steadily declines in brightness from thoseearly days, but that one may learn by admiration the beauty of thegreat qualities one never had by instinct. 

I see myself as a boy, greedy, mean-spirited, selfish, dull. I seemyself as a young man, vain, irritable, self-absorbed, unbalanced. Ihave not eradicated these weeds; but I have learnt to believe in beautyand honour, even in Truth. . . . --Ever yours, T. B. 

MONK'S ORCHARD, UPTON, Sept. 13, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --I have just come back after a long, vague holiday, feeling well and keen about my work. The boys are not back yet, and Ihave returned to put things ready for next half. But my serene mood hasreceived a shock this morning. 

I wonder if you ever get disagreeable letters? I suppose that aschoolmaster is peculiarly liable to receive them. The sort of letter Imean is this. I come down to breakfast in good spirits; I pick up aletter and open it, and, all of a sudden, it is as if a snake slippedout and bit me. I close it and put it away, thinking I will read itlater; there it lies close by my plate, and takes away the taste offood, and blots the sunshine. I take it upstairs, saying that it willwant consideration. I finish my other letters, and then I take it outagain. Out comes the snake again with a warning hiss; but I resisttemptation this time, read it through, and sit staring out of thewindow. A disagreeable letter from a disagreeable man, containinganxious information, of a kind that I cannot really test. What is thebest way to deal with it? I know by experience; answer it at once, asdispassionately as one can; extract from it the few grains of probabletruth it holds, and keep them in mind for possible future use; thendeliberately try and forget all about it. I know now by experience thatthe painful impression will gradually fade, and, meanwhile, one musttry to interpret the whole matter rightly. What is there in one'sconduct which needs the check? Is it that one grows confident andcareless? Probably! But the wholesome thing to do is to deal with it atonce; otherwise it means anxious and feverish hours, when one composesa long and epigrammatic answer, point by point. The letter isover-stated, gossipy, malicious; if one lets it soak into the mind, itmakes one suspicious of every one, miserable, cowardly. It is uselessin the first hours, when the sting is yet tingling, to remind oneselfphilosophically that the suggestion is exaggerated and malignant; onedoes not get any comfort that way. No, the only thing is to plunge intodetail, to work, to read--anything to recover the tone of the mind. 

It is a comfort to write to you about it, for to-day I am in the soreand disquieted condition which is just as unreal and useless as thoughI were treating the matter with indifference. Indifference indeed wouldbe criminal, but morbidity is nearly as bad. 

I once saw a very dramatic thing take place in church. It was in a townparish near my old home. The clergyman was a friend of mine, awonderfully calm and tranquil person. He went up to the pulpit while ahymn was being sung. When the hymn concluded, he did not give out histext, but remained for a long time silent, so long that I thought hewas feeling ill; the silence became breathless, and the attention ofevery one in the church became rivetted on the pulpit. Then he slowlytook up a letter from the cushion, and said in a low, clear voice: "Afortnight ago I found, on entering the pulpit, a letter addressed to mein an unknown hand; I took it out and read it afterwards; it wasanonymous, and its contents were scandalous. Last Sunday I foundanother, which I burnt unread. To-day there is another, which I do notintend to read"--he tore the letter across as he said the words, in thesight of the congregation--"and I give notice that, if any furthercommunications of the kind reach me, I shall put the matter into thehands of the police. I am willing to receive, if necessary, verbalcommunications on such subjects, though I do not think that any goodpurpose can be served by them. But to make vague and libellousaccusations against members of the congregation in this way iscowardly, dishonourable, and un-Christian. I have a strongsuspicion"--he looked steadily down the church--"of the quarter fromwhich these letters emanate; and I solemnly warn the writer that, if Ihave to take action in the matter, I shall take measures to make thataction effective. "

I never saw a thing better done; it was said without apparentexcitement or agitation; he presently gave out his text and preached asusual. It seemed to me a supremely admirable way of dealing with thesituation. Need I add that he was practical enough to take the piecesof the letter away with him?

I once received an anonymous letter, not about myself, but about afriend. I took it to a celebrated lawyer, and we discovered the rightway to deal with it. I remember that, when we had finished, he took upthe letter--a really vile document--and said musingly: "I have oftenwondered what the pleasure of sending such things consists in! I alwaysfancy the sender taking out his watch, and saying, with malicious glee, 'I suppose so-and-so will be receiving my letter about now!' It must bea perverted sense of power, I think. "

I said, "Yes, and don't you think that there is also something of thepleasure of saying 'Bo' to a goose?" The great man smiled, and said, "Perhaps. "

Well, I must try to forget, but I don't know anything that so takes thecourage and the cheerfulness out of one's mind as one of these secret, dastardly things. My letter this morning was not anonymous; but it wasnearly as bad, because it was impossible to use or to rely upon theinformation; and it was, moreover, profoundly disquieting. 

Tell me what you think! I suppose it is good for one to know how weakone's armour is and how vulnerable is one's feeble self. --Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, Sept. 20, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --I have been reading lately, not for the first time, butwith increased interest, the Memoir of Mark Pattison. It was, you willremember, dictated by himself towards the end of his life, andpublished after his death with a few omissions. It was not favourablyreceived, and was called cowardly, cynical, bitter, a "cry in thedark, " treacherous, and so forth. It is very difficult not to beinfluenced by current opinion in one's view of a book; one comes to itprepared to find certain characteristics, and it is difficult to detachone's mind sufficiently to approach a much-reviewed volume with perfectfrankness. But I have read the book several times, and my admirationfor it increases. It does not reveal a generous or particularlyattractive character, and there are certain episodes in it which areundoubtedly painful. But it is essentially a just, courageous, andcandid book. He is very hard on other people, and deals hard knocks. Heshows very clearly that he was deficient in tolerance and sympathy, buthe is quite as severe on himself. What I value in the book is itsabsolute sincerity. He does not attempt to draw an ideal picture of hisown life and character at the expense of other people. One sees himdevelop from the shy, gauche, immature boy into the mature, secluded, crabbed, ungracious student. If he had adopted a pose he might havesketched his own life in beautiful subdued colours; he might have madehimself out as misrepresented and misunderstood. He does none of thesethings. He shows clearly that the disasters of his life were quite asmuch due to his own temperamental mistakes as to the machinations ofothers. He has no illusions about himself, and he does not desire thathis readers should have any. The sadness of the book comes from hisfailure, or rather his constitutional inability, to see other peoplewhole. After all, our appreciations for other people are of the natureof a sum. There is a certain amount of addition and subtraction to bedone; the point is whether the sum total is to the credit of the personconcerned. But with Mark Pattison the process of subtraction was morecongenial than the process of addition. He saw and felt the weakness ofthose who surrounded him so keenly that he did not do justice to theirgood qualities. This comes out very clearly when he deals with Newmanand Pusey. Pattison was a member for a time of the Tractarian set, buthe must have been always at heart a Liberal and a Rationalist, and thespell which Newman temporarily cast over him appeared to him in afterlife to have been a kind of ugly hypnotism, to which he had limplysubmitted. Certainly the diary which he quotes concerning his own partin the Tractarian movement, the conversations to which he listened, themorbid frame of mind to which he succumbed are deplorable reading. Indeed the reminiscences of Newman's conversation in particular, thepedantry, the hankering after miracles, the narrowness of view, are anextraordinary testimony to the charm with which Newman must haveinvested all he did or said. Pattison is even more severe on Pusey, andcharges him with having betrayed a secret which he had confided to himin confession. It does not seem to occur to Pattison to considerwhether he did not himself mention the fact, whatever it was, to someother friend. 

On the other hand the book reveals an extraordinary intellectual ideal. It holds up a standard for the student which is profoundly impressive;and I know no other book which displays in a more single-minded andsincere way the passionate desire of the savant for wide, deep, andperfect knowledge, which is to be untainted by any admixture ofpersonal ambition. Indeed, Pattison speaks of literary ambition asbeing for the student not an amiable weakness, but a defiling andpolluting sin. 

Of course it is natural to feel that there is a certain selfish aridityabout such a point of view. The results of Mark Pattison's devotion arehardly commensurate with his earnestness. He worked on a system whichhardly permitted him to put the results at the disposal of others; butthere is at the same time something which is both dignified and statelyin the idea of the lonely, laborious life, without hope and withoutreward, sustained only by the pursuit of an impossible perfection. 

It is not, however, as if this was all that Mark Pattison did. He was agreat intellectual factor at Oxford, especially in early days; in laterdays he was a venerable and splendid monument. But as tutor of hiscollege, before his great disappointment--his failure to be elected tothe Rectorship--he evidently lived a highly practical and useful life. There is something disarming about the naive way in which he recordsthat he became aware that he was the possessor of a certain magneticinfluence to which gradually every one in the place, including the oldRector himself, submitted. 

The story of his failure to be elected Rector is deeply pathetic. Pattison reveals with terrible realism the dingy and sordid intrigueswhich put an unworthy man in the place which he himself had earned. Butit may be doubted whether there was so much malignity about the wholematter as he thought; and, at all events, it may be said that men donot commonly make enemies without reason. It does not seem to occur tohim to question whether his own conduct and his own remarks may nothave led to the unhappy situation; and indeed, if he spoke of hiscolleagues in his lifetime with the same acrimony with which hisposthumous book speaks of them, the mystery is adequately explained. 

His depression and collapse, which he so mercilessly chronicles, afterthe disaster, do not appear to me to be cowardly. He was anover-worked, over-strained man, with a strong vein of morbidity in hisconstitution; and to have the great prize of a headship, which was thegoal of his dearest hopes, put suddenly and evidently quiteunexpectedly in his hands, and then in so unforeseen a manner tornaway, must have been a terrible and unmanning catastrophe. What isungenerous is that he did not more tenderly realise that eventually itall turned out for the best. He recognises the fact somewhatgrudgingly. Yet he was disengaged by the shock from professional life. He gained bodily strength and vigour by the change; he began his workof research; and then, just at the time when his ideal wasconsolidated, the Rectorship came to him--when it might have seemedthat by his conduct he had forfeited all hopes of it. 

In another respect the book is admirable. Mark Pattison attained highand deserved literary distinction; but there is no hint of complacencyon this subject, rather, indeed, the reverse; for he confesses thatsuccess had upon him no effect but to humiliate him by theconsideration that the completed work might have been so much betterboth in conception and execution than it actually was. 

I feel, on closing the book, a great admiration for the man, mingledwith infinite pity for the miseries which his own temperament inflictedon him; it gives me, too, a high intellectual stimulus; it makes merealise the nobility and the beauty of knowledge, the greatness of theintellectual life. One may regret that in Pattison's case this was notmingled with more practical power, more sympathy, more desire to helprather than to pursue. But here, again, one cannot have everything, andthe life presents a fine protest against materialism, against thedesire of recognition, against illiberal and retrograde views ofthought. Here was a great and lonely figure haunted by a dream whichfew of those about him could understand, and with which hardly anycould sympathise. He writes pathetically: "I am fairly entitled to saythat, since the year 1851, I have lived wholly for study. There can beno vanity in making this confession, for, strange to say, in auniversity ostensibly endowed for the cultivation of science andletters, such a life is hardly regarded as a creditable one. "

The practical effect of such a book on me is to make me realise thehigh virtue of thoroughness. It is not wholly encouraging, because at aplace like this one must do a good deal of one's work sloppily andsketchily; but it makes me ashamed of my sketchiness; I make goodresolutions to get up my subjects better, and, even if I know that Ishall relapse, something will have been gained. But that is aside-issue. The true gain is to have been confronted with a real man, to have looked into the depth of his spirit, to realise differences oftemperament, to be initiated into a high and noble ambition. And at thesame time, alas! to learn by his failures to value tact and sympathyand generosity still more; and to learn that noble purpose isineffective if it is secluded; to try resolutely to see the strongpoints of other workers, rather than their feeblenesses; and to end byfeeling that we have all of us abundant need to forgive and to beforgiven--Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, Sept. 26, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --I am much exercised in my mind about school sermons. Itseems to me that we ought to make more of them than we do. We have oursermons here, very wisely, I think, at the evening service. The boysare more alert, the preacher is presumably in a more genial mood, thechapel is warm and brightly lighted, the music has had a comforting andstimulating effect upon the mind; it is exactly the time when the boysare ready and disposed to be interested in themselves, their lives andcharacters; they are hopeful, serious, ardent. The iron is hot, and itis just the moment to strike. 

Well, it seems to me that the opportunity is often missed. In the firstplace, all the clerical members of the staff are asked to preach inturn--"given a mount, " as the boys say. The headmaster preaches once amonth, and a certain number of outside preachers, old Uptonians, localclergy, and others are imported. 

Now the first point that strikes me is that to suppose that everyclergyman is ipso facto capable of preaching at all is a great mistake. I suppose that every thoughtful Christian must have enough materialsfor a few sermons; there must be some aspects of truth that come hometo every individual in a striking manner, some lessons of characterwhich he has learnt. But he need not necessarily have the art ofexpressing himself in a penetrating and incisive way. It seems to me amistaken sort of conscientiousness which makes it necessary for everypreacher to compose his own sermons. I do not see why the sermons ofgreat preachers should not frankly be read; one hears a dull sermon bya tired man on a subject of which Newman has treated with exquisitelucidity and feeling in one of his parochial sermons. Why is it betterto hear tedious considerations on the same point expressed in acommonplace way than to listen to the words of a master of the art, andone too who saw, like Newman, very deep into the human heart? I wouldhave a man frankly say at the beginning of his sermon that he had beenthinking about a particular point, and that he was going to read one ofNewman's sermons on the subject. Then, if any passage was obscure orcompressed, he might explain it a little. 

Again, I want more homeliness, more simplicity, more directness insermons; and so few people seem to be aware that these qualities ofexpression are not only the result of being a homely, simple, anddirect character, but are a matter of long practice and careful art. 

Then, again, I want sermons to be more shrewd and incisive. Holiness, saintliness, and piety are virtues which are foreign to the characterof boys. If any proof of it is needed, it is only too true that if aboy applies any of the three adjectives holy, saintly, or pious to aperson, it is not intended to be a compliment. The words in theirmouths imply sanctimonious pretension, and a certain Pharisaical andeven hypocritical scrupulousness. It is a great mistake to overlookthis fact; I do not mean that a preacher should not attempt to praisethese virtues, but if he does, he ought to be able to translate histhoughts into language which will approve itself to boys; he ought tobe able to make it clear that such qualities are not inconsistent withmanliness, humour, and kindliness. A school preacher ought to be ableto indulge a vein of gentle satire; he ought to be able to make boysashamed of their absurd conventionalism; he ought to give theimpression that because he is a Christian he is none the less a man ofthe world in the right sense. He ought not to uphold what, for want ofa better word, I will call a feminine religion, a religion of saintedchoir-boys and exemplary death-beds. A boy does not want to be gentle, meek, and mild, and I fear I cannot say that it is to be desired thathe should. But if a man is shrewd and even humorous first, he can lifthis audience into purer and higher regions afterwards; and he will thenbe listened to, because his hearers will feel that the qualities theymost admire--strength, keenness, good humour--need not be left behindat the threshold of the Christian life, but may be used and practisedin the higher regions. 

Then, too, I think that there is a sad want of variety. How rarely doesone hear a biographical sermon; and yet biography is one of the thingsto which almost all boys will listen spellbound. I wish that a preacherwould sometimes just tell the story of some gallant Christian life, showing the boys that they too may live such lives if they have thewill. Preachers dwell far too much on the side of self-sacrifice andself-abnegation. Those, it seems to me, are much more mature ideals. Iwish that they would dwell more upon the enjoyment, the interest, theamusement of being good in a vigorous way. 

What has roused these thoughts in me are two sermons I have latelyheard here. On Sunday week a great preacher came here, and spoke withextraordinary force and sense upon the benefits to be derived frommaking the most of chapel services. I never heard the thing betterdone. He gave the simplest motives for doing it. He said that we allbelieved in goodness in our hearts, and that a service, if we came toit in the right way, was a means of hammering goodness in. That it wasa good thing that chapel services were compulsory, because if they wereoptional, a great many boys would stay away out of pure laziness, andlose much good thereby. And as they were compulsory, we had better makethe most we could of them. He went on to speak of attention, ofposture, and so forth. There are a certain number of big boys here, whohave an offensive habit of putting their heads down upon their arms onthe book-board during a sermon, and courting sleep. The preacher made apause at this point, and said that it was, of course, true that anattitude of extreme devotion did not always mean a correspondingseriousness of mind. There was a faint ripple of mirth at this, andthen, one by one, the boys who were engaged in attempting to sleepraised themselves slowly up in a sheepish manner, trying to look as ifthey were only altering their position naturally. It was intenselyludicrous; but so good for the offenders! And then the preacher roseinto a higher vein, and said how the thought of the school chapel wouldcome back to the boys in distant days; that the careless would wish invain that they had found the peace of Christ there, and that those whohad worshipped in spirit and truth would be thankful that it had beenso. And then he drew a little picture of a manly, pure, and kind idealof a boy's life in words that made all hearts go out to him. Boys areheedless creatures; but I am sure that many of them, for a day or twoat all events, tried to live a better life in the spirit of that strongand simple message. 

Well, yesterday we had a man of a very different sort; earnest enoughand high-minded, I am sure, but he seemed to have forgotten, if he hadever known, what a boy's heart and mind were like. The sermon wasdevoted to imploring boys to take Orders, and he drew a dismal pictureof the sacrifices the step entailed, and depicted, in a singularlyunattractive vein, the life of a city curate. Now the only way to makethe thought of such a life appeal to boys is to indicate the bravery, the interest of it all, the certainty that you are helping humanbeings, the enjoyment which always attaches to human relationship. 

The result was, I confess, extremely depressing. He made a ferventappeal at the end; "The call, " he said, "comes to you now and to-day. "I watched from my stall with, I am sorry to say, immense amusement, theproceedings of a great, burly, red-faced boy, a prominent footballplayer, and a very decent sort of fellow. He had fallen asleep early inthe discourse; and at this urgent invitation, he opened one eye andcast it upon the preacher with a serene and contented air. Finding thatthe call did not appear to him to be particularly imperative, he slowlyclosed it again, and, with a good-tempered sigh, addressed himself oncemore to repose. I laughed secretly, hoping the preacher did not observehis hearer. 

But, seriously, it seemed to me a lamentable waste of opportunities. The Sunday evening service is the one time in the week when there is achance of putting religion before the boys in a beautiful light. Mostof them desire to be good, I think; their half-formed wishes, theirfaltering hopes, their feeble desires, ought to be tenderly met, andlifted, and encouraged. At times, too, a stern morality ought to bepreached and enforced; wilful transgression ought to be held up in aterrible light. I do not really mind how it is done, but the heartought somehow to be stirred and awakened. There is room fordenunciation and there is room for encouragement. Best of all is a dueadmixture of both; if sin can be shown in its true colours, if thedarkness, the horror, the misery of the vicious life can be displayed, and the spirit then pointed to the true and right path, the most isdone that can be done. 

But we grow so miserably stereotyped and mannerised. My cautiouscolleagues are dreadfully afraid of anything which they callrevivalistic, and, indeed, of anything which is unconventional. Ishould like to see the Sunday sermon made one of the most stirringevents of the week, as Arnold made it at Rugby. I should like preachersto be selected with the utmost care, and told beforehand what they wereto preach about. No instruction is wanted in a school chapel--the boysget plenty of that in their Divinity lessons. What is wanted is thatthe heart should be touched, and that faint strivings after purity andgoodness should be enforced and helped. To give the spirit wings, thatought to be the object. But so often we have to listen to aconscientious discourse, in which the preacher, after saying that thescene in which the narrative is laid is too well known to needdescription, proceeds to paint an ugly picture out of The Land and theBook or Farrar's Life of Christ. The story is then tediously related, and we end by a few ethical considerations, taken out of the footnotesof the Cambridge Bible for Schools or Homiletical Hints, which makeeven the most ardent Christian feel that after all the pursuit ofperfection is a very dreary business. 

But a brave, wise-hearted, and simple man, speaking from the heart tothe heart, not as one who has attained to a standard of impossibleperfection, but as an elder pilgrim, a little older, a little stronger, a little farther on the way--what cannot such an one do to set feeblefeet on the path, and turn souls to the light? Boys are oftenpathetically anxious to be good; but they are creatures of impulse, andwhat they need is to feel that goodness is interesting, beautiful, anddesirable. . . . Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, Oct. 5, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --It is autumn now with us, the sweetest season of theyear to a polar bear like myself. Of course, Spring is ravishingly, enchantingly beautiful, but she brings a languor with her, and thereare the hot months to be lived through, treading close on her heels. But now the summer is over and done; the long firelit evenings arecoming, and, as if to console one for the loss of summer beauty, thewhole world blazes out into a rich funeral pomp. I walked to-day with afriend to a place not far away, a great, moated house in a big, ancientpark. We left the town, held on through the wretched gradations ofsuburbanity, and then, a few hundred yards from the business-like, treeless high-road, the coverts came in sight. There is always a dimmystery about a close-set wood showing its front across the fields. Italways seems to me like a silent battalion guarding some secret thing. We left the high-road and soon were in the wood--the dripping woodways, all strewn with ruinous gold, opening to right and left; and soon theroofs and towers of the big house--Puginesque Gothic, I must tellyou--came in sight. But those early builders of the romantic revival, though they loved stucco and shallow niches, had somehow a sense ofmass. It pleases me to know that the great Sir Walter himself had ahand in the building of this very house, planned the barbican and thewater-gate. All round the house lies a broad moat of black water, fullof innumerable carp. The place was breathlessly still; only the sharpmelancholy cries of water-birds and the distant booming of guns brokethe silence. The water was all sprinkled with golden leaves, that madea close carpet round the sluices; the high elms were powdered withgold; the chestnuts showed a rustier red. A silent gardener, rakingleaves with ancient leisureliness, was the only sign of life--he mighthave been a spirit for all the sound he made; while the big houseblinked across the rich clumps of Michaelmas daisies, and the darkwindows showed a flicker of fire darting upon the walls. Everythingseemed mournful, yet contented, dying serenely and tranquilly, with agreat and noble dignity. I wish I could put into words the sweetsolemnity, the satisfying gravity of the scene; it was like the sightof a beautiful aged face that testifies to an inner spirit which haslearnt patience, tenderness, and trustfulness from experience, and ismaking ready, without fear or anxiety, for the last voyage. 

I say gratefully that this is one of the benefits of growing older, that these beautiful things seem to speak more and more instantly tothe mind. Perhaps the faculty of eager enjoyment is somewhat blunted;but the appeal, the sweetness, the pathos, the mystery of the world, aslife goes on, fall far oftener and with far more of a magical spellupon the heart. 

We walked for a while by a bridge, where the stream out of the moat ranhoarsely, choked with drift, in its narrow walls. That melancholy andsobbing sound seemed only to bring out more forcibly the utter silenceof the tall trees and the sky above them; light wreaths of mist layover the moat, and we could see far across the rough pasture, with afew scattered oaks of immemorial age standing bluff and gnarled amongthe grass. The time of fresh spring showers, of sailing clouds, ofbasking summer heat, was over--so said the grey, gentle sky--what wasleft but to let the sap run backward to its secret home, to rest, todie? With such sober and stately acquiescence would I await the end, not grudgingly, not impatiently, but in a kind of solemn glory, withgratitude and love and trust. 

My companion of that day was Vane, one of my colleagues, and we haddiscussed a dozen of the small interests and problems that make up ourbusy life at this restless place; but a silence fell upon us now. Thecurtain of life was for a moment drawn aside, the hangings that wrap usround, and we looked for an instant into the vast and starlit silences, the formless, ancient dark, where a thousand years are but asyesterday, and into which the countless generations of men havemarched, one after another. That is a solemn, but hardly a despairingthought; for something is being wrought out in the silence, somethingof which we may not be conscious, but which is surely there. Could webut lay that cool and mighty thought closer to our spirits! Thatimpenetrable mystery ought to give us courage, to let us rest, as itwere, within a mighty arm. Behind and beyond the precisest creed thatgreat mystery lies; the bewildering question as to how it is possiblefor our own atomic life to be so sharply defined and bounded from thelife of the world--why the frail tabernacle in which we move should bethus intensely our own, and all outside it apart from us. 

Yet in days like this calm autumn day one seems to draw a little closerto the mystery, to take a nearer share in the great and wideinheritance, to be less of ourselves and more of God. --Ever yours, T. B. 

MONK'S ORCHARD, UPTON, Oct. 12, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --I have nothing but local gossip to tell you. We havebeen having a series of Committee meetings lately about our Chapelservices; I am a member of the Committee, and as so often happens whenone is brought into close contact with one's colleagues upon a definitequestion, I find myself lost in bewilderment at the views which areheld and advanced by sensible and virtuous men. I don't say that I amnecessarily right, and that those who disagree with me are wrong; Idaresay that some of my fellow-members think me a tiresome andwrong-headed man. But in one point I believe I am right; in things ofthis kind, the only policy seems to me to try to arrive at some broadprinciple, to know what you are driving at; and then, having arrived atit, to try and work it out in detail. Now two or three of my friendsseem to me to begin at the wrong end; to have got firmly into theirheads certain details, and to fight with all their power to get thesedetails accepted, without attempting to try and develop a principle atall. For instance, Roberts, one of the members of the Committee, isonly anxious for what he calls the maintenance of liturgical tradition;he says that there is a science of liturgy, and that it is of theutmost importance to keep in touch with it. The sort of detail that hepresses is that at certain seasons the same hymn ought to be sung onSunday morning and every morning throughout the week, because of themediaeval system of octaves. He calls this knocking the same nail onthe head, and, as is common enough, he is led to confuse a metaphorwith an argument. Again, he is very anxious to have the Litany twice aweek, that the boys may be trained, as he calls it, in the habit ofcontinuous prayerful attention. Another member, Randall, is veryanxious that the services should be what he calls instructive; thatcourses, for instance, of sermons should be preached on certain booksof the Old Testament, on the Pauline Epistles, and so forth. He is alsovery much set on having dogmatic and doctrinal sermons, because dogmaand doctrine are the bone and sinew of religion. Another man, oldPigott, says that the whole theory of worship is praise, and he is veryanxious to avoid all subjective and individual religion. 

I find myself in hopeless disagreement with these three worthy men; myown theory of school services is, to put it shortly, that they shouldFEED THE SOUL, and draw it gently to the mysteries of Love and Faith. The whole point is, I believe, to rouse and sustain a pure and generousemotion. Most boys have in various degrees a religious sense. That isto say, that they have moments when they are conscious of theFatherhood of God, of redemption from sin, of the indwelling of a HolySpirit. They have moments when they see all that they might be and arenot--moments when they would rather be pure than impure, unselfishrather than self-absorbed, kind rather than unkind, brave rather thancowardly; moments when they perceive, however dimly, that happinesslies in activity and kindliness, and when they would give much never tohave stained their conscience with evil. It seems to me that schoolservices ought to aim at developing these faint and faltering dreams, at increasing the sense of the beauty and peace of holiness, at givingthem some strong and joyful thought that will send them back to theworld of life resolved to try again, to be better and worthier. 

I am afraid that I do not value the science of liturgical traditionvery much. The essence of all science is that it should be progressive;our problems and needs are not the same as mediaeval problems andneeds. The whole conception of God and man has broadened and deepened. Science has taught us that nature is a part of the mind of God, notsomething to be merely contended against; again, it has taught us thatman has probably not fallen from grace into corruption, but is slowlystruggling upwards out of darkness into light. Again, we no longerthink that everything was created for the use and enjoyment of man; weknow now of huge tracts of the earth where for thousands of years avast pageant of life has been displaying itself without any referenceto humanity at all. Then, too, as a great scientist has lately pointedout, the dark and haunting sense of sin, that drove devotees to thedesert and to lives of the grimmest asceticism, has given place to anobler conception of civic virtue, has turned men's hearts rather toamendment than to repentance; well, that, in the face of all this, weshould be limited to the precise kind of devotions that approvedthemselves to mediaeval minds seems to me to be a purely retrogradeposition. 

Then as to arranging services in order to cultivate the power ofcontinuous prayer among boys, I think it a thoroughly unpracticaltheory. In the first place, for one boy so trained you blunt thereligious susceptibilities of ninety-nine others. Boys are quick, lively, and bird-like creatures, intolerant above all things of tediumand strain; and I believe that in order to cultivate the religioussense in them, the first duty of all is to make religion attractive, and resolutely to put aside all that tends to make it a weariness. 

As to doctrinal and dogmatic instruction, I cannot feel that, at aschool, the chapel is the place for that; the boys here get a good dealof religious instruction, and Sunday is already too full, if anything, of it. I believe that the chapel is the place to make them, ifpossible, love their faith and find it beautiful; and if you can securethat, the dogma will look after itself. The point is, for instance, that a boy should be aware of his redemption, not that he should knowthe metaphysical method in which it was effected. There is very littledogmatic instruction in the Gospels, and what there is seems to havebeen delivered to the few and not to the many, to the shepherds ratherthan to the flocks; it is vital religion and not technical that thechapel should be concerned with. 

As to the theory of praise, I cannot help feeling that the old ideathat God demanded, so to speak, a certain amount of public recognitionof His goodness and greatness is a purely savage and uncivilised formof fetish-worship; it is the same sort of religion that would attachmaterial prosperity to religious observation; and belongs to a timewhen men believed that, in return for a certain number of sacrifices, rain and sun were sent to the crops of godly persons, with a nicerregard to their development than was applied in the case of theungodly. The thought of the Father of men feeling a certainsatisfaction in their assembling together to roar out in concertsomewhat extravagantly phrased ascriptions of honour and majesty seemsto me purely childish. 

My own belief is that services should in the first place be as short aspossible; that there should be variety and interest, plenty of movementand plenty of singing, and that every service should be employed tomeet and satisfy the restless minds and bodies of children. But thoughall should be simple, it should not, I think, be of a plain and obvioustype entirely. There are many delicate mysteries, of hope and faith, ofaffliction and regret, of suffering and sorrow, of which many boys aredimly conscious. There are many subtle and seemly qualities which lie alittle apart from the track of manly, full-fed, game-playing boyhood;and such emotions should be cultivated and given voice in our services. To arrange the whole of our religion for brisk, straightforward boys, whose temptations are of an obvious type and who have never knownsickness or sorrow is, I believe, a radical mistake. There is a gooddeal of secret, tender, delicate emotion in the hearts of many boys, which cannot be summarily classed and dismissed as subjective. 

Sermons should be brief and ethical, I believe. They should aim atwaking generous thoughts and hopes, pure and gracious ideals. Anythingof a biographical character appeals strongly to boys; and if one canshow that it is not inconsistent with manliness to have a deep andearnest faith, to love truth and purity as well as liberty and honour, a gracious seed has been sown. 

Above all, religion should not be treated from the purely boyish pointof view; let the boys feel that they are strangers, soldiers, andpilgrims, let them realise that the world is a difficult place, butthat there is indeed a golden clue that leads through the darkness ofthe labyrinth, if they can but set their hand upon it; let them learnto be humble and grateful, not hard and self-sufficient. And, aboveall, let them realise that things in this world do not come by chance, but that a soul is set in a certain place, and that happiness is to befound by interpreting the events of life rightly, by facing sorrowsbravely, by showing kindness, by thankfully accepting joy and pleasure. 

And lastly, there should come some sense of unity, the thought ofcombination for good, of unaffectedness about what we believe to betrue and pure, of facing the world together and not toying with it inisolation. All this should be held up to boys. 

Even as it is boys grow to love the school chapel, and to think of itin after years as a place where gleams of goodness and power visitedthem. It might be even more so than it is; but it can only be so, if werealise the conditions, the material with which we are working. Weought to set ourselves to meet and to encourage every beautifulaspiration, every holy and humble thought; not to begin with someeclectic theory, and to try to force boys into the mould. We do that inevery other department of school life; but I would have the chapel tobe a place of liberty, where tender spirits may be allowed a glimpse ofhigh and holy things which they fitfully desire, and which may indeedprove to be a gate of heaven. 

Well, for once I have been able to finish a letter without a singleinterruption. If my letters, as a rule, seem very inconsequent, remember that they are often written under pressure. But I suppose weeach envy the other; you would like a little more pressure and I alittle less. I am glad to hear that all goes well; thank Nellie for herletter. --Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, Oct. 19, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --I am at present continuously liturgical, owing to myCommittee; but you must have the benefit of it. 

I have often wondered which of the compilers of the Prayer-book fixedupon the Venite as the first Canticle for our Morning Service;wondered, I say, in the purposeless way that one does wonder, withoutever taking the trouble to find out. I dare say there are abundantecclesiological precedents for it, if one took the trouble to discoverthem. But the important thing is that it was done; and it is a strokeof genius to have done it. (N. B. --I find it is in the Breviaryappointed for Matins. )

The thing is so perfect in itself, and in a way so unexpected, that Ifeel in the selection of it the work of a deep and poetical heart. Manyan ingenious ecclesiastical mind would be afraid of putting a psalm insuch a place which changed its mood so completely as the Venite does. To end with a burst of noble and consuming anger, of vehement andmerciless indignation--that is the magnificent thing. 

Just consider it; I will write down the verses, just for the simplepleasure of shaping the great simple phrases:--

"Oh come let us sing unto the Lord; let us heartily rejoice in thestrength of our salvation. "

What a vigorous and enlivening verse, like the invitation of oldsong-writers, "Begone, dull care. " For once let us trust ourselves tothe full tide of exaltation and triumph, let there be no heavyovershadowings of thought. 

"Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving: and show ourselvesglad in him with psalms. 

"For the Lord is a great God: and a great King above all Gods. 

"In his hand are all the corners of the earth; and the strength of thehills is his also. 

"The sea is his and he made it; and his hands prepared the dry land. 

"Oh come, let us worship, and fall down: and kneel before the Lord ourMaker. 

"For he is the Lord our God; and we are the people of his pasture andthe sheep of his hand. "

What a splendid burst of joy; the joy of earth, when the sun is brightin a cloudless heaven, and the fresh wind blows cheerfully across theplain. There is no question of duty here, of a task to be performed inheaviness, but a simple tide of joyfulness such as filled the heart ofthe poet who wrote:--

 "God's in His Heaven; All's right with the world. "

I take it that these verses draw into themselves, as the sea draws thestreams, all the rivers of joy and beauty that flow, whether laden withships out of the heart of great cities, or dropping and leaping fromhigh unvisited moorlands. All the sweet joys that life holds for usfind their calm end and haven here; all the delights of life, ofaction, of tranquil thought, of perception, of love, of beauty, offriendship, of talk, of reflection, are all drawn into one great floodof gratitude and thankfulness; the thankfulness that comes from thethought that after all it is He that made us, and not we ourselves;that we are indeed led and pastured by green meadows and waters ofcomfort; in such a mood all uneasy anxieties, all dull questionings, die and are merged, and we are glad to be. 

Then suddenly falls a different mood, a touch of pathos, in the thoughtthat there are some who from wilfulness, and vain desire, and troubledscheming, shut themselves out from the great inheritance; to them comesthe pleading call, the sorrowful invitation:--

"To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts; as in theprovocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness. 

"When your fathers tempted me: proved me, and saw my works. "

And then rises the gathering wrath; the doom of all perverse andstubborn natures, who will not yield, or be guided, or led; who live ina wilful sadness, a petty obstinacy:--

"Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said: It is apeople that do err in their hearts for they have not known my ways. "

And then the passion of the mood, the fierce indignation, rises andbreaks, as it were, in a dreadful thunderclap:--

"Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest. "

But even so the very horror of the denunciation holds within it athought of beauty, like an oasis in a burning desert. "My REST"--thatsweet haven which does truly await all those who will but follow andwait upon God. 

I declare that the effect of this amazing lyric grows upon me everytime that I hear it. Some Psalms, like the delicate and tender cxix. , steal into the heart after long and quiet use. How dull I used to findit as a child; how I love it now! But this is not the case with theVenite; its noble simplicity and directness has no touch of intentionalsubtlety about it. Rather the subtlety was in the true insight, whichsaw that, if ever there was a Psalm which should at once give the reinsto joy, and at the same time pierce the careless heart with a sharparrow of thought, this was the Psalm. 

I feel as if I had been trying in this letter to do as Mr. Interpreterdid--to have you into a room full of besoms and spiders, and to draw apretty moral out of it all. But I am sure that the beauty of thisparticular Psalm, and of its position, is one of those things that isonly spoilt for us by familiarity; and that it is a duty in life to tryand break through the crust of familiarity which tends to be depositedround well-known things, and to see how bright and joyful a jewel showsits heart of fire beneath. 

I have been hoping for a letter; but no doubt it is all right. I ambefore my time, I see. --Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, Oct. 25, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --I have been studying, with a good deal of interest, twobooks, the Letters of Professor A----, and the Life of Bishop F----. Given the form, I think the editor of the letters has done his workwell. His theory has been to let the Professor speak for himself; whilehe himself stands, like a discreet and unobtrusive guide, and just sayswhat is necessary in the right place. In this he is greatly to becommended; for it happens too often that biographers of eminent men usetheir privilege to do a little adventitious self-advertisement. Theyblow their own trumpets; they stand and posture courteously in theante-room, when what one desires is to go straight into the presence. 

I once had a little piece of biography to do which necessitated mywriting requests for reminiscences to several of the friends of thesubject of my book. I never had such a strange revelation of humannature. A very few people gave me just what I wanted to know--facts, and sayings, and trenchant actions. A second class of correspondentstold me things which had a certain value--episodes in which my heroappeared, but intermingled with many of their own opinions, doings, andsayings. A third class wrote almost exclusively about themselves, usingmy hero as a peg to hang their own remarks upon. The worst offender ofall wrote me long reminiscences of his own conversations, in thefollowing style: "How well I remember the summer of 18--, when dearP---- was staying at F----. I and my wife had a little house in theneighbourhood. We found it convenient to be able to run down there andto rest a little after the fatigues of London life. I remember verywell a walk I took with P----. It was the time of the Franco-PrussianWar, and I was full of indignation at the terrible sacrifice of lifewhich appeared to me to be for no end. I remember pouring out mythoughts to P----. " Here followed a page or two of reflections upon thebarbarity of war. "P---- listened to me with great interest; I cannotnow recall what he said, but I know that it struck me very much at thetime. " And so on through many closely written pages. 

Well, the editor of the Professor's letters has not done this at all;he keeps himself entirely in the background. But, after reading thebook, the reflection is borne in upon me that, unless the hero is agood letter-writer (and the Professor was not), the form of the bookcannot be wholly justified. Most of the letters are, so to speak, business letters; they are either letters connected with ecclesiasticalpolitics, or they are letters dealing with technical historical points. There are many little shrewd and humorous turns occurring in them. Butthese should, I think, have been abstracted from their context andworked into a narrative. The Professor was a man of singular characterand individuality. Besides his enormous erudition, he had a great fundof sterling common sense, a deep and liberal piety, and a mostinconsequent and, I must add, undignified sense of humour. He carriedalmost to a vice the peculiarly English trait of nationalcharacter--the extreme dislike of emotional statement, the inability tospeak easily and unaffectedly on matters of strong feeling and tenderconcern. I confess that this has a displeasing effect. When one desiresabove all things to have a glimpse into his mind, to be reassured as tohis seriousness and piety, it is ten to one that the Professor will, soto speak, pick up his skirts, and execute a series of clumsy, if comic, gambols and caracoles in front of you. A sense of humour is a veryvaluable thing, especially in a professor of theology; but it should beof a seemly and pungent type, not the humour of a Merry Andrew. And onehas the painful sense, especially in the most familiar letters of thiscollection, that the Professor took an almost puerile pleasure intrying to shock his correspondent, in showing how naughty he could be. One feels the same kind of shock as if one had gone to see theProfessor on serious business, and found him riding on a rocking-horsein his study, with a paper cap on his head. There is nothing morallywrong about it; but it appears to be silly, and silliness is out ofplace behind a gown and under a college cap. 

But the Biography of Bishop F---- opens up a further and moreinteresting question, which I feel myself quite unequal to solving. Onehas a respect for erudition, of course, but I find myself ponderinggloomily over the reasons for this respect. Is it only the respect thatone feels for the man who devotes patient labour to the accomplishmentof a difficult task, a task which demands great mental power? What I amnot clear about is what the precise value of the work of the eruditehistorian is. The primary value of history is its educational value. Itis good for the mind to have a wide view of the world, to have a bigperspective of affairs. It corrects narrow, small, personal views; itbrings one in contact with heroic, generous persons; it displays noblequalities. It gives one glimpses of splendid self-sacrifice, of livesdevoted to a high cause; it sets one aglow with visions of patriotism, liberty and justice. It shows one also the darker side; how greatnatures can be neutralised or even debased by uncorrected faults; howbigotry can triumph over intelligence; how high hopes can bedisappointed. All this is saddening; yet it deepens and widens themind; it teaches one what to avoid; it brings one near to the deep andpatient purposes of God. 

But then there is a temptation to think that vivid, picturesque, stimulating writers can do more to develop this side of history thanpatient, laborious, just writers. One begins to be inclined to forgiveanything but dulness in a writer; to value vitality above accuracy, colour above truth. One is tempted to feel that the researches oferudite historians end only in proving that white is not so white, andblack not so black as one had thought. That generous persons had aseamy side; that dark and villainous characters had much to be urged inexcuse for their misdeeds. This is evidently a wrong frame of mind, andone is disposed to say that one must pursue truth before everything. But then comes in the difficulty that truth is so often not to beascertained; that documentary evidence is incomplete, and that evendocuments themselves do not reveal motives. Of course, the perfectcombination would be to have great erudition, great common sense andjustice, and great enthusiasm and vigour as well. It is obviously adisadvantage to have a historian who suppresses vital facts becausethey do not fit in with a preconceived view of characters. But still Ifind it hard to resist the conviction that, from the educational pointof view, stimulus is more important than exactness. It is moreimportant that a boy should take a side, should admire and abhor, thanthat he should have very good reasons for doing so. For it is characterand imagination that we want to affect rather than the mastery ofminute points and subtleties. 

Thus, from an educational point of view, I should consider that Froudewas a better writer than Freeman; just as I should consider it moreimportant that a boy should care for Virgil than that he should be surethat he had the best text. 

I think that what I feel to be the most desirable thing of all is, thatboys should learn somehow to care for history--however prejudiced aview they take of it--when they are young; and that, when they areolder, they should correct misapprehensions, and try to arrive at amore complete and just view. 

Then I go on to my further point, and here I find myself in a stilldarker region of doubt. I must look upon it, I suppose, as a directassault of the Evil One, and hold out the shield of faith against thefiery darts. 

What, I ask myself, is, after all, the use of this practice oferudition? What class of the community does it, nay, can it, benefit?The only class that I can even dimly connect with any benefitsresulting from it is the class of practical politicians; and yet, inpolitics, I see a tendency more and more to neglect the philosophicaland abstruse view; and to appeal more and more to later precedents, notto search among the origins of things. Nay, I would go further, and saythat a pedantic and elaborate knowledge of history hampers rather thanbenefits the practical politician. It is not so with all the learnedprofessions. The man of science may hope that his researches may havesome direct effect in enriching the blood of the world. He may fightthe ravages of disease, he may ameliorate life in a hundred ways. 

But these exponents of learning, these restorers of ancient texts, these disentanglers of grammatical subtleties, these divers amongancient chronicles and forgotten charters--what is it that they do butto multiply and revive useless knowledge, and to make it increasinglydifficult for a man to arrive at a broad and philosophical view, orever attack his subject at the point where it may conceivably affecthumanity or even character? The problem of the modern world is themultiplication of books and records, and every new detail dragged tolight simply encumbers the path of the student. I have no doubt thatthis is a shallow and feeble-minded view. But I am not advancing it asa true view; I am only imploring help; I only desire light. I am onlytoo ready to believe in the virtues and uses of erudition, if any onewill point them out to me. But at present it only appears to me like agigantic mystification, enabling those who hold richly endowed posts tojustify themselves to the world, and to keep the patronage of theseemoluments in their own hands. Supposing, as a reductio ad absurdum, that some wealthy individual were to endow an institution in order thatthe members of it might count the number of threads in carpets. One canimagine a philosophical defence being made of the pursuit. A man mightsay that it was above all things necessary to classify, andinvestigate, and to arrive at the exact truth; to compare the number ofthreads in different carpets, and that the sordid difficulties whichencumbered such a task should not be regarded, in the light of the factthat here, at least, exact results had been obtained. 

Of course, that is all very silly! But I believe; only I want myunbelief helped! If you can tell me what services are rendered byerudition to national life, you will relieve my doubts. Do not merelysay that it enlarges the bounds of knowledge, unless you are alsoprepared to prove that knowledge is, per se, a desirable thing. I amnot sure that it is not a hideous idol, a Mumbo Jumbo, a Moloch inwhose honour children have still to pass through the fire in therecesses of dark academic groves. --Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, Nov. 1, 1904. 

MY DEAR HERBERT, --I have read, after a fashion, in the course of thelast month, the Autobiography of Herbert Spencer. I know nothing of hisphilosophy--I doubt if I have read half-a-dozen pages of his writings;and the man, as revealed in his own transparent confessions, is almostwholly destitute of attractiveness. All the same it is an intenselyinteresting book, because it is the attempt of a profound egotist togive a perfectly sincere picture of his life. Of course, I should haveread it with greater appreciation if I had studied or cared for hisbooks; but I take for granted that he was a great man, and accomplisheda great work, and I like to see how he achieved it. 

The book is the strongest argument I have ever yet read against arational education. I who despair of the public-school classicalsystem, am reluctantly forced to confess that it can sow the seeds offairer flowers than ever blossomed in the soul of Herbert Spencer. Hewas by no means devoid of aesthetic perception. He says that the sightof a mountain, and music heard in a cathedral were two of the thingsthat moved him most. He describes a particular sunset which he saw inScotland, and describes the experience as the climax of his emotionalsensations. He was devoted to music, and had a somewhat contemptuousenjoyment of pictures. But the arrogance and impenetrability of the manrise up on every page. He cannot say frankly that he does notunderstand art and literature; he dogmatises about them, and gives thereader to understand that there is really nothing in them. Hecriticises the classics from the standpoint of a fourth form boy. Hesits like a dry old spider, spinning his philosophical web, with adozen avenues of the soul closed to him, and denying that such avenuesexist. As a statistical and sociological expert he ought to have takeninto account the large number of people who are affected by what we maycall the beautiful, and to have allowed for its existence even if hecould not feel it. But no, he is perfectly self-satisfied, perfectlydecided. And this is the more surprising because the man was in realitya hedonist. He protests finely in more than one place against those whomake life subsidiary to work. He is quite clear on the point that workis only a part of life, and that to live is the object of man. Again, he states that the pursuit of innocent pleasure is a thing to which itis justifiable to devote some energy, and yet this does not make himtolerant. The truth is that he was so supremely egotistical, soentirely wrapped up in himself and his own life, that what other peopledid and cared for was a matter of entire indifference to him. Hissocial tastes, and they were considerable, were all devoted to one andthe same purpose. He liked staying at agreeable country houses, becauseit was a pleasant distraction to him and improved his health. He likeddining out, because it stimulated his digestion. All humanrelationships are made subservient to the same end. It never seems tohim to be a duty to minister to the pleasure of others. He takes whathe can get at the banquet of life, and, having secured his share, goesaway to digest it. When, at the end of his life, social entertainmentstried his nerves, he gave them up. When people came to see him, and hefound himself getting tired or excited by conversation, if it was notconvenient to him to leave the room, he put stoppers in his ears toblur the sense of the talk. What better parable of the elaborateframework of egotism on which his life was constructed could there bethan the following legend, not derived from the book? One evening, thestory goes, the philosopher had invited, at his club, a youthfulstranger to join him in a game of billiards. The young man, who was aproficient, ran out in two breaks, leaving his rival a hopelessdistance behind. When he had finished, Spencer, with a severe air, saidto him: "To play billiards in an ordinary manner is an agreeableadjunct to life; to play as you have been playing is evidence of amisspent youth. " A man who was not an egotist and a philosopher, however much he disliked the outcome of the game, would have attemptedsome phrases of commendation. But Spencer's view was, that anythingwhich rendered a player of billiards less useful to himself, by givinghim fewer opportunities in the course of a game for what he would havecalled healthful and pleasurable recreation, was not only not to betolerated, but was to be morally reprobated. 

As to his health, a subject which occupies the larger part of thevolumes, it is evident that, though his nervous system was deranged, hewas a complete hypochondriac. There is very little repining about theinvalid conditions under which he lived; and it gradually dawned uponme that this was not because he had resolved to bear it in a stoicaland courageous manner, but because his ill-health, seen through therosy spectacles of the egotist, was a matter of pleasurable excitementto him; he complains a good deal of the peculiar sensations heexperienced, and his broken nights, but with a solemn satisfaction inthe whole experience. He never had to bear physical pain, and the worstevil from which he suffered was the boredom resulting from the way inwhich he had to try, or conceived that he had to try, to kill timewithout reading or working. 

Of course one cannot help admiring the tenacious way in which hecarried out his great work under unfavourable conditions. Yet there issomething ridiculous in the picture of his rowing about in a boat onthe Regent's Park Lake, with an amanuensis in the stern, dictatingunder the lee of an island until his sensations returned, and thenrowing until they subsided again. As a hedonist, he distinctlycalculated that his work gave the spice to his life, and that he wouldnot have been so happy had he relinquished it. But there is nothinggenerous or noble about his standpoint; he liked writing andphilosophising, and he preferred to do it even though it entailed acertain amount of invalidism, in the same spirit in which a man prefersto drink champagne with the prospect of suffering from the gout, ratherthan to renounce champagne and gout alike. 

The man's face is in itself a parable. He has the high, domed foreheadof the philosopher, and a certain geniality of eye; but the hard, thin-lipped mouth, with the deep lines from the nose, give him the airof an elderly chimpanzee. He has a hand like a bird's claw; and theantique shirt-front and small bow-tie denote the man who has fixed hisopinions on the cut of his clothes at an early date and does not intendto modify them. Quite apart from the intense seriousness with which thesage took himself, down to the smallest details, the style of the book, dry as it is, is in itself grotesquely attractive. 

There is something in the use of solemn scientific terminology, whendealing with the most trivial matters, which makes many passagesirresistibly ludicrous. I wish that I could think that the writer ofthe following lines wrote them with any consciousness of how humorous apassage he was constructing--

"With me any tendency towards facetiousness is the result of temporaryelation, either . . . Caused by pleasurable health-giving change, ormore commonly by meeting old friends. Habitually I observed that onseeing the Lotts after a long interval, I was apt to give vent to somewitticisms during the first hour or two, and then they became rare. "

I can't say that the life is a sad one, because, on the whole, it is acontented one; but it is so one-sided and so self-absorbed that onefeels dried-up and depressed by it. One feels that great ability, greatperseverance, may yet leave a man very cold and hard; that a man maypenetrate the secrets of philosophy and yet never become wise; and oneends by feeling that simplicity, tenderness, a love of beautiful andgracious things are worth far more than great mental achievement. Orrather, I suppose, that one has to pay a price for everything, and thatthe price that this dyspeptic philosopher paid for his great work wasto move through the world in a kind of frigid blindness, missing lifeafter all, and bartering reality for self-satisfaction. 

Curiously enough, I have at the same time been reading the life ofanother self-absorbed and high-minded personality--the late DeanFarrar. This is a book the piety of which is more admirable than theliterary skill; but probably the tender partiality with which it iswritten makes it a more valuable document from the point of view ofrevealing personality than if it had been more critically treated. 

Farrar was probably the exact opposite of Herbert Spencer in almostevery respect. He was a litterateur, a rhetorician, an idealist, whereSpencer was a philosopher, a scientific man, and a rationalist. Farraradmired high literature with all his heart; though unfortunately it didnot clarify his own taste, but only gave him a rich vocabulary ofhigh-sounding words, which he bound into a flaunting bouquet. He waslike the bower-bird, which takes delight in collecting bright objectsof any kind, bits of broken china, fragments of metal, which itdisposes with distressing prominence about its domicile, and runs toand fro admiring the fantastic pattern. The fabric of Farrar's writingis essentially thin; his thoughts rarely rose above the commonplace, and to these thoughts he gave luscious expression, sticking the flowersof rhetoric, of which his marvellous memory gave him the command, so asto ornament without adorning. 

Every one must have been struck in Farrar's works of fiction by theaffected tone of speech adopted by his saintly and high-minded heroes. It was not affectation in Farrar to speak and write in this way; it wasthe form in which his thoughts naturally arranged themselves. But inone sense it was affected, because Farrar seems to have been naturallya kind of dramatist. I imagine that his self-consciousness was great, and I expect that he habitually lived with the feeling of being thecentral figure in a kind of romantic scene. The pathos of the situationis that he was naturally a noble-minded man. He had a high conceptionof beauty, both artistic and moral beauty. He did live in the regionsto which he directed others. But this is vitiated by a desire forrecognition, a definite, almost a confessed, ambition. The letter, forinstance, in which he announces that he has accepted a Canonry atWestminster is a painful one. If he felt the inexpressible distress, ofwhich he speaks, at the idea of leaving Marlborough, there was reallyno reason why he should not have stayed; and, later on, his failure toattain to high ecclesiastical office seems to have resulted in a senseof compassion for the inadequacy of those who failed to discern realmerit, and a certain bitterness of spirit which, considering hisservices to religion and morality, was not wholly unnatural. But hedoes not seem to have tried to interpret the disappointment that hefelt, or to have asked himself whether the reason of his failure didnot rather lie in his own temperament. 

The kindness of the man, his laboriousness, his fierce indignationagainst moral evil, to say nothing of his extraordinary mental powers, seem to have been clogged all through life by this sadself-consciousness. The pity and the mystery of it is that a man shouldhave been so moulded to help his generation, and then that thisgrievous defect of temperament should have been allowed to take itsplace as the tyrant of the whole nature. And what makes the wholesituation even more tragic is that it was through a certaintransparency of nature that this egotism became apparent to others. Hewas a man who seemed bound to speak of all that was in his mind; thatwas a part of his rhetorical temperament. But if he could have held histongue, if he could have kept his own weakness of spirit concealed, hemight have achieved the very successes which he desired, and, indeed, deserved. The result is that a richly endowed character achieves noconspicuous greatness, either as a teacher, a speaker, a writer, oreven as a man. 

The moral of these two books is this: How can any one whose characteris deeply tinged by this sort of egotism--and it is the shadow of alleager and sensitive temperaments--best fight against it? Can it besubdued, can it be concealed, can it be cured? I hardly dare to thinkso. But I think that a man may deliberately resolve not to makerecognition an object; and next I believe he may most successfullyfight against egotism in ordinary life by regarding it mainly as aquestion of manners. If a man can only, in early life, get into hishead that it is essentially bad manners to thrust himself forward, anddetermine rather to encourage others to speak out what is in theirminds, a habit can be acquired; and probably, upon acquaintance, aninterest in the point of view of others will grow. That is not a verylofty solution, but I believe it to be a practical one; and certainlyfor a man of egotistic nature it is a severe and fruitful lesson toread the lives of two such self-absorbed characters as Spencer andFarrar, and to see, in the one case, how ugly and distorting a fault, in the other, how hampering a burden it may become. 

Egotism is really a failure of sympathy, a failure of justice, afailure of proportion, and to recognise this is the first step towardsestablishing a desire to be loving, just, and well-balanced. 

But still the mystery remains: and I think that perhaps the mostwholesome attitude is to be grateful for what in the way of work, ofprecept, of example these men achieved, and to leave the mystery oftheir faults to their Maker, in the noble spirit of Gray's Elegy:--

 "No farther seek his merits to disclose, Or draw his frailties from their dread abode (There they alike in trembling hope repose), The bosom of his Father and his God. "

--Ever yours, T. B. 

MONK'S ORCHARD, UPTON, Nov. 8, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --I have been trying to read the letters of T. E. Brown. Do you know anything about him? He was a Manxman by birth, a fellow ofOriel, a Clifton Master for many years, and at the end of his life aManxman again--he held a living there. He wrote some spirited tales inverse, in the Manx vernacular, and he was certainly a poet at heart. Hewas fond of music, and a true lover of nature. He had a genius forfriendship, and evidently had the gift of inspiring other people;high-minded and intelligent men speak of him, in the little memoir thatprecedes the letters, with a pathetic reverence and a profound beliefin the man's originality, and even genius. I was so sure that I shouldenjoy the book that I ordered it before it was published, and, when itappeared, it was a very profound disappointment. I don't mean to saythat there are not beautiful things in it; it shows one a wholesomenature and a grateful, kindly heart; but, in the first place, he writesa terrible style, the kind of style that imposes on simple peoplebecause it is allusive, and what is called unconventional; to me it issimply spasmodic and affected. The man seems, as a rule, utterly unableto say anything in a simple and delicate way; his one object appears tobe not to use the obvious word. He has a sort of jargon of his own--adreadful jargon. He must write "crittur" or "craythur, " when he means"creature"; he says "Yiss, ma'am, I'd be glad to jine the Book Club";he uses the word "galore"; he talks of "the resipiscential process"when he means growing wiser--at least I think that is what he means. The following, taken quite at random, are specimens of the sort ofpassages that abound:--

"Rain, too, is one of my joys. I want to wash myself, soak myself init; hang myself over a meridian to dry; dissolve (still better) intorags of soppy disintegration, blotting paper, mash and splash and hashof inarticulate protoplasm. "

I suppose that both he and his friends thought that picturesque; to meit is neither beautiful nor amusing--simply ugly and aggravating. 

Here again:--

"On the Quantocks I feel fairies all round me, the good folk, meetcompanions for young poets. How Coleridge, more especially, fits in tosuch surroundings! 'Fairies?' say you. Well, there's odds of fairies, and of the sort I mean Coleridge was the absolute Puck. 'Puck?' saysyou. 'For shame!' says you. No, d--n it! I'll stick to that. There'sodds o' fairies, and often enough I think the world is nothing else;troops, societies, hierarchies--S. T. C. , a supreme hierarch; look at hisface; think of meeting him at moonlight between Stowey and Alfoxden, like a great white owl, soft and plumy, with eyes of flame!"

I confess that such passages simply make me blush, leave me with a kindof mental nausea. What makes it worse is that there is something inwhat he says, if he would only say it better. It makes me feel as Ishould feel if I saw an elderly, heavily-built clergyman amusinghimself in a public place with a skipping-rope, to show what a child ofnature he was. 

I cannot help feeling that the man was a poseur, and that hisaffectations were the result of living in a small and admiring coterie. If, when one begins to write and talk in that jesting way, there issome one at your elbow to say, "How refreshing, how original, howrugged!" I suppose that one begins to think that one had better indulgeoneself in such absurdities. But readers outside the circle turn awayin disgust. 

The pity of it is that Brown had something of the Celtic spirit--themelancholy, the mystery of that sensitive and delicate temperament; butit is vitiated by what I can only call a schoolmaster's humour--cheapand silly, such as imposes on immature minds. When he was quite seriousand simple, he wrote beautiful, quiet, wise letters, dealing with deepthings in a dignified way; but, as a rule, he thought it necessary tocut ugly capers, and to do what can only be described as playing thefool. I wish with all my heart that these letters had not beenpublished; they deform and disfigure a beautiful spirit and a quickimagination. 

Pose, affectation--what a snare they are to the better kind of minds. Ideclare that I value every day more and more the signs of simplicity, the people who say what they mean, and as they mean it; who don't thinkwhat they think is expected of them, but what they really feel; whodon't pretend to enjoy what they don't enjoy, or to understand whatthey don't understand. 

I may be all wrong about Brown, of course, for the victory alwaysremains with the people who admire, rather than with the people whocriticise; people cannot be all on the same plane, and it is of no useto quench enthusiasm by saying, "When you are older and wiser you willthink differently. " The result of that kind of snub is only to makepeople hold their tongues, and think one an old-fashioned pedant. Isometimes wonder whether there is an absolute standard of beauty atall, whether taste is not a sort of epidemic contagion, and whether theaccredited man of taste is not, as some one says, the man who has thegood fortune to agree most emphatically with the opinion of themajority. 

I am sure, however, you would not like the book; though I don't saythat you might not extract, as I do to my shame, a kind of bitterpleasure in thinking how unconsciously absurd it is--the pleasure onegets from watching the movements and gestures, and listening to theremarks of a profoundly affected and complacent person. But that is notan elevated kind of pleasure, when all is said and done!

 "We get no good, By being ungenerous, even to a book!"

as Mrs. Browning says. . . . --Ever yours. 

T. B. 

UPTON, Nov. 15, 1904. 

MY DEAR HERBERT, --A controversy, a contest! How they poison all one'sthoughts! I am at present wading, as Ruskin says, in a sad marsh orpool of thought. Let me indicate to you without excessive detail thekind of thing that is going on. 

We have been discussing the introduction here of certain importanteducational reforms, in the direction of modernising and simplifyingour curriculum. 

Now we are all one body here, no doubt, like the Christian Church inthe hymn; but unhappily, and unlike the hymn, we ARE very much divided. We are in two camps. There is a conservative section who, doubtless forvery good reasons, want to keep things as they are; they see stronglyall the blessings of the old order; they like the old ways and believein them; they think, for instance, that the old classical lines ofeducation are the best, that the system fortifies the mind, and that, when you have been through it, you have got a good instrument whichenables you to tackle anything else; a very coherent position, and, inthe case of our conservatives, very conscientiously administered. 

Then there is a strong Progressive party numerically rather stronger, to which I myself belong. We believe that things might be a good dealbetter. We are dissatisfied with our results. We think, to take thesame instance, that classics are a very hard subject, and that a greatmany boys are not adapted to profit by them; we believe that theconsequence of boys being kept at a hard subject, which they cannotpenetrate or master, leads to a certain cynicism about intellectualthings, and that the results of a classical education on many boys areso negative that at all events some experiments ought to be tried. 

Well, if all discussions could be conducted patiently, good-humouredly, and philosophically, no harm would be done; but they can't! Men willlose their temper, indulge in personalities, and import bitterness intothe question. Moreover, a number of my fiercest opponents are among mybest friends here, and that is naturally very painful. Indeed, I feelhow entirely unfitted I am for these kinds of controversy. Thisdisgusting business deprives me of sleep, makes me unable toconcentrate my mind upon my work, destroys both my tranquillity and myphilosophy. 

It is a relief to write to you on the subject. Yet I don't see my wayout. One must have an opinion about one's life-work. My business iseducation, and I have tried to use my eyes and see things as they are. I am quite prepared to admit that I may be wrong; but if everybody whoformed opinions abstained from expressing them out of deference to thepeople who were not prepared to admit that they themselves could bemistaken, there would be an end of all progress. Minds of the sturdy, unconvinced order are generally found to range themselves on the sideof things as they are; and that is at all events a good guarantee thatthings won't move too fast, and against the trying of rash experiments. 

But I don't want to be rash; I think that for a great many boys ourtype of education is a failure, and I want to see if something cannotbe devised to meet their needs. But my opponents won't admit anyfailure. They say that the boys who, I think, end by being hopelesslyuneducated would be worse off if they had not been grounded in theclassics. They say that my theory is only to make things easier forboys; and they add that, if any boy's education is an entire failure(they admit a few incapables are to be found), it is the boy's ownfault; he has been idle and listless; if he had worked properly itwould have been all right; he would have been fortified; and anyhow, they say, it doesn't matter what you teach such boys--they would havebeen hopeless anyhow. 

Of course the difficulty of proving my case is great. You can't, ineducation, get two exactly parallel boys and try the effect ofdifferent types of education on the two. A chemist can put exactly thesame quantity of some salt in two vessels, and, by treating them indifferent ways, produce a demonstration which is irrefragable. But notwo boys are exactly alike, and, while classics are demanded at theuniversity, boys of ability will tend to keep on the classical side; sothat the admitted failure of modern sides in many places to produceboys of high intellectual ability results from the fact that boys ofability do not tend to join the modern sides. 

So one hammers on, and, as it is always easier to leave an object atrest than to set it moving, we remain very much where we were. 

The cynical solution is to say, let us have peace at any cost; let thething alone; let us teach what we have to teach, and not bother aboutresults. But that appears to me to be a cowardly attitude. If oneexpresses dissatisfaction to one of the cheerful stationary party, theyreply, "Oh, take our word for it, it is all right; do your best; youdon't teach at all badly, though you lack conviction; leave it to us, and never mind the discontent expressed by parents, and the cynicalcontempt felt by boys for intellectual things. "

 "Meanwhile, regardless of their doom, The little victims play. "

They do indeed! they find work so dispiriting a business that they putit out of their thoughts as much as they can. And when they grow up, conscious of intellectual feebleness, they have no idea of expressingtheir resentment at the way they have been used--if they are modest, they think that it is their own fault; if they are complacent, theythink that intellectual things don't matter. 

While I write there comes in one of my cheerful opponents to discussthe situation. We plunge into the subject of classics. I say that, toboys without aptitude, they are dreary and hopelessly difficult. "Thereyou go again, " he says, "always wanting to make things EASIER: thething to do is to keep boys at hard, solid work; it is an advantagethat they can't understand what they are working at; it is a bettergymnastic. " The subject of mathematics is mentioned, and my friendincidentally confesses that he never had the least idea what higherAlgebra was all about. 

I refrain from saying what comes into my mind. Supposing that he, without any taste for Mathematics, had been kept year after year atthem, surely that would have been acting on his principle, viz. To findout what boys can't do and make them do it. No doubt he would say thathis mind had been fortified, as it was, by classics. But, if a rigidmathematical training had been employed, his mind might have beenfortified into an enviable condition of inaccessibility. But I don'tsay this; he would only think I was making fun of the whole thing. 

Fun, indeed! There is very little amusement to be derived from thesituation. My opponents have a strong sense of what they callliberty--which means that every one should have a vote, and that everyone should register it in their favour. Or they are like theold-fashioned Whigs, who had a strong belief in popular liberty, and anequally unshaken belief in their own personal superiority. --Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, Nov. 22, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --"Be partner of my dreams as of my fishing, " says the oldfisherman to his mate, in that delicious idyll of Theocritus--do readit again. It is one of the little masterpieces that hang for ever inone of the inner secret rooms of the great halls of poetry. The two oldmen lie awake in their wattled cabin, listening to the soft beating ofthe sea, and beguiling the dark hour before the dawn, when they mustfare forth, in simple talk about their dreams. It is a genre picture, full of simple detail, but with a vein of high poetry about it; allremote from history and civic life, in that eternal region of perfectand quiet art, into which, thank God, one can always turn to restawhile. 

But to-day I don't want to talk of fishermen, or Theocritus, or evenart; I want you to share one of my dreams. 

I must preface it by saying that I have just experienced a severehumiliation; I have been deeply wounded. I won't trouble you with thesordid details, but it has been one of those severe checks onesometimes experiences, when a mirror is held up to one's character, andone sees an ugly sight. Never mind that now! But you can imagine myframe of mind. 

I bicycled off alone in the afternoon, feeling very sore and miserablein spirit. It was one of those cool, fresh, dark November days, not somuch gloomy as half-lit and colourless. There was not a breathstirring. The long fields, the fallows, with hedges and coverts, meltedinto a light mist, which hid all the distant view. I moved in a narrowtwilight circle, myself the centre; the road was familiar enough to me;at a certain point there is a little lodge, with a road turning off toa farm. It is many years since I visited the place, but I remembereddimly that there was some interest of antiquity about the house, and Idetermined to explore it. The road curved away among quiet fields, withhere and there a belt of woodland, then entered a little park; there Isaw a cluster of buildings on the edge of a pool, all grown up withlittle elms and ashes, now bare of leaves. Here I found a friendly, gaitered farmer, who, in reply to my question whether I could see theplace, gave me a cordial invitation to come in; he took me to a gardendoor, opened it, and beckoned me to go through. I found myself in aplace of incomparable beauty. It was a long terrace, rather wild andneglected; below there were the traces of a great, derelict garden, with thick clumps of box, the whole surrounded by a large earthwork, covered with elms. To the left lay another pool; to the right, at theend of the terrace, stood a small red-brick chapel, with a bigPerpendicular window. The house was to the left of us, in the centre ofthe terrace, of old red brick, with tall chimneys and mullionedwindows. My friend the farmer chatted pleasantly about the house, butwas evidently prouder of his rose-trees and his chrysanthemums. The daygrew darker as we wandered, and a pleasant plodding and clinking ofhorses coming home made itself heard in the yard. Then he asked me toenter the house. What was my surprise when he led me into a large hall, with painted panels and a painted ceiling, occupying all the centre ofthe house. He told me a little of the history of the place, of a visitpaid by Charles the First, and other simple traditions, showing me allthe time a quiet, serious kindness, which reminded one of theentertainment given to the wayfarers of the Pilgrim's Progress. 

Once more we went out on the little terrace and looked round; the nightbegan to fall, and lights began to twinkle in the house, while the fireglowed and darted in the hall. 

But what I cannot, I am afraid, impart to you is the strangetranquillity that came softly down into my mind; everything took itspart in this atmosphere of peace. The overgrown terrace, the mellowbrickwork, the bare trees, the tall house, the gentle kindliness of myhost. And then I seemed so far away from the world; there was nothingin sight but the fallows and the woods, rounded with mist; it seemed atonce the only place in the world, and yet out of it. The old housestood patiently waiting, serving its quiet ends, growing in beautyevery year, seemingly so unconscious of its grace and charm, and yet, as it were, glad to be loved. It seemed to give me just the calm, thetenderness I wanted. To assure me that, whatever pain and humiliationthere were in the world, there was a strong and loving Heart behind. Myhost said good-bye to me very kindly, begging me to come again andbring any one to see the place. "We are very lonely here, and it doesus good to see a stranger. "

I rode away, and stopped at a corner where a last view of the house waspossible; it stood regarding me, it seemed, mournfully, and yet with asolemn welcome from its dark windows. And here was another beautifulvignette; close to me, by a hedge, stood an old labourer, a fork in onehand, the other shading his eyes, watching with simple intentness aflight of wild-duck that was passing overhead, dipping to somesequestered pool. 

I rode away with a quiet hopefulness in my heart. I seemed like a dustyand weary wayfarer, who has flung off his heated garments and plungedinto the clear waters of comfort; to have drawn near to the heart ofthe world; to have had a sight, in the midst of things mutable anddisquieting, of things august and everlasting. At another time I mighthave flung myself into busy fancies, imagined a community living anorderly and peaceful life, full of serene activities, in that stillplace; but for once I was content to have seen a dwelling-place, devised by some busy human brain, that had failed of its purpose, lostits ancient lords, sunk into a calm decay; to have seen it all caressedand comforted and embraced by nature, its scars hidden, its gracereplenished, its harshness smoothed away. 

Such gentle hours are few; and fewer still the moments of anxiety andvexation when so direct a message is flashed straight from the Mind ofGod into the unquiet human heart; I never doubted that I was led thereby a subtle, delicate, and fatherly tenderness, and shown a thing whichshould at once touch my sense of beauty, and then rising, as it were, and putting the superficial aspect aside, speak with no uncertain voiceof the deep hopes, the everlasting peace on which for a few years thelittle restless world of ours is rocked and carried to and fro. . . . --Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, Nov. 29, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --To-day the world is shrouded in a thick, white, drippingmist. Glancing up in the warm room where I sit, I see nothing but greywindow spaces. "How melancholy, how depressing, " says my generallycheerful friend, Randall, staring sadly out into the blank air. But Imyself do not agree. I am conscious of a vague, pleasurable excitement;a sense, too, of repose. This half light is grateful and cooling aliketo eye and brain. Then, too, it is a change from ordinary conditions, and a change has always something invigorating about it. I steal aboutwith an obscure sense that something mysterious is happening. And yetimagine some bright spirit of air and sunshine, like Ariel, flittinghither and thither above the mist, dipping his feet in the vapour, as asea-bird flies low across the sea. Think of the pity he would feel forthe poor human creatures, buried in darkness below, creeping hither andthither in the gloom. 

It is pleasurable enough within the house, but still more pleasurableto walk abroad; the little circle of dim vision passes with you, justrevealing the road, the field, the pasture in which you walk. 

There is a delightful surprise about the way in which a familiar objectlooms up suddenly, a dim remote shape, and then as swiftly reveals thewell-known outline. My path takes me past the line, and I hear a trainthat I cannot see roar past. I hear the sharp crack of the fog signalsand the whistle blown. I pass close to the huge, dripping signals;there, in a hut beside a brazier, sits a plate-layer with his pole, watching the line, ready to push the little disc off the metals if thecreaking signal overhead moves. In another lonely place stands a greatluggage train waiting. The little chimney of the van smokes, and I hearthe voices of guards and shunters talking cheerily together. I drawnearer home, and enter the college by the garden entrance. The blackfoliage of the ilex lowers overhead, and then in a moment, out of anovershadowing darkness, rises a battlemented tower like a fairy castle, with lights in the windows streaming out with straight golden rays intothe fog. Below, the arched doorway reveals the faintly-lighted archesof the cloisters. The hanging, clinging, soaking mist--how it heightensthe value, the comfort of the lighted windows of studious, fire-warmedrooms. 

And then what a wealth of pleasant images rises in the mind. I findmyself thinking how the reading of certain authors is like thismist-walking; one seems to move in a dreary, narrow circle, and thensuddenly a dim horror of blackness stands up; and then, again, in amoment one sees that it is some familiar thought which has thus won astateliness, a remote mystery, from the atmosphere out of which itleans. 

Or, better still, how like these fog-wrapped days are to seasons ofmental heaviness, when the bright, distant landscape is all swallowedup and cherished landmarks disappear. One walks in a vain shadow; andthen the surprises come; something, which in its familiar aspect stirsno tangible emotion, in an instant overhangs the path, shrouded in dimgrandeur and solemn awe. Days of depression have this value, that theyare apt to reveal the sublimity, the largeness of well-known thoughts, all veiled in a melancholy magnificence. Then, too, one gains aninkling of the sweetness of the warm corners, the lighted rooms oflife, the little centre of brightness which one can make in one's ownretired heart, and which gives the sense of welcome, the quiet delightsof home-keeping, the warmth of the contented mind. 

And, best of all, as one stumbles along the half-hidden street a shape, huge, intangible, comes stealing past; one wonders what strangevisitant this is that comes near in the gathering darkness. And then ina moment the vagueness is dispelled; the form, the lineaments, takeshape from the gloom, and one finds that one is face to face with afamiliar friend, whose greeting warms the heart as one passes into themist again. --Ever yours, T. B. 

UPTON, Dec. 5, 1904. 

MY DEAR HERBERT, --I am very sorry to hear you have been suffering fromdepression; it is one of the worst evils of life, and none the betterfor being so intangible. I was reading a story the other day, in someold book, of a moody man who was walking with a friend, and, after along silence, suddenly cried out, as if in pain. "What ails you?" saidhis friend. "My mind hurts me, " said the other. That is the best way tolook at it, I think--as a kind of neuralgia of the soul, to be treatedlike other neuralgias. A friend of mine who was a great sufferer fromsuch depression went to an old doctor, who heard his story with asmile, and then said: "Now, you're not as bad as you feel, or even asyou think. My prescription is a simple one. Don't eat pastry; and for afortnight don't do anything you don't like. "

It is often only a kind of cramp, and needs an easier position. Try andget a little change; read novels; don't get tired; sit in the open air. "A recumbent position, " said a witty lady of my acquaintance, "is agreat aid to cheerfulness. "

I used, as you know, to be a great sufferer; or perhaps you don't know, for I was too miserable sometimes even to speak of it. But I can sayhumbly and gratefully that a certain freedom from depression is one ofthe blessings that advancing years have brought me. Still, I don'taltogether escape, and it sometimes falls with an unexpectedsuddenness. It may help you to know that other people suffer similarly, and how they suffer. 

Well, then, a few days ago I woke early, after troubled dreams, andknew that the old enemy had clutched me. I lay in a strange agony ofmind, my heart beating thick, and with an insupportable weight on myheart. It always takes the same form with me--an overwhelming sense offailure in all that I attempt, a dreary consciousness of absolutefutility, coupled with the sense of the brevity and misery of humanlife generally. I ask myself what is the use of anything? What is analmost demoniacal feature of the mood is that it lays a spell of utterdreariness upon all pleasures as well as duties. One feels condemned toa long perspective of work without interest, and recreation withoutrelish, and all confined and bounded by death; whichever way mythoughts turned, a grey prospect met me. 

Little by little the misery abated, recurring at longer and longerintervals, till at last I slept again; but the mood overclouded me allday long, and I went about my duties with indifference. But there isone medicine which hardly ever fails me--it was a half-holiday, and, after tea, I went to the cathedral and sate in a remote corner of thenave. The service had just begun. The nave was dimly lighted, but anupward radiance gushed behind the screen and the tall organ, and lit upthe vaulted roof with a tranquil glory. Soon the Psalms began, and atthe sound of the clear voices of the choir, which seemed to swim on themelodious thunder of the organ, my spirit leapt into peace, as a mandrowning in a stormy sea is drawn into a boat that comes to rescue him. It was the fourth evening, and that wonderful Psalm, My God, my God, look upon me--where the broken spirit dives to the very depths ofdarkness and despair--brought me the message of triumphant sorrow. Howstrange that these sad cries of the heart, echoing out of the ages, setto rich music--it was that solemn A minor chant by Battishill, whichyou know--should be able to calm and uplift the grieving spirit. Thethought rises into a burst of gladness at the end; and then followshard upon it the tenderest of all Psalms, The Lord is my Shepherd, inwhich the spirit casts its care upon God, and walks simply, in uttertrust and confidence. The dreariness of my heart thawed and melted intopeace and calm. Then came the solemn murmur of a lesson; theMagnificat, sung to a setting--again as by a thoughtful tenderness--ofwhich I know and love every note; and here my heart seemed to climbinto a quiet hope and rest there; the lesson again, like the voice of aspirit; and then the Nunc Dimittis, which spoke of the beautiful restthat remaineth. Then the quiet monotone of prayer, and then, as thoughto complete my happiness, Mendelssohn's Hear my prayer. It is thefashion, I believe, for some musicians to speak contemptuously of thisanthem, to say that it is over-luscious. I only know that it brings allHeaven about me, and reconciles the sadness of the world with the peaceof God. A boy's perfect treble--that sweetest of all created sounds, because so unconscious of its pathos and beauty--floating on the top ofthe music, and singing as an angel might sing among the stars ofheaven, came to my thirsty spirit like a draught of clear spring water. And, at the end of all, Mendelssohn's great G major fugue gave the noteof courage and endurance that I needed, the strong notes marchingsolemnly and joyfully on their appointed way. 

I left the cathedral, through the gathering twilight, peaceful, hopeful, and invigorated, as a cripple dipped in the healing well. While music is in the world, God abides among us. Ever since the daythat David soothed Saul by his sweet harp and artless song, music hasthus beguiled the heaviness of the spirit. Yet there is the mystery, that the emotion seems to soar so much higher and dive so much deeperthan the notes that evoke it! The best argument for immortality, Ithink. 

Now that I have written so much, I feel that I am, perhaps, inconsiderate in speaking so much of the healing music which you cannotobtain. But get your wife to play to you, in a quiet and darkened room, some of the things you love best. It is not the same as the cathedral, with all its glory and its ancient, dim tradition, but it will serve. 

And, meanwhile, think as little of your depression as you can; it won'tpoison the future; just endure it like a present pain; the moment onecan do that, the victory is almost won. 

The worst of the grim mood is that it seems to tear away all thepretences with which we beguile our sadness, and to reveal the truth. But it is only that truth which lies at the bottom of the well; andthere are fathoms of clear water lying above it, which are quite astrue as the naked fact below. That is all the philosophy I can extractfrom such depression, and, in some mysterious way, it helps us, afterall, when it is over; makes us stronger, more patient, morecompassionate; and it is worth some suffering, if one lays hold of trueexperience instead of wasting time in querulousself-commiseration. --Affectionately yours, T. B. 

UPTON, Dec. 12, 1904. 

MY DEAR HERBERT, --I have lately been reading in a whimsical anddiscursive fashion--you know the mood--turning the pages, and yet notfinding the repose one demands in a book. 

One thought emerges from such hours; and as I cannot to-day write you along letter, I will just try and shape my ideas in a few sentences, hoping that you will be able to supplement or correct it. 

Is not the one thing which, after all, one demands in art, PERSONALITY?A perfectly sincere and direct point of view? It matters little whatthe point of view is, and whether one agrees with it or not, so long asone is certain of its truth and reality. Books where there is any senseof pose, of affectation, of insincerity, do not ever really please orsatisfy; of course there are books which are entirely sincere which areyet so unsympathetic that one cannot get near them. But presupposing acertain sympathy of aim and ideal, one may disagree with, or thinkincomplete, or consider overstrained, the sincere presentment of somethought, but one realises it to be true and natural--to be THERE. 

Well, such a point of view holds both hope and discouragement for awriter. Writers have long periods, I suppose, when they don't seem tohave anything to say; or, even worse, when they have something to saybut can't please themselves as to the manner of saying it. But allthese delays, these inarticulate silences, these dumb discouragementsare part, after all, of the same thing. It is useless to try and sayanything under these conditions; or, if one does contrive to expresssomething, one must look upon it merely as an exercise in expression, apiece of training, a sort of gymnastic--and be content to throw thething aside. 

The only kind of thing that is worth saying is the thing that isconceived in perfect sincerity; it need not be original ornew--sometimes, indeed, it is some one else's thought which touches thetrain which seems so difficult to fire. But it must be sincere; one'svery own; if one does not originate it one must, at least, give it theimpress of one's own inmost mind. 

Of course, even then the thing may not win acceptance; for a thought toappeal to others a certain sympathy must be abroad; there must be, touse a musical metaphor, a certain descant or accompaniment going on, into which one can drop one's music as an organist plays a solo, whichgives voice and individuality to some quiet, gliding strain. 

But the thing to remember is that the one condition of art is that thethought and the expression must be individual and absolutely sincere. To be accepted matters little, if only you have said what is in yourheart. 

Of course, many things must be combined as well--style, magic ofword-painting, harmony, beauty. There are many people whose strong andsincere thoughts cannot be uttered, because they have no power ofexpression; but even these are all personality too. 

There must be no deep and vital despondency in the artist's heart as tohis right and power to speak. His duty is to gain flexibility byperseverance; and, meanwhile, to analyse, to keep his mind large andsympathetic, to open all the windows of his heart to the day; not to beconventional, prejudiced, or wilful; to believe that any one who cansee beauty or truth in a thing is nearer to its essence than one whocan only criticise or despise. 

This is roughly and awkwardly put; but I believe it to be true. Tell mewhat you feel about it; stay me with flagons, whatever that mysteriousprocess may be. . . . --Ever yours, T. B. 

OXFORD, Dec. 23, 1904. 

MY DEAR HERBERT, --I came down, as soon as the term was over, to Oxford, where I have come in the way of a good deal of talk. I find that Ibecome somewhat of a connoisseur in the matter of conversation as Igrow older; and I must also confess that such powers as I possess inthat direction are of the tete-a-tete order. A candid friend of mine, agracious lady, who wields some of the arts of a salon, lately took thewind out of my sails, on an occasion when I formed one of a large andrather tongue-tied party at her house. I had flung myself, ratherstrenuously, into the breach, and had talked with more valour thandiscretion. Later in the evening I had a little confabulation withherself, at the end of which she said to me, with a vaguely reminiscentair, "What a pity it is that you are only a tete-a-tete talker!"

To be a salon talker indeed requires a certain self-possession, a kindof grasp of the different individuals which surround you, which is ofthe nature of Napoleonic strategy. 

At Oxford one does not find much general conversation. The party whichmeets night by night in Hall is too large for any diffused talk; and, moreover, the clink and clash of service, the merry chatter of theundergraduates fill the scene with a background of noise. There is acertain not unpleasant excitement, of the gambling type, as to whoone's neighbours will be. Sometimes by a dexterous stroke one cansecure one's chosen companion; but it also may happen that one may beat the end of the row of the first detachment which sits down to dinner(for the table slowly fills), and then it is like a game of dominoes;it is uncertain who may occupy one's nether flank. But the party is solarge that there is a great variety. Of course we have ourdrawbacks--what society has not? There is the argumentative, hair-splitting Professor, who is never happy unless he is landing youin a false position and ruthlessly demolishing it. There is the crustedold Don, whose boots creak, whose clothes seem to be made of some hard, unyielding material, and whose stiff collars scrape his shaven cheekswith a rustling noise; he speaks rarely and gruffly; he opens his mouthto insert food, and closes it with a snap; but he is a humorous oldfellow, with a twinkle in his eye; generous if whimsical; and moregood-natured than he wishes you to believe. Some of my friends aresilent and abrupt; there is the statuesque chaplain who, whatever youmay talk of, appears to be preoccupied with something else; there arebrisk, bird-like men, who pick up their food and interject disconnectedremarks. But the majority are lively, sensible fellows, with abundanceof interest in life and people, and a considerable sense of humour;and, after all, I think it matters very little what a man talks aboutas long as you feel that the talk is sincere and natural, and not apose; the only kind of talker whom I find really discomposing is theshy man, who makes false starts, interrupts in order to show hissympathy, and then apologises for his misapprehension; but this is anunknown species in a College Hall. What one does weary of more and moreevery year is the sort of surface cackle that has to be indulged in ingeneral society, simply to fill the time. 

But of course, in conversation, much depends upon what may be calledLUCK. You may invite three or four of the best conversationalists youknow to a quiet dinner; and yet, though the same party may have on someprevious occasion played the game with agility and zest, yet for somereason, on the present occasion, all may go heavily. You may light upona tiresome subject; your most infectious humorist may be tired or outof temper, and the whole thing may languish and droop; people maymisunderstand each other, perversely or unintentionally; the dredge maybring up nothing but mud; a contagion of yawning may set in, and youare lost. Again, some party which has been assembled from motives ofduty, and from which no species of social pleasure was expected, mayturn out brisk, lively, and entertaining. 

A good party should contain, if possible, a humorist, a sentimentalist, and a good-tempered butt; the only kind of men who should be rigidlyexcluded are the busy mocker, the despiser, the superior person. Itdoes not matter how much people disagree, if they will only admit intheir minds that every one has a right to a point of view, and thattheir own does not necessarily rule out all others. I had two friendsonce, a husband and wife, who had strong political views; the wifebelieved it probable that all Radicals were either wicked or stupid, but it was possible to argue the point with her; whereas the husbandKNEW that any person who, however slightly, entertained Liberal viewswas a fool or a knave, and thus argument was impossible. 

Of course, there are a very few people who have a genius forconversation. Such persons are not as a rule great talkers themselves, though they every now and then emit a flash of soft brilliance; butthey are rather the people who send every one else away contented; whosee the possibilities in every remark; who want to know what otherpeople think; and who can, by some deft sympathetic process which is tome very mysterious, expand a blunt expression of opinion into aninteresting mental horizon, or fructify some faltering thought into asuggestive and affecting image. Such people are worth their weight ingold. Then there is a talker who is worth much silver, a man ofirresistible geniality, who has a fund of pleasant banter for allpresent. This is a great art; banter, to be agreeable, must be of acomplimentary kind; it must magnify the object it deals with--aperverse person may be bantered on his strength of character; a stingyperson may be bantered on his prudence. There is, indeed, a kind ofbanter, not unknown in academical circles, which takes the heart out ofevery one by displaying them in a ludicrous and depreciating light; aprofessor of this art will make out a sensitive person to be a coward, and a poetical man to be a sentimental fool; and then the conversation, "like a fountain's sickening pulse, retires. "

The talker who is worth much copper is the good, commonplace, courteousperson who keeps up an end and has something to say; and these must bethe basis of most parties--the lettuce, so to speak, of the salad. 

The thing to beware of is to assemble a purely youthful party, unlessyou know your men well; a shy, awkward young man, or a noisy, complacent young man, are each in their way distressing. But a mixtureof youth and age will produce the happiest results, if only your luckdoes not desert you. 

After all, the essence of the thing is to have simple, unaffectedpeople; the poseur is the ruin of genial intercourse, unless he is agood fellow whose pose is harmless. Some of the best talks I have everhad have been in the company of sensible and good-natured men, of noparticular brilliance, but with a sense of justice in the matter oftalk and no taste for anecdote; just as some of the best meals I haveever had have been of the plainest, when good digestion waited uponappetite. And, on the other hand, some of the very saddestentertainments I have ever taken a hand in have been those conducted bya host bubbling with geniality, and with a stock of reminiscences, whoturned the hose in the face of guest after guest till they writhed withboredom. 

Bless me, it is midnight! The hour is pealed from innumerable towers;then comes a holy silence, while I hear the drip of the fountain in thecourt. This incomparable Oxford! I wish that fate or Providence wouldturn my steps this way!--Ever yours, T. B. 

PELHAM HOUSE, HAMMERSMITH, Dec. 28, 1904. 

DEAR HERBERT, --Since I left Oxford, I have been staying in town. Ican't remember if you ever came across my old friend Hardy--AugustusHardy, the art critic--at all events you will know whom I mean. I havebeen very much interested and a good deal distressed by my visit. Hardyis an elderly man now, nearly sixty. He went through Oxford with a gooddeal of distinction, and his sketches were much admired. It wassupposed that he had only to present himself at the doors of theAcademy, and that it would surrender at discretion. His family wererich, and Hardy went up to town to practise art. He was a friend of myfather's, and he was very kind to me as a boy. He was well off, andlived in a pleasant house of his own in Half Moon Street. He was agreat hero of mine in those days; he had given up all idea of doinganything great as a painter, but turned his attention to art-criticism. He wrote an easy, interesting style, and he used to contribute tomagazines on all kinds of aesthetic subjects; he belonged to severalclubs, dined out a great deal, and used to give elaborate littledinners himself. He was fond of lecturing and speechifying generally;and he liked the society of young people, young men of an intelligentand progressive type. He was very free with his money--I suppose he hadnearly three thousand a year--and spent it in a princely kind of way;when he travelled he travelled like a great gentleman, generally took ayoung artist or two with him in whom he was interested, and whoseexpenses he paid. 

He was in those days an admirable talker, quick, suggestive, amusing, and with an indefinable charm. He was then a tall, thin, active man, with flashing eyes, a sanguine complexion, and a mobile face; he worehis hair rather luxuriantly, and had a picturesque, pointed beard. Ishall never forget the delight of occasional visits to his house; hewas extraordinarily kind and really sympathetic, and he had with youngpeople a kind of caressing deference in his manner that used to giveone an agreeable sense of dignity. I remember that he had a very deftway of giving one's halting remarks a kind of twist which used to makeit appear that one had said something profound and poetical. 

Well, about twenty years ago, all this came to an end very suddenly. Hardy lost the greater part of his money at one swoop; he hadinherited, I think, a certain share in his father's business; he hadone brother, older than himself, who carried the business on. Hardynever looked into money matters, but simply spent whatever came in; thebusiness came to grief, and Hardy found himself pretty considerably indebt, with a few hundreds a year of his own. He had, fortunately forhimself, never married; his friends came to his assistance, andarranged matters as comfortably as possible. Hardy settled in an oldhouse in Hammersmith, and has lived there ever since. He belonged toseveral clubs; but he resigned his membership of all but one, where henow practically spends his day, and having been always accustomed tohave his own way, and dominate the societies in which he found himself, took it for granted that he would be the chief person there. He wasalways an egoist, but his position, his generosity, and his own charmhad rather tended to conceal the fact. 

Well, he has found every one against him in his adversity, and hassuffered from all the petty intrigues of a small and rathernarrow-minded society. His suggestions have been scouted, he has beenpointedly excluded from all share in the management of the club, andtreated with scanty civility. I don't suppose that all this has givenhim as much pain as one would imagine, because he has all theimpenetrability and want of perception of the real egoist. I am toldthat he used to be treated at one time in the club with indifference, hostility, and even brutality. But he is not a man to be suppressed--heworks hard, writes reviews, articles, and books, and pays elaboratecivilities to all new members. I have only seen him at long intervalsof late years; but he has stayed with me once or twice, and has oftenpressed me to go and see him in town. I had some business to attendthere this Christmas, and I proposed myself. He wrote a letter ofcordial welcome, and I have now been his guest for four days. 

I can't express to you the poignant distress which my visit has causedme; not exactly a personal distress, for Hardy is not a man to bedirectly pitied; but the pathos of the whole thing is very great. Hishouse has large and beautiful rooms, and I recognised many of thelittle treasures--portraits, engravings, statuettes, busts, andbooks--which used to adorn the house in Half Moon Street. But the manhimself! He has altered very little in personal appearance. He stillmoves briskly, and, except that his hair is nearly white, I couldimagine him to be the same hero that I used to worship. But his egoismhas grown upon him to such an extent that his mind is hardlyrecognisable. He still talks brilliantly and suggestively at times; andI find myself every now and then amazed by some stroke of genius in histalk, some familiar thing shown in a new and interesting light, someray of poetry or emotion thrown on to some dusty and well-knownsubject. But he has become a man of grievances; he still has, at thebeginning of a talk, some of the fine charm of sympathy. He will beginby saying that he wants to know what one thinks of a point, and he willsmile in the old affectionate kind of way, as one might smile at afavourite child; but he will then plunge into a fiery monologue abouthis ambitions and his work. He declaims away, with magnificentgestures. He still interlards his talk with personal appeals forapprobation, for concurrence, for encouragement; but it is clear hedoes not expect an answer, and his demands for sympathy have littlemore personal value than the reiterated statement in the Litany that weare miserable sinners has in the mouth of many respectable church-goers. 

The result is that I find myself greatly fatigued by my visit. I havespent several hours of every day in his society, and I do not supposethat I have uttered a dozen consecutive words; yet many of hisstatements would be well worth discussing, if he were capable ofdiscussion. 

The burden of his song is the lack of that due recognition which heought to receive; and this, paradoxical as it may appear, is combinedwith an intense and childish complacency in his own greatness, hisposition, his influence, his literary and artistic achievements. 

He seems to live a very lonely life, though a full one; every hour ofhis day is methodically mapped out. He has a large correspondence, hereads the papers diligently, he talks, he writes; but he seems to haveno friends and no associates. His criticisms upon art, which aresuggestive enough, are regarded with undisguised contempt byprofessional critics; and I find that they are held to be vitiated by acertain want of balance and proportion, and a whimsical eclecticism oftaste. 

But the pathos of the situation is not the opinion which is held ofhim, for he is wholly unconscious of it, and he makes up for any lackof expressed approbation by the earnest and admiring approval of all hedoes, which he himself liberally supplies. It is rather a gnawinghunger of the soul from which he seems to suffer; he has a simplyboundless appetite for the poor thing which he calls recognition--Ishudder to think how often I have heard the word on his lips--and hisown self-approbation is like a drug which he administers to still somefretting pain. 

He has been telling me to-night a long story of machinations againsthim in the club; the perspicacity with which he detected them, theodious repartees he made, the effective counter-checks he applied. "Iwas always a combatant, " he says, with a leering gaiety. Then the nextmoment he is girding at the whole crew for their stupidity, theiringratitude, their malignity; and it never seems to cross his mind thathe can be, or has been in the smallest degree, to blame. It distressedme profoundly, and my mind and heart seemed to weep silent tears. 

If he had shown tact, prudence, diligence, if he could have held histongue when he first took a different place, he would have had a circleof many friends by now. Instead of this, I find him barely tolerated. He talks--he has plenty of courage, and no idea of being put down--buthe is listened to with ill-concealed weariness, and, at best, withpolite indifference. Yet every now and then the old spell falls on me, and I realise what a noble mind is overthrown. He ought to be at thistime the centre of a set of attached friends, a man spoken of withreverence, believed in, revisited by grateful admirers--a man whom itwould be an honour and a delight to a young man to know; and thesetting in which he lives is precisely adapted to this role. Instead ofwhich it may safely be said that, if he were to announce his departurefrom town, it would be received with general and cordial satisfactionby his fellow-clubmen. 

Even if he had not his circle, he might live a quiet, tranquil, andlaborious life in surroundings which are simple and yet dignified. 

But the poison is in his system, and it afflicts me to think in howmany systems the same poison is at work nowadays. One sees the frankestform of it in the desire of third-rate people to amass letters aftertheir names; but, putting aside all mere vulgar manifestations of it, how many of us are content to do good, solid, beautiful work unpraised, unsung, unheeded? I will take my own case, and frankly confess thatwhat is called recognition is a pleasure to me. I like to have work, which I have done with energy, enjoyment, and diligence, praised--Ihope because it confirms the verdict of my own mind that it has beenfaithfully done. But I can also sincerely say that, as far as literarywork goes, the chief pleasure lies in the doing of it; and I couldwrite with unabated zest even if there were no question of publicationin view--at least, I think so, but one does not know oneself. 

In any event, the contemplation of poor Hardy's case is a terriblelesson to one not to let the desire for praise get too strong a hold, or, at all events, to be deliberately on one's guard against it. 

But the pathos and sadness, after all, remain. "Healing is well, " saysthe poet, "but wherefore wounds to heal?" and I find myself lost in amiserable wonder under what law it is that the Creator can mould sofine a spirit, endow it with such splendid qualities, and then allowsome creeping fault to obscure it gradually, as the shadow creeps overthe moon, and to plunge it into disastrous and dishonourable eclipse. 

But I grow tedious; I am inoculated by Hardy's fault. I hastily closethis letter, with all friendly greetings. "Pray accept a blessing!" aslittle Miss Flite said. I am going down to my sister's to-morrow. --Everyours, T. B. 

SIBTHORPE VICARAGE, WELLS, Dec. 31, 1904 (and Jan. 1, 1905). 

DEAR HERBERT, --It is nearly midnight, and I am sitting alone in myroom, by the deathbed of the Old Year, expecting every moment to hearthe bells break out proclaiming the birth of the New. It is a clear, still night, and I can see, beyond the lawn and over the shrubs of theVicarage garden, by the light of a low moon, entangled in cloud, thehigh elms, the church tower, with a light in the belfry, like a solemn, cheerful eye, and the roofs of the little village, all in a patient, musing slumber. Everything is unutterably fresh, tranquil, and serene. By day it is a commonplace scene enough, with a sense of littlework-a-day cares and businesses about it all; but now, at night, it isall dim and rich and romantic, full of a calm mystery, hushed andsecret, dreaming contented dreams. 

I have had an almost solitary day, except for meals. I like being herein a way; there is no strain about it. That is the best ofblood-relationship; there is no need to entertain or to be entertained. My brother-in-law, Charles, is an excellent fellow, full to the brim ofsmall plans and designs for his parish; my sister is a very simple andunworldly person, entirely devoted to her husband and children. Mynephews and nieces, four in number, three girls and a boy, do not, Iregret to say, interest me very deeply; they are amiable, healthychildren, with a confined horizon, rather stolid; they never seem toquarrel or to have any particular preferences. The boy, who is theyoungest, is to come to my house at Upton when he is old enough; but atpresent I am simply a good-natured uncle to the children, whose arrivaland whose gifts make a pleasant little excitement. Our talk is purelylocal, and I make it my business to be interested. It is all certainlyvery restful. Sometimes--as a rule, in fact--when I stay in otherpeople's houses, I have a sense of effort; I feel dimly that a certainbrightness is expected of me; as I dress in the morning I wonder whatwe shall talk about, and what on earth I shall do between breakfast andlunch. But here I have a fire in my bedroom all day, and for the firsttime, I am permitted to smoke there. I read and write all the morning;I walk, generally alone, in the afternoon. I write before dinner. Theresult is that I am perfectly content. I sleep like a top; and I findmyself full of ideas. The comfort of the whole thing is that no one isafraid that I am not amused, and I myself do not have the uneasy sensethat I am bound, so to speak, to pay for my entertainment by beingbrisk, lively, or sympathetic. The immediate consequence is, that I getas near to all three qualities as I ever get. We simply live our ownlives quietly, in company. My presence gives a little fillip to theproceedings; and I myself get all the benefit of change of scene, together with simple unexhausting companionship. 

Hark! it is midnight! The soft murmur of bells rises on the clear air, toppling over in a sweet cascade of sound, bringing hope and peace tothe heart. In the attic above I hear the children moving softly about, and catch the echo of young voices. They are supposed to be asleep, butI gather that they have been under a vow to keep awake in turn, thewatcher to rouse the others just before midnight. The bells peal on, coming in faint gusts of sound, now loud, now low. 

I suppose if I were more simple-minded I should have been thinking overmy faults and failures, desiring to do better, making good resolutions. But I don't do that. I do desire, with all my heart, to do better. Iknow how faltering, how near the ground my flight is. But these formal, occasional repentances are useless things; resolutions do little butreveal one's weakness more patently. What I try to do is simply touplift my heart with all its hopes and weaknesses to God, to try to putmy hand in His, to pray that I may use the chances He gives me, andinterpret the sorrows He may send me. He knows me utterly and entirely, my faults and my strength. I cannot fly from Him though I take thewings of the morning. I only pray that I may not harden my heart; thatI may be sought and found; that I may have the courage I need. All thatI have of good He has given me; and as for the evil, He knows best whyI am tempted, why I fall, though I would not. There is no strength likethe abasement of weakness; no power like a childlike confidence. Onething only I shall do before I sleep--give a thought to all I love andhold dear, my kin, my friends, and most of all, my boys: I shallremember each, and, while I commend them to the keeping of God, I shallpray that they may not suffer through any neglect or carelessness of myown. It is not, after all, a question of the quantity of what we do, but of the quality of it. God knows and I know of how poor a stuff ourdreams and deeds are woven; but if it is the best we can give, if wedesire with all our hearts what is noble and pure and beautiful andtrue--or even desire to desire it--He will accept the will and purifythe deed. And in such a mood as this--and God forgive us for not moreoften dwelling in such thoughts--I can hope and feel that the mosttragic failure, the darkest sorrow, the deepest shame are viewed byGod, and will some day be viewed by ourselves, in a light which willmake all things new; and that just as we look back on our childishgriefs with a smiling wonder, so we shall some day look back on ourmature and dreary sufferings with a tender and wistful air, marvellingthat we could be so short-sighted, so faithless, so blind. 

And yet the thought of what the new year may hold for us cannot beother than solemn. Like men on the eve of a great voyage, we know notwhat may be in store, what shifting of scene, what loss, what grief, what shadow of death. And then, again, the same grave peace flows inupon the mind, as the bells ring out their sweet refrain, "It is Hethat hath made us. " Can we not rest in that?

What I hope more and more to do is to withdraw myself from materialaims and desires; not to aim at success, or dignity of office, orparade of place. I wish to help, to serve, not to command or rule. Ilong to write a beautiful book, to put into words something of thesense of peace, of beauty and mystery, which visits me from time totime. Every one has, I think, something of the heavenly treasure intheir hearts, something that makes them glad, that makes them smilewhen they are alone; I want to share that with others, not to keep itto myself. I drift, alas, upon an unknown sea; but sometimes I see, across the blue rollers, the cliffs and shores of an unknown land, perfectly and impossibly beautiful. Sometimes the current bears me awayfrom it; sometimes it is veiled in cloud-drift and weeping rain. Butthere are days when the sun shines bright upon the leaping waves, andthe wind fills the sail and bears me thither. It is of that beautifulland that I would speak, its pure outlines, its crag-hollows, itsrolling downs. Tendimus ad Latium, we steer to the land of hope. 

And meanwhile I desire but to work in a corner; to make the few livesthat touch my own a little happier and braver; to give of my best, towithhold what is base and poor. There is abundance of evil, ofweakness, of ugliness, of dreariness in my own heart; I only pray thatI may keep it there, not let it escape, not let it flow into otherlives. 

The great danger of all natures like my own, which have a touch of whatis, I suppose, the artistic temperament, is a certain hardness, aself-centred egotism, a want of lovingness and sympathy. One seesthings so clearly, one hankers so after the power of translating andexpressing emotion and beauty, that the danger is of losing proportion, of subordinating everything to the personal value of experience. Fromthis danger, which is only too plain to me, I humbly desire to escape;it is all the more dangerous when one has the power, as I am aware Ihave, of entering swiftly and easily into intimate personal relationswith people; one is so apt, in the pleasure of observing, ofclassifying, of scrutinising varieties of temperament, to use thatpower only to please and amuse oneself. What one ought to aim at is notthe establishment of personal influence, not the perverted sense ofpower which the consciousness of a hold over other lives gives one, butto share such good things as one possesses, to assist rather than tosway. 

Well, it is all in the hands of God; again and again one returns tothat, as the bird after its flight in remote fields returns to thefamiliar tree, the branching fastness. One should learn, I am sure, tolive for the day and in the day; not to lose oneself in anxieties andschemes and aims; not to be overshadowed by distant terrors and far-offhopes, but to say, "To-day is given me for my own; let me use it, letme live in it. " One's immediate duty is happily, as a rule, clearenough. "Do the next thing, " says the old shrewd motto. 

The bells cease in the tower, leaving a satisfied stillness. The firewinks and rustles in the grate; a faint wind shivers and rustles downthe garden paths, sighing for the dawn. I grow weary. 

Herbert, I must say "Good-night. " God keep and guard you, my old andtrue friend. I have rejoiced week by week to hear of your recoveredhealth, your activity, your renewed zest in life. When shall I welcomeyou back? I feel somehow that in these months of separation we havegrown much nearer and closer together. We have been able to speak inour letters in a way that we have seldom been able to speak eye to eye. There is a pure gain. My heart goes out to you and yours; and at thismoment I feel as if the dividing seas are nothing, and that we areclose together in the great and loving heart of God. --Your everaffectionate, T. B. 

SIBTHORPE VICARAGE, WELLS, Jan. 7, 1905. 

DEAR HERBERT, --Four nights ago I dreamed a strange dream. I was in abig, well-furnished, airy room, with people moving about in it; I knewnone of them, but we were on friendly terms, and talked and laughedtogether. Quite suddenly I was struck somewhere in the chest by somerough, large missile, fired, I thought, from a gun, though I heard noexplosion; it pierced my ribs, and buried itself, I felt, in some vitalpart. I stumbled to a couch and fell upon it; some one came to raiseme, and I was aware that other persons ran hither and thither seeking, I thought, for medical aid and remedies. I knew within myself that mylast hour had come; I was not in pain, but life and strength ebbed fromme by swift degrees. I felt an intolerable sense of indignity in myhelplessness, and an intense desire to be left alone that I might diein peace; death came fast upon me with clouded brain and flutteringbreath. . . . 

SIBTHORPE VICARAGE, WELLS, Jan. 7, 1905. 

DEAR NELLIE, --I have just opened your letter, and you will know how mywhole heart goes out to you. I cannot understand it, I cannot realiseit; and I would give anything to be able to say a word that shouldbring you any comfort or help. God keep and sustain you, as I know HeCAN sustain in these dark hours. I cannot write more to-day; but I sendyou the letter that I was writing, when your own letter came. It helpsme even now to think that my dear Herbert told me himself--for that, Isee, was the purpose of my dim dream--what was befalling him. And I amas sure as I can be of anything that he is with us, with you, still. Dear friend, if I could only be with you now; but you will know that mythoughts and prayers are with you every moment. --Ever your affectionate, T. B. 

[I add an extract from my Diary. --T. B. ]

Diary, Jan. 15. --A week ago, while I was writing the above unfinishedlines, I received a letter to say that my friend Herbert was dead--heto whom these letters have been written. It seems that he had beengetting, to all appearances, better; that he had had no renewedthreatenings of the complaint that had made him an exile. But, risingfrom his chair in the course of the evening, he had cried out faintly;put his hand to his breast; fallen back in his chair unconscious, and, in a few minutes, had ceased to breathe. They say it was a suddenheart-failure. 

It is as though we had been watching by a burrow with all precautionthat some little hunted creature should not escape, and that, while wewatched and devised, it had slipped off by some other outlet the veryexistence of which we had not suspected. 

Of course, as far as he himself is concerned, such a death is simply apiece of good fortune. If I could know that such would be the manner ofmy own death, a real weight would be lifted from my mind. To diequickly and suddenly, in all the activity of life, in comparativetranquillity, with none of the hideous apparatus of the sick-room aboutone, with no dreary waiting for death, that is a great joy. But for hiswife and his poor girls! To have had no last word, no conscious lookfrom one whose delicate consideration for others was so marked a partof his nature, this is a terrible and stupefying misery. 

I cannot, of course, even dimly realise what has happened; theremoteness of it all, the knowledge that my own outer life isabsolutely unchanged, that the days will flow on as usual, makes ittrebly difficult to feel what has befallen me. I cannot think of him asdead and silent; yet even before I heard the news, he was buried. Icannot, of course, help feeling that the struggling spirit of my friendtried to fling me, as it were, some last message; or that I sufferedwith him, and shared his last conscious thought. 

Perhaps I shall grow to think of Herbert as dead. But, meanwhile, I ampreoccupied with one thought, that such an event ought not to come uponone as such a stunning and trembling shock as it does. It reveals toone the fact of how incomplete one's philosophy of life is. One ought, I feel, deliberately to reckon with death, and to discount it. It is, after all, the only certain future event in our lives. 

And yet we struggle with it, put it away from us, live and plan asthough it had no existence; or, if it insistently clouds our thoughts, as it does at intervals, we wait resignedly until the darkness lifts, and until we may resume our vivid interests again. 

I do not, of course, mean that it should be a steady, melancholypreoccupation. If we have to die, we are also meant to live; but weought to combine and co-ordinate the thought of it. It ought to takeits place among the other great certainties of life, without weakeningour hold upon the activity of existence. How is this possible? For thevery terror of death lies not in the sad accidents of mortality, thestiffened and corrupting form, the dim eye, the dreadfulpageantry--over that we can triumph; but it is the blank cessation ofall that we know of life, the silence of the mind that loved us, theirreparable wound. 

Some turn hungrily to Spiritualism to escape from this terriblemystery. But, so far as I have looked into Spiritualism, it seems to meonly to have proved that, if any communication has ever been made frombeyond the gate of death--and even such supposed phenomena areinextricably intertwined with quackeries and deceits--it is an abnormaland not a normal thing. The scientific evidence for the continuance ofpersonal identity is nil; the only hope lies in the earnest desire ofthe hungering heart. 

The spirit cries out that it dare not, it cannot cease to be. It cannotbear the thought of all the energy and activity of life proceeding inits accustomed course, deeds being done, words being uttered, theproblems which the mind pondered being solved, the hopes which theheart cherished being realised--"and I not there. " It is a ghastlyobsession to think of all the things that one has loved best--quietwork, the sunset on familiar fields, well-known rooms, dear books, happy talk, fireside intercourse--and one's own place vacant, one'spossessions dispersed among careless hands, eye and ear and voicesealed and dumb. And yet how strange it is that we should feel thusabout the future, experience this dumb resentment at the thought thatthere should be a future in which one may bear no part, while weacquiesce so serenely in claiming no share in the great past of theworld that enacted itself before we came into being. It never occurs tous to feel wronged because we had no conscious outlook upon the thingsthat have been; why should we feel so unjustly used because our outlookmay be closed upon the things that shall be hereafter? Why should wefeel that the future somehow belongs to us, while we have no claim uponthe past? It is a strange and bewildering mystery; but the fact thatthe whole of our nature cries out against extinction is the strongestargument that we shall yet be, for why put so intensely strong aninstinct in the heart unless it is meant to be somehow satisfied?

Only one thought, and that a stern one, can help us--and that is thecertainty that we are in stronger hands than our own. The sense offree-will, the consciousness of the possibility of effort, blinds us tothis; we tend to mistake the ebullience of temperament for thedeliberate choice of the will. Yet have we any choice at all? Sciencesays no; while the mind, with no less instinctive certainty, cries outthat we have a choice. Yet take some sharp crisis of life--say anoverwhelming temptation. If we resist it, what is it but a resultant ofmany forces? Experience of past failures and past resolves combine withtrivial and momentary motives to make us choose to resist. If we failand yield, the motive is not strong enough. Yet we have the sense thatwe might have done differently: we blame ourselves, and not the pastwhich made us ourselves. 

But with death it is different. Here, if ever, falls the fiat of theMind that bade us be. And thus the only way in which we can approach itis to put ourselves in dependence upon that Spirit. And the only coursewe can follow is this: not by endeavouring to anticipate in thought themoment of our end--that, perhaps, only adds to its terrors when itcomes--but by resolutely and tenderly, day after day, learning tocommend ourselves to the hand of God; to make what efforts we can; todo our best; to decide as simply and sincerely as possible what ourpath should be, and then to leave the issue humbly and quietly with God. 

I do this, a little; it brings with it a wonderful tranquillity andpeace. And the strange thing is that one does not do it oftener, whenone has so often experienced its healing and strengthening power. 

To live then thus; not to cherish far-off designs, or to plan life tooeagerly; but to do what is given us to do as carefully as we can; tofollow intuitions; to take gratefully the joys of life; to take itspains hopefully, always turning our hearts to the great and mercifulHeart above us, which a thousand times over turns out to be more tenderand pitiful than we had dared to hope. How far I am from this faith. And yet I see clearly that it is the only power that can sustain. Forin such a moment of insight even the thought of the empty chair, theclosed books, the disused pen, the sorrowing hearts, and theflower-strewn mound fail to blur the clear mirror of the mind. 

For him there can be but two alternatives: either the spirit that weknew has lost the individuality that we knew and is merged again in thegreat vital force from which it was for a while separated; or else, under some conditions that we cannot dream of, the identity remains, free from the dreary material conditions, free to be what it desired tobe; knowing perhaps the central peace which we know only by subtleemanations; seeing the region in which beauty, and truth, and purity, and justice, and high hopes, and virtue are at one; no longer baffledby delay, and drooping languor, and sad forebodings, but free and pureas viewless air. 

THE END