The Thread of Gold Part 4

But when he too essayed a song of sorrow and reluctant sadness, there was no spirit in it; it seemed to him, I suppose, so unlike life, and the joy of life,--so fantastic and unreal an outpouring of the heart.

We sat long in the panelled room, till it seemed all alive with soft dreams and radiant shapes, that floated in a golden air. All that was dark and difficult seemed cast out and exercised. But it was all so sincere and contented a peace that the darker and more sombre shadows had no jealous awakening; for the two were living to each other, not in a selfish seclusion, but as though they gave of their joy in handfuls to the whole world. The raptures of lovers sometimes take them back so far into a kind of unashamed childishness that the spectacle rouses the contempt and even the indignation of world-worn and cynical people.

But here it never deviated from dignity and seemliness; it only seemed new and true, and the best gift of G.o.d. These two spirits seemed, with hands intertwined, to have ascended gladly into the mountain, and to have seen a transfiguration of life: which left them not in a blissful eminence of isolation, but rather, as it were, beckoning others upwards, and saying that the road was indeed easy and plain. And so the sweet hour pa.s.sed, and left a fragrance behind it; whatever might befall, they had tasted of the holy wine of joy; they had blessed the cup, and bidden us too to set our lips to it.

XV

A Strange Gathering

I was walking one summer day in the pleasant hilly country near my home. There is a road which I often traverse, partly because it is a very lonely one, partly because it leads out on a high brow or shoulder of the uplands, and commands a wide view of the plain. Moreover, the road is so deeply sunken between steep banks, overgrown with hazels, that one is hardly aware how much one climbs, and the wide clear view at the top always breaks upon the eye with a certain shock of agreeable surprise. A little before the top of the hill a road turns off, leading into a long disused quarry, surrounded by miniature cliffs, full of gra.s.sy mounds and broken ground, overgrown with thickets and floored with rough turf. It is a very enchanting place in spring, and indeed at all times of the year; many flowers grow there, and the birds sing securely among the bushes. I have always imagined that the Red Deeps, in _The Mill on the Floss_, was just such a place, and the scenes described as taking place there have always enacted themselves for me in the quarry. I have always had a fancy too that if there are any fairies hereabouts, which I very much doubt, for I fear that the new villas which begin to be sprinkled about the countryside have scared them all away, they would be found here. I visited the place one moonlight night, and I am sure that the whole dingle was full of a bright alert life which mocked my clumsy eyes and ears. If I could have stolen upon the place unawares, I felt that I might have seen strange businesses go forward, and tiny revels held.

That afternoon, as I drew near, I was displeased to see that my little retreat was being profaned by company. Some brakes were drawn up in the road, and I heard loud voices raised in untuneful mirth. As I came nearer I was much bewildered to divine who the visitors were. They seemed on the point of departing; two of the brakes were full, and into another some men were clambering. As I came close to them I was still more puzzled. The majority of the party were dressed all alike, in rough brown clothes, with soft black felt hats; but in each of the brakes that were tenanted sat a man as well, with a braided cap, in a sort of uniform. Most of the other men were old or elderly; some had white beards or whiskers, almost all were grizzled. They were talking, too, in an odd, inconsequent, chirping kind of way, not listening to each other; and moreover they were strangely adorned. Some had their hats stuck full of flowers, others were wreathed with leaves. A few had chains of daisies round their necks. They seemed as merry and as obedient as children. Inside the gate, in the centre of the quarry, was a still stranger scene. Here was a ring of elderly and aged men, their hats wreathed with garlands, hand-in-hand, executing a slow and solemn dance in a circle. One, who seemed the moving spirit, a small wiry man with a fresh-coloured face and a long chin-beard, was leaping high in the air, singing some rustic song, and dragging his less active companions round and round. The others all entered into the spirit of the dance. One very old and feeble man, with a smile on his face, was executing little clumsy hops, deeply intent on the performance. A few others stood round admiring the sport; a little apart was a tall grave man, talking loudly to himself, with flowers stuck all over him, who was spinning round and round in an ecstasy of delight. Becoming giddy, he took a few rapid steps to the left, but fell to the ground, where he lay laughing softly, and moving his hands in the air. Presently one of the officials said a word to the leader of the dance; the ring broke up, and the performers scattered, gathering up little bundles of leaves and flowers that lay all about in some confusion, and then trooping out to the brakes. The quarry was deserted. Several of the group waved their hands to me, uttering unintelligible words, and holding out flowers.

I was so much surprised at the odd scene that I asked one of the officials what it all meant. He said politely that it was a picnic party from the Pauper Lunatic Asylum at H----. The mystery was explained. I said: "They seem to be enjoying themselves." "Yes, indeed, sir," he said, "they are like children; they look forward to this all the year; there is no greater punishment than to deprive a man of his outing." He entered the last brake as he said these words, and the carriages moved off, a shrill and aged cheer rising from thin and piping voices on the air.

The whole thing did not strike me as grotesque, but as infinitely pathetic and even beautiful. Here were these old pitiful creatures, so deeply afflicted, condemned most of them to a lifelong seclusion, who were recalling and living over again their childish sports and delights. What dim memories of old spring days, before their sad disabilities had settled upon them, were working in those aged and feeble brains! What pleased me best was the obvious and light-hearted happiness of the whole party, a compensation for days of starved monotony. No party of school-children on a holiday could have been more thoughtlessly, more intently gay. Here was a desolate company, one would have thought, of life's failures, facing one of the saddest and least hopeful prospects that the world can afford; yet on this day at least they were full to the brim of irresponsible and complete happiness and delight, tasting an enjoyment, it seemed, more vivid than often falls to my own lot. In the presence of such happiness it seemed so useless, so unnecessary to ask why so heavy a burden was bound on their backs, because here at all events was a scene of the purest and most innocent rapture. I went on my way full of wonder and even of hope. I could not fathom the deep mystery of the failure, the suffering, the weakness that runs across the world like an ugly crack across the face of a fair building. But then how tenderly and wisely does the great Artificer lend consolation and healing, repairing and filling so far as he may, the sad fracture; he seems to know better than we can divine the things that belong to our peace; so that as I looked across the purple rolling plain, with all its wooded ridges, its rich pastures, the smoke going up from a hundred hamlets, a confidence, a quiet trust seemed to rise in my mind, filling me with a strange yearning to know what were the thoughts of the vast Mind that makes us and sustains us, mingled with a faith in some large and far-off issue that shall receive and enfold our little fretful spirits, as the sea receives the troubled leaping streams, to move in slow unison with the wide and secret tides.

XVI

The Cripple

I went to-day to see an old friend whom I had not met for ten years.

Some time ago he had a bad fall which for a time crippled him, but from which it was hoped he would recover; but he must have received some obscure and deep-seated injury, because after improving for a time, he began to go backwards, and has now to a great extent lost the use of his limbs. He was formerly a very active man, both intellectually and physically. He had a prosperous business in the country town on the outskirts of which he lives. He was one of those tall spare men, black-haired and black-eyed, capable of bearing great fatigue, full to the brim of vitality. He was a great reader, fond of music and art; married to a no less cultivated and active wife, but childless. There never was a man who had a keener enjoyment of existence in all its aspects. It used to be a marvel to me to see at how many points a man could touch life, and the almost child-like zest which he threw into everything which he did.

On arriving at the house, a pleasant old-fashioned place with a big shady garden, I was shown into a large book-lined study, and there presently crept and tottered into the room, leaning on two sticks, a figure which I can only say in no respect recalled to me the recollection of my friend. He was bent and wasted, his hair was white; and there was that sunken look about the temples, that tracery of lines about the eyes that tells of constant suffering. But the voice was unaltered, full, resonant, and distinct as ever. He sat down and was silent for a moment. I think that the motion even from one room into another caused him great pain. Then he began to talk; first he told me of the accident, and his journeys in search of health. "But the comfort is," he added, "that the doctors have now decided that they can do no more for me, and I need leave home no more." He told me that he still went to his business every day--and I found that it was prospering greatly--and that though he could not drive, he could get out in a wheeled chair; he said nothing of his sufferings, and presently began to talk of books and politics. Gradually I realised that I was in the company of a thoroughly cheerful man. It was not the cheerfulness that comes of effort, of a determined attempt to be interested in old pursuits, but the abundant and overflowing cheerfulness of a man who has still a firm grasp on life. He argued, he discussed with the same eager liveliness; and his laugh had the careless and good-humoured ring of a man whose mind was entirely content.

His wife soon entered; and we sat for a long time talking. I was keenly moved by the relations between them; she displayed none of that minute attention to his needs, none of that watchful anxiety which I have often thought, tenderly lavished as it is upon invalids, must bring home to them a painful sense of their dependence and helplessness; and he too showed no trace of that fretful exigence which is too often the characteristic of those who cannot a.s.sist themselves, and which almost invariably arises in the case of eager and active temperaments thus afflicted, those whose minds range quickly from subject to subject, and who feel their disabilities at every turn. At one moment he wanted his gla.s.ses to read something from a book that lay beside him. He asked his wife with a gentle courtesy to find them.

They were discovered in his own breast-pocket, into which he could not even put his feeble hand, and he apologised for his stupidity with an affectionate humility which made me feel inclined to tears, especially when I saw the pleasure which the performance of this trifling service obviously caused her. It was just the same, I afterwards noticed, with a young attendant who waited on him at luncheon, an occasion which revealed to me the full extent of his helplessness.

I gathered from his wife in the course of the afternoon that though his life was not threatened, yet that there was no doubt that his helplessness was increasing. He could still hold a book and turn the pages; but it was improbable that he could do so for long, and he was amusing himself by inventing a mechanical device for doing this. But she too talked of the prospect with a quiet tranquillity. She said that he was making arrangements to direct his business from his house, as it was becoming difficult for him to enter the office.

He himself showed the same unabated cheerfulness during the whole of my visit, and spoke of the enjoyment it had brought him. There was not the slightest touch of self-pity about his talk.

I should have admired and wondered at the fort.i.tude of this gallant pair, if I had seen signs of repression and self-conquest about them; if they had relapsed even momentarily into repining, if they had shown signs of a faithful determination to make the best of a bad business.

But I could discern no trace of such a mood about either of them.

Whether this kindly and sweet patience has been acquired, after hard and miserable wrestlings with despair and wretchedness, I cannot say, but I am inclined to think that it is not so. It seems to me rather to be the display of perfect manliness and womanliness in the presence of an irreparable calamity, a wonderful and amazing compensation, sent quietly from the deepest fortress of Love to these simple and generous natures, who live in each other's lives. I tried to picture to myself what my own thoughts would be if condemned to this sad condition; I could only foresee a fretful irritability, a wild anguish, alternating with a torpid stupefaction. "I seem to love the old books better than ever," my friend had said, smiling softly, in the course of the afternoon; "I used to read them hurriedly and greedily in the old days, but now I have time to think over them--to reflect--I never knew what a pleasure reflection was." I could not help feeling as he said the words that with me such a stroke as he had suffered would have dashed the life, the colour, out of books, and left them faded and withered husks. Half the charm of books, I have always thought, is the inter-play of the commentary of life and experience. I ventured to ask him if this was not the case. "No," he said, "I don't think it is--I seem more interested in people, in events, in thoughts than ever; and one gets them from a purer spring--I don't know if I can explain," he added, "but I think that one sees it all from a different perspective, in a truer light, when one's own desires and possibilities are so much more limited." When I said good-bye to him, he smiled at me and hoped that I should repeat my visit. "Don't think of me as unhappy," he added, and his wife, who was standing by him, said, "Indeed you need not;" and the two smiled at each other in a way which made me feel that they were speaking the simple truth, and that they had found an interpretation of life, a serene region to abide in, which I, with all my activities, hopes, fears, businesses, had somehow missed. The pity of it! and yet the beauty of it! as I went away I felt that I had indeed trodden on holy ground, and seen the transfiguration of humanity and pain into something august, tranquil, and divine.

XVII

Oxford

There are certain things in the world that are so praiseworthy that it seems a needless, indeed an almost laughable thing to praise them; such things are love and friendship, food and sleep, spring and summer; such things, too, are the wisest books, the greatest pictures, the n.o.blest cities. But for all that I mean to try and make a little hymn in prose in honour of Oxford, a city I have seen but seldom, and which yet appears to me one of the most beautiful things in the world.

I do not wish to single out particular buildings, but to praise the whole effect of the place, such as it seemed to me on a day of bright sun and cool air, when I wandered hour after hour among the streets, bewildered and almost intoxicated with beauty, feeling as a poor man might who has pinched all his life, and made the most of single coins, and who is brought into the presence of a heap of piled-up gold, and told that it is all his own.

I have seen it said in foolish books that it is a misfortune to Oxford that so many of the buildings have been built out of so perishable a vein of stone. It is indeed a misfortune in one respect, that it tempts men of dull and precise minds to restore and replace buildings of incomparable grace, because their outline is so exquisitely blurred by time and decay. I remember myself, as a child, visiting Oxford, and thinking that some of the buildings were almost shamefully ruinous of aspect; now that I am wiser I know that we have in these battered and fretted palace-fronts a kind of beauty that fills the mind with an almost despairing sense of loveliness, till the heart aches with grat.i.tude, and thrills with the desire to proclaim the glory of the sight aloud.

These black-fronted blistered facades, so threatening, so sombre, yet screening so bright and clear a current of life; with the tender green of budding spring trees, chestnuts full of silvery spires, glossy-leaved creepers clinging, with tiny hands, to cornice and parapet, give surely the sharpest and most delicate sense that it is possible to conceive of the contrast on which the essence of so much beauty depends. To pa.s.s through one of these dark and smoke-stained courts, with every line mellowed and harmonised, as if it had grown up so out of the earth; to find oneself in a sunny pleasaunce, carpeted with velvet turf, and set thick with flowers, makes the spirit sigh with delight. Nowhere in the world can one see such a thing as those great gate-piers, with a cognisance a-top, with a grille of iron-work between them, all sweetly entwined with some slim vagrant creeper, that give a glimpse and a hint--no more--of a fairy-land of shelter and fountains within. I have seen such palaces stand in quiet and stately parks, as old, as majestic, as finely proportioned as the buildings of Oxford; but the very blackness of the city air, and the drifting smoke of the town, gives that added touch of grimness and mystery that the country airs cannot communicate. And even fairer sights are contained within; those panelled, dark-roofed halls, with their array of portraits gravely and intently regarding the stranger; the chapels, with their splendid cla.s.sical screens and stalls, rich and dim with ancient gla.s.s. The towers, domes, and steeples; and all set not in a mere paradise of lawns and glades, but in the very heart of a city, itself full of quaint and ancient houses, but busy with all the activity of a brisk and prosperous town; thereby again giving the strong and satisfying sense of contrast, the sense of eager and every-day cares and pleasures, side by side with these secluded havens of peace, the courts and cloister, where men may yet live a life of gentle thought and quiet contemplation, untroubled, nay, even stimulated, by the presence of a bustling life so near at hand, which yet may not intrude upon the older dream.

I do not know whether my taste is entirely trustworthy, but I confess that I find the Italianate and cla.s.sical buildings of Oxford finer than the Gothic buildings. The Gothic buildings are quainter, perhaps, more picturesque, but there is an air of solemn pomp and sober dignity about the cla.s.sical buildings that harmonises better with the sense of wealth and grave security that is so characteristic of the place. The Gothic buildings seem a survival, and have thus a more romantic interest, a more poetical kind of a.s.sociation. But the cla.s.sical porticos and facades seem to possess a n.o.bler dignity, and to provide a more appropriate setting for modern Oxford; because the spirit of Oxford is more the spirit of the Renaissance than the spirit of the Schoolmen; and personally I prefer that ecclesiasticism should be more of a flavour than a temper; I mean that though I rejoice to think that sober ecclesiastical influences contribute a serious grace to the life of Oxford, yet I am glad to feel that the spirit of the place is liberal rather than ecclesiastical. Such traces as one sees in the chapels of the Oxford Movement, in the shape of paltry stained gla.s.s, starved reredoses, modern Gothic woodwork, would be purely deplorable from the artistic point of view, if they did not possess a historical interest.

They speak of interrupted development, an attempt to put back the shadow on the dial, to return to a narrower and more rigid tone, to put old wine into new bottles, which betrays a want of confidence in the expansive power of G.o.d. I hate with a deep-seated hatred all such attempts to bind and confine the rising tide of thought. I want to see religion vital and not formal, elastic and not cramped by precedent and tradition. And thus I love to see worship enshrined in n.o.ble cla.s.sical buildings, which seem to me to speak of a desire to infuse the intellectual spirit of Greece, the dignified imperialism of Rome into the more timid and secluded ecclesiastical life, making it fuller, larger, more free, more deliberate.

But even apart from the buildings, which are after all but the body of the place, the soul of Oxford, its inner spirit, is what lends it its satisfying charm. On the one hand, it gives the sense of the dignity of the intellect; one reflects that here can be lived lives of stately simplicity, of high enthusiasm, apart from personal wealth, and yet surrounded by enough of seemly dignity to give life the charm of grave order and quiet solemnity. Here are opportunities for peaceful and congenial work, to the sound of mellodious bells; uninterrupted hours, as much society of a simple kind as a man can desire, and the whole with a background of exquisite buildings and rich gardens. And then, too, there is the tide of youthful life that floods every corner of the place. It is an endless pleasure to see the troops of slim and alert young figures, full of enjoyment and life, with all the best gifts of life, health, work, amus.e.m.e.nt, society, friendship, lying ready to their hand. The sense of this beating and thrilling pulse of life circulating through these sombre and splendid buildings is what gives the place its inner glow; this life full of hope, of sensation, of emotion, not yet shadowed or disillusioned or weary, seems to be as the fire on the altar, throwing up its sharp darting tongues of flame, its clouds of fragrant smoke, giving warmth and significance and a fiery heart to a sombre shrine.

And so it is that Oxford is in a sort a magnetic pole for England; a pole not, perhaps, of intellectual energy, or strenuous liberalism, or clamorous aims, or political ideas; few, perhaps, of the st.u.r.dy forces that make England potently great, centre there. The greatness of England is, I suppose, made up by her breezy, loud-voiced sailors, her lively, plucky soldiers, her ardent, undefeated merchants, her tranquil administrators; by the stubborn adventurous spirit that makes itself at home everywhere, and finds it natural to a.s.sume responsibilities. But to Oxford set the currents of what may be called intellectual emotion, the ideals that may not make for immediate national greatness, but which, if delicately and faithfully nurtured, hold out at least a hope of affecting the intellectual and spiritual life of the world. There is something about Oxford which is not in the least typical of England, but typical of the larger brotherhood that is independent of nationalities; that is akin to the spirit which in any land and in every age has produced imperishable monuments of the ardent human soul.

The tribe of Oxford is the tribe from whose heart sprang the Psalms of David; Homer and Sophocles, Plato and Virgil, Dante and Goethe are all of the same divine company. It may be said that John Bull, the st.u.r.dy angel of England, turns his back slightingly upon such influences; that he regards Oxford as an incidental ornament of his person, like a seal that jingles at his fob. But all generous and delicate spirits do her a secret homage, as a place where the seeds of beauty and emotion, of wisdom and understanding, are sown, as in a secret garden. Hearts such as these, even whirling past that celestial city, among her poor suburbs, feel an inexpressible thrill at the sight of her towers and domes, her walls and groves. _Quam dilecta sunt tabernacula_, they will say; and they will breathe a reverent prayer that there may be no leading into captivity and no complaining in her streets.

XVIII

Authorship

I found myself at dinner the other day next to an old friend, whom I see but seldom; a quiet, laborious, able man, with the charm of perfect modesty and candour, who, moreover, writes a very beautiful and lucid style. I said to him that I conceived it to be my mission, whenever I met him, to enquire what he was writing, and to beg him to write more.

He said smilingly that he was very much occupied in his work, which is teaching, and found little time to write; "besides," he said, "I think that one writes too much." He went on to say that though he loved writing well enough when he was in the mood for it, yet that the labour of shaping sentences, and lifting them to their places, was very severe.

I felt myself a little rebuked by this, for I will here confess that writing is the one pleasure and preoccupation of my own life, though I do not publish a half of what I write. It set me wondering whether I did indeed write too much; and so I said to him: "You mean, I suppose, that one gets into the habit of serving up the same ideas over and over again, with a different sauce, perhaps; but still the same ideas?"

"Yes," he said, "that is what I mean. When I have written anything that I care about, I feel that I must wait a long time before the cistern fills again."

We went on to talk of other things; but I have since been reflecting whether there is truth in what my friend said. If his view is true of writing, then it is surely the only art that is so hampered. We should never think that an artist worked too much; we might feel that he did not perhaps finish his big pictures sufficiently; but if he did not spare labour in finishing his pictures, we should never find fault with him for doing, say, as Turner did, and making endless studies and sketches, day after day, of all that struck him as being beautiful. We should feel indeed that some of these unconsidered and rapid sketches had a charm and a grace that the more elaborate pictures might miss; and in any case we should feel that the more that he worked, the firmer and easier would become his sweep of hand, the more deft his power of indicating a large effect by an economy of resource. The musician, too: no one would think of finding fault with him for working every day at his art; and it is the same with all craftsmen; the more they worked, the surer would their touch be.

Now I am inclined to believe that what makes writing good is not so much the pains taken with a particular piece of work, the retouching, the corrections, the dear delays. Still more fruitful than this labour is the labour spent on work that is never used, that never sees the light. Writing is to me the simplest and best pleasure in the world; the mere shaping of an idea in words is the occupation of all others I most love; indeed, to speak frankly, I plan and arrange all my days that I may secure a s.p.a.ce for writing, not from a sense of duty, but merely from a sense of delight. The whole world teems with subjects and thoughts, sights of beauty and images of joy and sorrow, that I desire to put into words; and to forbid myself to write would be to exercise the strongest self-denial of which I am capable. Of course I do not mean that I can always please myself. I have piles of ma.n.u.scripts laid aside which fail either in conception or expression, or in both. But there are a dozen books I would like to write if I had the time.

To be honest, I do not believe in fretting too much over a piece of writing. Writing, laboriously constructed, painfully ornamented, is often, I think, both laborious and painful to read; there is a sense of strain about it. It is like those uneasy figures that one sees in the carved gargoyles of old churches, crushed and writhing for ever under a sense of weight painfully sustained, or holding a gaping mouth open, for the water-pipe to discharge its contents therethrough. However ingenious these carvings are, they always give a sense of tension and oppression to the mind; and it is the same with laboured writers; my theory of writing rather is that the conception should be as clear as possible, and then that the words should flow like a transparent stream, following as simply as possible the shape and outline of the thought within, like a waterbreak over a boulder in a stream's bed.

This, I think, is best attained by infinite practice. If a piece of work seems to be heavy and muddy, let it be thrown aside ungrudgingly; but the attempt, even though it be a failure, makes the next attempt easier.

I do not think that one can write for very long at a time to much purpose; I take the two or three hours when the mind is clearest and freshest, and write as rapidly as I can; this secures, it seems to me, a clearness and a unity which cannot be attained by fretful labour, by poking and pinching at one's work. One avoids by rapidity and ardour the dangerous defect of repet.i.tion; a big task must be divided into small sharp episodes to be thus swiftly treated. The thought of such a writer as Flaubert lying on his couch or pacing his room, the racked and tortured medium of his art, spending hours in selecting the one perfect word for his purpose, is a n.o.ble and inspiring picture; but such a process does not, I fear, always end in producing the effect at which it aims; it improves the texture at a minute point; it sacrifices width and freedom.

Together with clearness of conception and resource of vocabulary must come a certain eagerness of mood. When all three qualities are present, the result is good work, however rapidly it may be produced.

If one of the three is lacking, the work sticks, hangs, and grates; and thus what I feel that the word-artist ought to do is to aim at working on these lines, but to be very strict and severe about the ultimate selection of his work. If, for instance, in a big task, a section has been dully and impotently written, let him put the ma.n.u.script aside, and think no more of it for a while; let him not spend labour in attempting to mend bad work; then, on some later occasion, let him again get his conception clear, and write the whole section again; if he loves writing for itself he will not care how often this process is repeated.

I am speaking here very frankly; and I will own that for myself, when the day has rolled past and when the sacred hour comes, I sit down to write with an appet.i.te, a keen rapture, such as a hungry man may feel when he sits down to a savoury meal. There is a real physical emotion that accompanies the process; and it is a deep and lively distress that I feel when I am living under conditions that do not allow me to exercise my craft, at being compelled to waste the appropriate hours in other occupations.

It may be fairly urged that with this intense impulse to write, I ought to have contrived to make myself into a better writer; and it might be thought that there is something either grotesque or pathetic in so much emotional enjoyment issuing in so slender a performance. But the essence of the happiness is that the joy resides in the doing of the work and not in the giving it to the world; and though I do not pretend not to be fully alive to the delight of having my work praised and appreciated, that is altogether a secondary pleasure which in no way competes with the luxury of expression.

I am not ungrateful for this delight; it may, I know, be withdrawn from me; but meanwhile the world seems to be full to the brim of expressive and significant things. There is a beautiful old story of a saint who saw in a vision a shining figure approaching him, holding in his hand a dark and cloudy globe. He held it out, and the saint looking attentively upon it, saw that it appeared to represent the earth in miniature; there were the continents and seas, with clouds sweeping over them; and, for all that it was so minute, he could see cities and plains, and little figures moving to and fro. The angel laid his finger on a part of the globe, and detached from it a small cl.u.s.ter of islands, drawing them out of the sea; and the saint saw that they were peopled by a folk, whom he knew, in some way that he could not wholly understand, to be dreary and uncomforted. He heard a voice saying, "_He taketh up the isles as a very small thing_"; and it darted into his mind that his work lay with the people of those sad islands; that he was to go thither, and speak to them a message of hope.

It is a beautiful story; and it has always seemed to me that the work of the artist is like that. He is to detach from the great peopled globe what little portion seems to appeal to him most; and he must then say what he can to encourage and sustain men, whatever thoughts of joy and hope come most home to him in his long and eager pilgrimage.