11
!B"-XRY
C .-, . i r I s A
r K
FROM A COLLEGE
WINDOW
FROM A COLLEGE
WINDOW
BY
ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON
FELLOW Or MACOALENB COLLXGK, LAMBB1EX.H
cujusqtu is tit fui
THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, LTD.
LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK
(By mrraHftmint itritk Mutrt. Smitk, Eldtr, <V C.)
CONTENTS
I. THE POINT OF VIEW . 9
II. ON GROWING OLDER * 24
III. BOOKS* .38
IV. SOCIABILITIES * 53
V. CONVERSATION * .... 65
VI. BEAUTY* 79
VII. ART* 97
VIII. EGOTISM * 109
IX. EDUCATION * . 123
X. AUTHORSHIP * . . . 141
XI. THE CRITICISM OF OTHERS * .... 156
XII. PRIESTS 169
XIII. AMBITION 182
XIV. THE SIMPLE LIFE 196
XV. GAMES 206
XVI. SPIRITUALISM 217
XVII. HABITS .... .... 227
XVIII. RELIGION* 236
These papers have already appeared in the Cornell Magazine.
NOTE
TWELVE of the essays included in this volume
appeared in the Cornhill Magazine, monthly, from
May 1905 till April 1906. I have added six more,
dealing with kindred subjects. Those which have
already appeared are distinguished by an asterisk
in the Table of Contents. My best thanks are
due to the proprietor and editor of the Cornhill
Magazine for kind permission and encouragement
to reprint them.
A. C. B.
FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW
THE POINT OF VIEW
I HAVE lately come to perceive that the one
thing which gives value to any piece of art.
whether it be book, or picture, or music, is that
subtle and evasive thing which is called person-
ality. No amount of labour, of zest, even of ac-
complishment, can make up for the absence of this
quality. It must be an almost wholly instinctive
thing, I believe. Of course, the mere presence of
personality in a work of art is not sufficient, be-
cause the personality revealed may be lacking in
charm ; and charm, again, is an instinctive thing.
No artist can set out to capture charm ; he will
toil all the night and take nothing ; but what even 1
artist can and must aim at, is to have a perfectly
sincere point of view. He must take his chance
as to whether his point of view is an attractive
one ; but sincerity is the one indispensable thing.
It is useless to take opinions on trust, to retail
them, to adopt them ; they must be formed, created,
truly felt. The work of a sincere artist is almost
136
io FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
certain to have some value ; the work of an insin-
cere artist is of its very nature worthless.
I mean to try, in the pages that follow, to be
as sincere as I can. It is not an easy task, though
it may seem so ; for it means a certain disentan-
gling of the things that one has perceived and felt
tor oneself from the prejudices and preferences that
have been inherited, or stuck like burs upon the
soul by education and circumstance.
It may be asked why I should thus obtrude my
point of view in print ; why I should not keep my
precious experience to myself ; what the value of
it is to other people ? Well, the answer to that is
that it helps our sense of balance and proportion
to know how other people are looking at life, what
they expect from it, what they find in it, and what
they do not find. I have myself an intense curiosity
about other people's point of view, what they do when
they are alone, and what they think about. Edward
Fit/Gerald said that he wished we had more biog-
raphies of obscure persons. How often have I my-
self wished to ask simple, silent, deferential people,
such as station-masters, butlers, gardeners, what
they make of it all ! Yet one cannot do it, and even
if one could, ten to one they would not or could
not tell you. lint here is L'<>ing to be a sedate con-
fession. I am goinu to take the world into my con-
fidence, and say, it I can, \\hat I think and leel
about the little bit of experience which I call my
life, which seems to me such a strange and otten
so bewildering a tiling.
Let me :-pe.ik, then, plainly of what that life-
has been, ami tell uhat my point of view is. I
was brought up on ordinary English lines. My
THE POINT OF VIEW. n
father, in a busy life, held a series of what may
be called high official positions. He was an idealist,
who, owing to a vigorous power of practical organ-
ization and a mastery of detail, was essentially a
man of affairs. Yet he contrived to be a student
too. Thus, owing to the fact that he often shifted
his headquarters, I have seen a good deal of general
society in several parts of England. Moreover, I
was brought up in a distinctly intellectual atmos-
phere.
I was at a big public school, and gained a
scholarship at the University. I was a moderate
scholar and a competent athlete ; but I will add
that I had always a strong literary bent. I took
in younger days little interest in history or politics,
and tended rather to live an inner life in the region
of friendship and the artistic emotions. If I had
been possessed of private means, I should, no
doubt, have become a full-fledged dilettante. But
that doubtful privilege was denied me, and for a
good many years I lived a busy and fairly success-
ful life as a master at a big public school. I will
not dwell upon this, but I will say that I gained a
great interest in the science of education, and ac-
quired profound misgivings as to the nature of the
intellectual process know r n by the name of second-
ary education. More and more I began to per-
ceive that it is conducted on diffuse, detailed, un-
business-like lines. I tried my best, as far as it
was consistent with loyalty to an established system,
to correct the faulty bias. But it was with a pro-
found relief that I found myself suddenly provided
with a literary task of deep interest, and enabled
to quit my scholastic labours. At the same time,
iz FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
I am deeply grateful for the practical experience 1
was enabled to gain, and even more for the many
true and pleasant friendships with colleagues, par-
ents, and boys that I was allowed to form.
What a waste of mental energy it is to be careful
and troubled about one's path in life ! Quite un-
expectedly, at this juncture, came my election to a
college Fellowship, giving me the one life that I
had always eagerly desired, and the possibility of
which had always seemed closed to me.
I became then a member of a small and definite
society, with a few prescribed duties, just enough,
so to speak, to form a hem to my life of compara-
tive leisure. I had acquired and kept, all through
my life as a schoolmaster, the habit of continuous
literary work ; not from a sense of duty, but simply
from instinctive pleasure. I found myself at once
at home in my small and beautiful college, rich
with all kinds of ancient and venerable traditions,
in buildings of humble and subtle grace. The little
dark-roofed chapel, where I have a stall of mv own ;
the ^aliened hall, with its armorial glass ; the low,
book-lined library ; the panelled combination-room,
with its dim portraits of old worthies : how sweet
a setting for a quiet life ! Then, too, I have my
own spacious rooms, with a peaceful outlook into
a big close, half orchard, half garden, with bird-
haunted thickets and immemorial trees, bounded
by a slow river.
And then, to teach me how " to borrow life and
not grow old," the happy tide of fresh and vigorous
life all about me, brisk, confident, cheerful young
men, friendly, sensible, amenable, at that pleasant
time when the world begins to open its rich pages
THE POINT OF VIEW. 13
of experience, undimmed at present by anxiety or
care.
My college is one of the smallest in the Univer-
sity. Last night in Hall I sate next a distinguished
man, who is, moreover, very accessible and pleasant.
He unfolded to me his desires for the University.
He would like to amalgamate all the small colleges
into groups, so as to have about half-a-dozen col-
leges in all. He said, and evidently thought, that
little colleges are woefully circumscribed and petty
places ; that most of the better men go to the two
or three leading colleges, while the little establish-
ments are like small backwaters out of the main
stream. They elect, he said, their own men to
Fellowships ; they resist improvements ; much
money is wasted in management, and the whole
thing is minute and feeble. I am afraid it is true
in a way ; but, on the other hand, 1 think that a
large college has its defects too. There is no real
college spirit there ; it is very nice for two or three
sets. But the different schools which supply a big
college form each its own set there ; and if a man
goes there from a leading public school, he falls
into his respective set, lives under the traditions
and in the gossip of his old school, and gets to
know hardly any one from other schools. Then
the men who come up from smaller places just form
small inferior sets of their own, and really get very
little good out of the place. Big colleges keep up
their prestige because the best men tend to go to
them ; but I think they do very little for the
ordinary men \vho have fewer social advantages
to start with.
The only cure, said my friend, for these smaller
i 4 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW
places is to throw their Fellowships open, and try
to get public-spirited and liberal-minded Dons.
Then, he added, they ought to specialize in some
one branch of University teaching, so that the men
who belonged to a particular department would
tend to go there.
Well, to-day was a wet day, so I did what I
particularly enjoy I went off for a slow stroll,
and poked about among some of the smaller col-
leges. I declare that the idea of tying them all
together seemed to me to be a horrible piece of
vandalism. These sweet and beautiful little places,
with a quiet, dignified history and tradition of their
own, are very attractive and beautiful. I went and
explored a little college I am ashamed to say I
had never visited before. It shows a poor plastered
front to the street, but the old place is there behind
the plaster. I went into a tiny, dark chapel, with
a high pillared pediment of carved wood behind
the altar, a rich ceiling, and some fine columned
alcoves where the dignitaries sit. Out of the gal-
lery opens a venerable library, with a regretful air
of the past about its faded volumes in their high
presses, as though it sadly said, " I am of yester-
day." Then we found ourselves in a spacious pan-
elled Hall, with a great oriel looking out into a
peaceful garden, embowered in great trees, with
smiling lawns. All round the Hall hung portraits
of old worthies peers, judges, and bishops, with
some rubicund wigged Masters. I like to think of
the obscure and yet dignified lives that have been
lived in these quaint arul stately chambers. I sup-
pose that there used to be a great deal of tippling
and low gossip in the old days of the vinous, idle
THE POINT OF VIEW. 15
Fellows, who hung on for life, forgetting their
books, and just trying to dissipate boredom. One
tends to think that it was all like that ; and yet,
doubtless, there were quiet lives of study and medi-
tation led here by wise and simple men who have
long since mouldered into dust. And all that dull
rioting is happily over. The whole place is full of
activity and happiness. There is, if anything, among
the Dons, too much business, too many meetings,
too much teaching, and the life of mere study is
neglected. But it pleases me to think that even
now there are men who live quietly among their
books, unambitious, perhaps unproductive, but for-
getting the flight of time, and looking out into a
pleasant garden, with its rustling trees, among the
sound of mellow bells. We are, most of us, too
much in a fuss nowadays to live these gentle, in-
nocent, and beautiful lives ; and yet the University
is a place where a poor man, if he be virtuous, may
lead a life of dignity and simplicity, and refined
happiness. We make the mistake of thinking that
all can be done by precept, when, as a matter of
fact, example is no less potent a force. To make
such quiet lives possible was to a great extent what
these stately and beautiful places were founded for
that there should be in the busy world a corner
where activities should not be so urgent, and where
life should pass like an old dream, tinged with deli-
cate colour and soft sound. I declare I do not
know that it is more virtuous to be a clerk in a
bank, toiling day by day that others should be rich,
than to live in thought and meditation, with a heart
open to sweet influences and pure hopes. And yet
it seems to be held nowadays that virtue is bound up
16 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
with practical life. If a man is content to abjure
wealth and to forego marriage, to live simply with-
out luxuries, he may spend a very dignified, gentle
life here, and at the same time he may be really
useful. It is a thing which is well worth doing to
attempt the reconciliation between the old and the
young. Boys come up here under the impression
that their pastors and teachers are all about fifty ;
they think of them as sensible, narrow-minded men,
and, like Melchizedek, without beginning of davs
or end of life. They suppose that they like mark-
ing mistakes in exercises with blue pencil, and take
delight in showing their power by setting punish-
ments. It does not often occur to them that school-
masters may be pathetically anxious to guide boys
right, and to guard them from evil. They think
ot them as devoid of passions and prejudices, with
a little dreary space to traverse before they sink
into the tomb. Even in homes, how seldom does
a perfectly simple human relation exist between a
boy and his father ! There is often a great deal
of affection on both sides, but little camaraderie.
Little boys are odd, tiresome creatures in many
ways, with savage instincts ; and I suppose many
fathers feel that, if they are to maintain their au-
thority, they must be a little distant and inscrutable
A boy goes for sympathy and companionship to
his mother and sisters, not often to his father.
Now a Don may do something to put this straight,
if he has the will. One of the best friends 1 ever
had was an elderly Don at my own college, who
hail been a contemporary of my father's. He liked
yoimu' men ; and 1 used to consult him and ask
his advice in things in which I could not well con-
THE POINT OF VIEW. 17
suit my own contemporaries. It is not necessary
to be extravagantly youthful, to slap people on the
back, to run with the college boat, though that is
very pleasant if it is done naturally. All that is
wanted is to be accessible and quietly genial. And
under such influences a young man may, without
becoming elderly, get to understand the older point
of view.
The difficulty is that one acquires habits and
mannerisms ; one is crusty and gruff if interfered
with. But, as Pater said, to acquire habits is fail-
ure in life. Of course, one must realize limitations,
and learn in what regions one can be effective.
But no one need be case-hardened, smoke-dried,
angular. The worst of a University is that one
sees men lingering on because they must earn
a living, and there is nothing else that they can
do ; but for a human-hearted, good-humoured,
and sensible man, a college life is a life where it
is easy and pleasant to practise benevolence and
kindliness, and where a small investment of trouble
pays a large percentage of happiness. Indeed, sur-
veying it impartially as impartially as I can such
a life seems to hold within it perhaps the greatest
possibilities of happiness that life can hold. To
have leisure and a degree of simple stateliness
assured ; to live in a wholesome dignity ; to have
the society of the young and generous ; to have
lively and intelligent talk ; to have the choice of
society and solitude alike ; to have one's working
hours respected, and one's leisure hours solaced
is not this better than to drift into the so-called
tide of professional success, with its drear}' hours
.of work, its conventional domestic background ?
18 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
No doubt the domestic background has its inter-
ests, its delights ; but one must pay a price for
everything, and I am more than willing to pay
the price of celibacy for my independence.
The elderly Don in college rooms, interested
in Greek particles, grumbling over his port wine,
is a figure beloved by writers of fiction as a con-
trast to all that is brave, and bright, and whole-
some in life. Could there be a more hopeless
misconception ? 1 do not know a single extant
example of the species at the University. Per-
sonally, I have no love for Greek particles, and
only a very moderate taste for port wine. But
I do love, with all my heart, the grace of antiquity
that mellows our crumbling courts, the old tradi-
tion of multifarious humanity that has century by
century entwined itself with the very fabric 01 the
place. I love the youthful spirit that flashes and
brightens in every corner of the old courts, as the
wallflower that rises spring by spring with its rich
orange-tawny hue, its wild scent, on the tons of
our mouldering walls. It is a gracious and beau-
tiful life for all who love peace and reflection,
strength and youth. It is not a life for fiery and
dominant natures, ea<jer to conquer, keen to im-
press ; but it is a lite for any one who believes
that the best rewards are not the brightest, who is
willing humbly to lend a cheerful hand, to listen
as well as to speak. It is a iiie for any one who
Mas found that there is a \\orld of tender, wistful
delicate emotions, subdued and soft impressions,
in which it is peace to live ; for one who has learned,
however dimly, that wise and faithful love-, quiet
aL i patient hope, are the bread by which the spirit
THE POINT OF VIEW. 19
is nourished that religion is not an intellectual or
even an ecclesiastical thing, but a far-off and re-
mote vision of the soul.
I know well the thoughts and hopes that I
should desire to speak ; but they are evasive, subtle
things, and too often, like shy birds, will hardly
let you approach them. But I would add that life
has not been for me a dreamy thing, lived in soft
fantastic reveries ; indeed, it has been far the re-
verse. I have practised activity, I have mixed
much with my fellows ; I have taught, worked,
organized, directed. I have watched men and
boys ; I have found infinite food for mirth, for
interest, and even for grief. But I have grown to
feel that the ambitions which we preach and the
successes for which we prepare are very often
nothing but a missing of the simple road, a troubled
wandering among thorny by-paths and dark moun-
tains. I have grown to believe that the one thing
worth aiming at is simplicity of heart and life ; that
one's relations with others should be direct and
not diplomatic ; that power leaves a bitter taste
in the mouth ; that meanness, and hardness, and
coldness are the unforgivable sins ; that conven-
tionality is the mother of dreariness ; that pleasure
exists not in virtue of material conditions, but in
the joyful heart ; that the world is a very inter-
esting and beautiful place ; that congenial labour
is the secret of happiness ; and many other things
which seem, as I write them down, to be dull and
trite commonplaces, but are for me the bright jewels
which I have found beside the way.
It is, then, from College Windows that I look
forth. But even so, though on the one hand I
20 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
look upon the green and sheltered garden, with
its air of secluded recollection and repose, a place
of quiet pacing to and fro, of sober and joyful mus-
ing ; yet on another side I see the court, with all
its fresh and shifting life, its swift interchange of
study and activity ; and on yet another side I can
observe the street where the intinite pageant of
humanity goes to and fro, a tide full of sound and
foam, o( business and laughter, and of sorrow, too,
and sickness, and the funeral pomp of death.
This, then, is my point of view. I can truthfully
say that it is not gloomy, and equally that it is
not uproarious. I can boast of no deep philosophy,
for I feel, like Dr. Johnson's simple friend Edwards,
that " I have tried, too, in my time, to be a phil-
osopher, but -I don't know how cheerfulness was
always breaking in." Neither is it the point of
view of a proiound and erudite student, with a
deep belief in the efficacy of useless knowledge.
Neither am I a humorist, for I have loved beauty
better than laughter ; nor a sentimentalist, for I have
abhorred a weak dalliance with personal emotions.
It is hard, then, to say what I am ; but it is my
hope that this may emerge. My desire is but to
converse with my readers, to speak as in a com-
fortable tete-a-tete, of experience, and hope, and
patience. I have no wish to disguise the hard and
ugly things of life ; they are there, whether one
disguises them or not ; but 1 think that unless
one is a professed psychologist or statistician, one
gets little good by durlliM. upon them. I have
alwavs believed tliat it i.-, better to stimulate than
to correct, to fortity rather than to puni>h, to help
rather than to blame. It there is one attitude that I
THE POINT OF VIEW. 21
fear and hate more than another it is the attitude of
the cynic. I believe with all my soul in romance :
that is, in a certain high-hearted, eager dealing with
life. I think that one ought to expect to find things
beautiful and people interesting, not to take de-
light in detecting meannesses and failures. And
there is yet another class of temperament for which
I have a deep detestation. I mean the assured,
the positive, the Pharisaical temper, that believes
itself to be impregnably in the right and its oppo-
nents indubitably in the wrong ; the people who
deal in axioms and certainties, who think that
compromise is weak and originality vulgar. I de-
test authority in every form ; I am a sincere re-
publican. In literature, in art, in life, I think that
the only conclusions worth coming to are one's own
conclusions. If they march with the verdict of the
connoisseurs, so much the better for the connois-
seurs ; if they do not so march, so much the better
for oneself. Every one cannot admire and love
everything ; but let a man look at things fairly
and without prejudice, and make his own selec-
tion, holding to it firmly, but not endeavouring
to impose his taste upon others ; defending, if
needs be, his preferences, but making no claim to
authority.
The time of my life that I consider to have
been wasted, from the intellectual point of view,
was the time when I tried, in a spirit of dumb
loyalty, to admire all the things that were said to
be admirable. Better spent was the time when I
was finding out that much that had received the
stamp of the world's approval was not to be ap-
proved, at least by me ; best of all was the time
22 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
when I was learning to appraise the value of things
to myself, and learning to love them for their own
sake and mine.
Respect of a deferential and constitutional type
is out of place in art and literature. It is a good
enough guide to begin one's pilgrimage with, if one
soon parts company from it. Rather one must learn
to give honour where honour is due, to bow down
in true reverence before all spirits that are noble
and adorable, whether they wear crowns and bear
titles of honour, or whether they are simple and
unnoted persons, who wear no gold on their gar-
ments.
Sincerity and simplicity ! if I could only say
how I reverence them, how I desire to mould my
life in accordance with them ! And I would learn,
too, swiftly to detect the living spirits, whether they
be young or old, in which these great qualities reign.
Tor I believe that there is in life a great and
guarded city, of which we mav be worthy to be
citizens. We may, if we are blest, be always of
the happy number, by some kindly gift of God ;
but we may also, through misadventure and pain,
through errors and blunders, learn the way thither.
And sometimes we discern the city afar oil, with
her radiant spires and towers, her walls of strength,
her gates of pearl ; and there may come a day, too,
\vhen we have found the way thither, and enter in ;
happy if we go no more out, but happy, too, even
if we may not rest there, because we know that,
however far we wander, there is always a hearth
for us and welcoming smiles.
1 speak in a parable, but those who are finding
the way will understand me, however dimly ; and
THE POINT OF VIEW. 23
those who have found the way, and seen a little
of the glory of the place, will smile at the page
and say : " So he, too, is of the city."
The city is known by many names, and wears
different aspects to different hearts. But one thing
is certain that no one who has entered there is
ever in any doubt again. lie may wander far
from the walls, he may visit it but rarely, but it
stands there in peace and glory, the one true and
real thing for him in mortal time and in what-
ever lies beyond.
II
ON GROWING OLDER
THE sun flares red behind leafless elms and
battlemented towers as I come in from a
lonely walk beside the river ; above the chimney-
tops hangs a thin veil of drifting smoke, blue in
the golden light. The games in the Common are
just coming to an end ; a stream of long-coated
spectators sets towards the town, mingled with
the parti-coloured, muddied figures of the players.
I have been strolling half the afternoon along the
river bank, watching the boats passing up and
down ; hearing the shrill cries of coxes, the meas-
ured plash of oars, the rhythmical rattle of row-
locks, intermingled at intervals with the harsh
grinding of the chain-ferries. Five - and - twenty
years ago I was rowing here myself in one of these
boats, and I do not \\ish to renew the experience.
I cannot conceive why and in what moment of
feeble good-nature or misapplied patriotism 1 ever
consented to lend a hand. 1 was not a good oar,
and did not become a better one ; 1 hail no illu-
sions about mv performance, and any momentary
complacency was generallv sternly dispelled by the
harsh cntici-m of the coach on the bank, when
we rested lor a moment to receive our meed of
ON GROWING OLDER. 25
praise or blame. But though I have no sort
of wish to repeat the process, to renew the slavery
which I found frankly and consistently intoler-
able, I find myself looking on at the cheerful scene
with an amusement in which mingles a shadow
of pain, because I feel that I have parted with
something, a certain buoyancy and elasticity of
body, and perhaps spirit, of which I was not con-
scious at the time, but which I now realize that
I must have possessed. It is with an admiration
mingled with envy that I see these youthful, shapely
figures, bare - necked and bare - kneed, swinging
rhythmically past. I watch a brisk crew lift a
boat out of the water by a boat-house ; half of
them duck underneath to get hold of the other side,
and they march up the grating gravel in a solemn
procession. I see a pair of cheerful young men,
released from tubbing, execute a wild and incon-
sequent dance upon the water's edge ; I see a
solemn conference of deep import between a stroke
and a coach. I see a neat, clean-limbed young
man go airily up to a well-earned tea, without,
I hope, a care, or an anxiety in his mind, expect-
ing and intending to spend an agreeable evening.
" Oh, Jones of Trinity, oh, Smith of Queen's," 1
think to myself, " tua si bona ndris ! Make the
best of the good time, my boy, before you go off
to the office, or the fourth-form room, or the coun-
try parish ! Live virtuously, make honest friends,
read the good old books, lay up a store of kindly
recollections, of iirelit rooms in venerable courts,
of pleasant talks, of innocent festivities. Very fresh
is the cool morning air, very fragrant is the newly-
lighted bird's-eye, very lively is the clink of knives
26 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
and forks, very keen is the savour of the roast beef
that Hoats up to the dark rafters of the College
Hall. luit the days are short and the terms are
few ; and do not forget to be a sensible as well
as a good-humoured young man !
Thackeray, in a delightful ballad, invites a
pretty page to wait till he comes to forty years :
well, 1 have waited indeed, I have somewhat
overshot the mark and to-day the sight of all this
brisk lite, going on just as it used to do, with the
same ir^>>ucianct and the same merriment, makes
me wi<h to reflect, to gather up the fragments, to
.-ee it it is all loss, all declension, or whether there
is something left, some strength in what remains
behind.
I have a theory that one ought to grow older
in a tranquil and appropriate way, that one ought
to be perfectly contented \\ ith one's time of life,
that amusements and pursuits ought to alter
naturally and easily, and not be regretfully aban-
doned. One outfit not to be dragged protesting
from the scene, catching dr- perately at every door-
way ami balustrade ; one should walk otf smiling.
It is ea.-ier said than done. It is not a pleasant
moment u hen a man tirst recogni/.es that he is
out ai p!,:ee in tlie football field, that he cannot
<toop v, ith the old agility to pick up a skimming
^troke to cover-point, that dancing is rather too
i, rating to be decorous, that he cannot walk all
day \Mthout undue somnolence after dinner, or
rush olF ;:tter a heavy meal without indigestion.
These are ,nl moments uhidi we all ot us reach,
but uh:ch are better laughed over than fretted
ove- And a man uho, out < -t : ,heer inability to
ON GROWING OLDER. 27
part from boyhood, clings desperately and with
apoplectic puffings to these things is an essentially
grotesque ngure. To listen to young men discuss-
ing one of these my belated contemporaries, and
to hear one enforcing on another the amusement to
be gained from watching the old buffer's man-
oeuvres, is a lesson against undue youthfulness. One
can indeed give amusement without loss of dig-
nity, by being open to being induced to join in
such things occasionally in an elderly way, with-
out any attempt to disguise deficiencies. But that
is the most that ought to be attempted. Perhaps
the best way of all is to subside into the genial
and interested looker-on, to be ready to applaud
the game you cannot play, and to admire the dex-
terity you cannot rival.
What then, if any, are the gains that make up
for the lack of youthful prowess ? They are, I
can contentedly say, many and great. In the first
place, there is the loss of a quality which is pro-
ductive of an extraordinary amount of pain among
the young, the quality of self-consciousness. How
often was one's peace of mind ruined by gaucherie,
by shyness, by the painful consciousness of having
nothing to say, and the still more painful conscious-
ness of having said the wrong thing in the wrong
way ! Of course, it was all immensely exaggerated.
If one went into chapel, for instance, with a straw
hat, which one had forgotten to remove, over a
surplice, one had the feeling for several days that it
was written in letters of fire on every wall. I was
myself an ardent conversationalist in early years,
and, with the charming omniscience of youth, fan-
cied that my opinion was far better worth having
28 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
than the opinions of Dons encrusted with pedantry
and prejudice. Hut if 1 found m\>clf in the society
of these petrified persons, by the time that 1 had
composed a suitable remark, the slender opening
had already closed, and my contribution was either
not uttered at all, or hopelessly belated in its ap-
pearance. Or some deep generalization drawn from
the dark backward of my vast experience would be
produced, and either ruthlessly ignored or con-
temptuously corrected bv some unsympathetic elder
of unyielding voice and formed opinions. And then
there \\.is the crushing sense, at the conclusion of
one of these interviews, of having been put down
as a tiresome and heavy young man. I fully
believed in my own liveliness and sprightliness, but
it seemed an impossible task to persuade my
elders that these qualities were there. A good-
natured, elderly friend used at times to rally me
upon my shyness, and say that it all came from
thinking too much about myself. It was as use-
less as if one told a man \\ith a toothache that
it was mere self-absorption that made him suffer.
I* or I have no doubt that the disease of self-con-
sciousness is incident to intelligent youth. Marie
BashkirtsetF, in the terrible self-revealing journals
uhich she wrote, describes a visit that she paid to
some one who hail expressed an interest in her
and a desire to see her. She says that as she passed
the threshold of the room ..In- breathed a prayer,
O (iod, make me worth M -eing ! ' How often
used one to desire to make an impression, to make
M-lf fell and apprei iated !
\\<ll, all that uneasv craving has left me. I no
er have any particular desire for 01 expecta-
ON GROWING OLDER. 29
tion of being impressive. One likes, of course, to
feel fresh and lively ; but whereas in the old days
I used to enter a circle with the intention of en-
deavouring to be felt, of giving pleasure and in-
terest, I now go in the humble hope of receiving
either. The result is that, having got rid to a
great extent of this pompous and self-regarding
attitude of mind, I not only find myself more at
ease, but I also find other people infinitely more
interesting. Instead of laying one's frigate along-
side of another craft with the intention of conduct-
ing a boarding expedition, one pays a genial visit
by means of the long-boat with all the circum-
stance of courtesy and amiability. Instead of de-
siring to make conquests, I am glad enough to be
tolerated. I dare, too, to say what I think, not
alert for any symptoms of contradiction, but fully
aware that my own point of view is but one of
many, and quite prepared to revise it. In the old
days I demanded agreement ; I am now amused
by divergence. In the old days I desired to con-
vince ; I am now only too thankful to be con-
vinced of error and ignorance. I now no longer
shrink from saying that I know nothing of a sub-
ject ; in old days I used to make a pretence of
omniscience, and had to submit irritably to being
tamely unmasked. It seems to me that I must
have been an unpleasant young man enough, but
I humbly hope that I was not so disagreeable as
might appear.
Another privilege of advancing years is the de-
creasing tyranny of convention. I used to desire
to do the right thing, to know the right people,
to plav the right games. I did not reflect whether
3 o FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
it was worth the sacrifice of personal interest ; it
was all-important to he in the swim. Very grad-
ually I discovered that other people troubled their
heads very little about what one did ; that the
right people were often the most tiresome and the
most conventional, and that the only games which
were worth playing were the games which one
enjoyed. I used to undergo miseries in staying
at uncongenial houses, in accepting shooting in-
vitations when I could not shoot, in going to dances
because the people whom I knew were going. Of
course one h:is plenty of disagreeable duties to
perform in any case ; but 1 discovered gradually
that to adopt the principle of doing disagreeable
things which were supposed to be amusing and
.igreeable was to misunderstand the whole situa-
tion. Now, if I am asked to stay at a tiresome
house, I refuse ; I decline invitations to garden
parties and public dinners and dances, because I
c.now that they will bore me ; and as to games,
I never play them if I can help, because 1 find
that they do not entertain me. Of course there
are occasions when one is wanted to fill a gap,
aiul then it is the duty of a Christian ami a gentle-
man to conform, and to do it with a good grace.
Aj .1 am not at the mercy of small prejudices,
as 1 n>ed to be. As a young man, if I disliked
the cut of a person's whiskers or the fashion of
hi> cl"thes, it I considered Ins manner to be abrupt
or unpleasint,', it I was not interested in his sub-
ject-, I set him (!ov, n as an impossible person, and
mail-- no further attempt to form acquaintance.
No\s I know that the -e are superficial things,
and iliat a kind heart and an interesting person-
ON GROWING OLDER. 31
ality are not inconsistent with hoots of a grotesque
shape and even with mutton-chop whiskers. In
fact, I think that small oddities and differences
have grown to have a distinct value, and form
a pleasing variety. If a person's manner is un-
attractive, I often find that it is nothing more
than a shyness or an awkwardness which disap-
pears the moment that familiarity is established.
My standard is, in fact, lower, and I am more
tolerant. I am not, I confess, wholly tolerant,
hut my intolerance is reserved for qualities and
not for externals. I still fly swiftly from long-
winded, pompous, and contemptuous persons ;
but if their company is unavoidable, I have at
least learnt to hold my tongue. The other day
I was at a country-house where an old and ex-
tremely tiresome General laid down the law on
the subject of the Mutiny, where he had fought
as a youthful subaltern. I was pretty sure that
he was making the most grotesque misstatements,
but I was not in a position to contradict them.
Next the General w r as a courteous, w : eary old
gentleman, who sate with his finger-tips pressed
together, smiling and nodding at intervals. Half-
an-hour later we were lighting our candles. The
General strode fiercely up to bed, leaving a com-
pany of yawning and dispirited men behind. The
old gentleman came up to me and, as he took a
light, said with an inclination of his head in the
direction of the parting figure, " The poor Gen-
eral is a good deal misinformed. I didn't choose
to say anything, but I know something about the
subject, because I was private secretary to the
Secretary for War."
32 FROM A COLLKGK WINDOW.
That was the risiht attitude, I thought, for the
gentlemanly philosopher; and I have learnt from
mv old friend the lesson not to choose to say any-
thing if a turbulent and pompous person lays
down the law on subjects with which I happen
to be acquainted.
Again, there is another gain that results from
advancing years. 1 think it is true that there
were sharper ecstasies in vouth, keener percep-
tions, more passionate thrills ; but then the mind
also dipped more s\\iftly and helplessly into dis-
couragement, dreariness, and despair. I do not
think that lite is so rapturous, but it certainly is
vastly more interesting. When I was young there
were an abundance of things about which I did
not care. I was all t<>r poetry and art; I found
history tedious, science tiresome, politics insup-
portable. Now I may thankfully say it is wholly
different. The tune ot youth was the opening to
me of many doors oi lite. Sometimes a door opened
upon a mysterious and wonderful place, an en-
chanted forest, a solemn avenue, a sleeping glade ;
often, too, it opened into some dusty \\ork-a-day
place, full of busy forms bent over intolerable
tasks, \\hix/mg \s heels, tl.uk gleaming machinery,
the dm <>[ the factor\ an the \\orkshop. Some-
time^, too, a door won! i opt \\ into a bare and
rnelanchoK place, a hillside strev, n \\ith stones, an
interminable plain of M i ; \\orst ot all, a place
would oini-tiines be revealed \\luch was full ot
sulFi ti'jui !i, and hopeless uoe. shadowed uitli
tears and -u. . Fii>m such ] 1 turned \\ith
groans unutterable ; but the : of the' accursed
place would u '! out me for davs. These sur-
ON GROWING OLDER. 33
prises, these strange surmises, crowded in fast upon
me. How different the world was from what the
careless forecast of boyhood had pictured it ! How
strange, how beautiful, and yet how terrible ! As
life went on the beauty increased, and a calmer,
quieter beauty made itself revealed ; in youth I
looked for strange, impressive, haunted beauties,
things that might deeply stir and move ; but year
by year a simpler, sweeter, healthier kind of beauty
made itself felt ; such beauty as lies on the bare,
lightly washed, faintly tinted hillside of winter, all
delicate greens and browns, so far removed from
the rich summer luxuriance, and yet so austere, so
pure. I grew to love different books too. In
youth one demanded a generous glow, a fire of
passion, a strongly tinged current of emotion ; but
by degrees came the love of sober, subdued reflec-
tion, a cooler world in which, if one could not rest,
one might at least travel equably and gladly, with
a far wider range of experience, a larger, if a fainter,
hope. I grew to demand less of the world, less of
Nature, less of people ; and, behold, a whole range
of subtler and gentler emotions came into sight,
like the blue hills of the distance, pure and low.
The whole movement of the world, past and pres-
ent, became intelligible and clear. I saw the hu-
manity that lies behind political and constitutional
questions, the strong, simple forces that move like
a steady stream behind the froth and foam of per-
sonality. If in youth I believed that personality
and influence could sway and mould the world, in
later years I have come to see that the strongest
and fiercest characters are only the river-wrack, the
broken boughs, the torn grasses that whirl and spin
34 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
in the tongue of the creeping flood, and that there
is a dim resistless foice behind them that marches on
unheeding and drives them in the forefront of the
inundation. Things that had seemed drearily theo-
retical, drv, axiomatic, platitudinal, showed them-
sehcs to be great generalizations from a torrent of
human elFort ami mortal endeavour. And thus all
the mass of detail and human relation that had been
rudely set aside by the insolent prejudices of youth
under the generic name of business, came slowly to
have an intense and living significance. I cannot
trace th<- process in detail ; but I became aware of
the fulness, the energv, the matchless interest of
the world, and the vitality of a hundred thoughts
that had seemed to me the dreariest abstractions.
Then, too, the greatest gain of all, there comes
a sort of patience. In youth mistakes seemed irre-
parable, calamities intolerable, ambitions realizable,
disappointments unbearable. An anxiety hung like
a d.irk impenetrable cloud, a disappointment pois-
i the .-prints ot life. But now I have learned
that mistakes can often be set right, that anxieties
fade, that calamities have sometimes a compen-
satiML' ]ov, that an ambition realized is not always
plea-Mi. iMc, that a disappointment is often of it-
M-h a great incentive to try a-jain. One learns to
over trouble-, instead ot looking into them;
learns that hope is more unconquerable than
\nd so there flows into the gap the certainty
:ii m. tke more of misadventures, of un-
p: ( '! people, ot painful experiences, than one
It ma\ not be, nay, it is not,
ed a spirit ; but it is a serener,
a happier outlook.
ON GROWING OLDER. 35
And so, like Robinson Crusoe on his island,
striking a balance of my advantages and disad-
vantages, I am inclined to think that the good
points predominate. Of course there still re-
mains the intensely human instinct, which sur-
vives all the lectures of moralists, the desire to
eat one's cake and also to have it. One wants
to keep the gains of middle life and not to part
with the glow of youth. * The tragedy of grow-
ing old," says a brilliant writer, " is the remaining
young ; " that is to say, that the spirit does not
age as fast as the body. The sorrows of life lie
in the imagination, in the power to recall the good
days that have been and the old sprightly feelings ;
and in the power, too, to forecast the slow over-
shadowing and decay of age. But Lord Beacons-
iield once said that tne worst evil one has to endure
is the anticipation of the calamities that do not
happen ; and I am sure that the thing to aim at
is to live as far as possible in the day and for the
day. I do not mean in an epicurean fashion, by
tnking prodigally all the pleasure that one can get,
like a spendthrift of the happiness that is meant to
last a lifetime, but in the spirit of Newman's hymn
" I do not ask to see
The distant scene ; one step enough for me."
Even now I find that I am gaining a certain power,
instinctively, I suppose, in making the most of the
day and hour. In old days, if I had a disagreeable
engagement ahead of me, something to which I
looked forward with anxiety or dislike, I used to
find that it poisoned my cup. Now it is beginning
to be the other way ; and I find myself with a
36 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
heightened sense of pleasure in the quiet and peace-
ful days that have to intervene before the fateful
morning dawns. I used to awake in the morning
on the days that were still niv own before the day
which I dreaded, and begin, in that agitated mood
which used to accompanv the return of consciousness
after sleep, when the mind is alert but unbalanced,
to anticipate the tiling 1 feared, and feel that I
could not face it. Now I tend to awake and say
to myself, " Well, at any rate I have still to-day
in my own hands ; " and then the very day itself
has an increased value trom the feeling that the
uncomfortable experience lies ahead. I suppose
that is the secret of the placid enjoyment which
the very old so otten display. They seem so
near the dark jate, and yet so entirely indilferent
to the thought of it ; so absorbed in little leisurely
tritles, happy with a childlike happiness.
And thus 1 went slowly back to College in
that gathering gloom that seldom fails to bring
a certain peace to the mind. The porter sate, with
his teet on the tender, in his comfortable den,
reading a paper. The lights were beginning to
appear in the court, and the firelight flickered
bri-kly upon walls hung \\ith all the pleasant signs
of youthful life, the groups, the family photo-
graphs, the suspended oar, the cap of glory. So
when I entered my book-lined rooms, and heard
the ke'tle Miig its comfortable song on the hearth,
and reflected that I had a few letters to write,
an mterr -:inL r book to turn over, a pleasant Hall
dinner tn look torv. ;;rd to, and that, after a space
of talk, an undergraduate or two were coming to
tall-' over a leisurely piece of work, an essay or a
ON GROWING OLDER. 37
paper, I was more than ever inclined to acquiesce
in my disabilities, to purr like an elderly cat, and
to feel that while I had the priceless boon of leisure,
set in a framework of small duties, there was much
to be said for life, and that I was a poor creature
if I could not be soberly content.
Of course I know that I have missed the nearer
ties of life, the hearth, the home, the companion-
ship of a wife, the joys and interests of growing
girls and boys. But if a man is fatherly and kind-
hearted, he will find plenty of young men who are
responsive to a paternal interest, and intensely
grateful for the good-humoured care of one who
will listen to their troubles, their difficulties, and
their dreams. I have two or three young friends
who tell me what they are doing, and what they
hope to do ; I have many correspondents who
were friends of mine as boys, who tell me from
time to time how it goes with them in the bigger
world, and who like in return to hear something
of my own doings.
And so I sit, while the clock on the mantel-
piece ticks out the pleasant minutes, and the fire
winks and crumbles on the hearth, till the old
gyp comes tapping at the door to learn my in-
tentions for the evening ; and then, again, I pass
out into the court, the lighted windows of the
Hall gleam with the ancient armorial glass, from
staircase after staircase come troops of alert, gowned
figures, while overhead, above all the pleasant stir
and murmur of life, hang in the dark sky the un-
changing stars.
BOOKS
^~ > HE one room in my College which T always
enter with a certain sense of desolation and
sadness is the College library. There used to
be a story in my days at Cambridge of a hook-
collectini; I)on who was fond of discoursing in
public ot the various crosses he had to bear. He
was lamenting one day in Hall the unwieldy size
of his library. ' I really don't know what to do
with my books," he said, and looked round for
sympathy, ' Why not read them ? " said a sharp
and caustic Fellow opposite. It may be thought
that I am in need ot the same advice, but it is
not the ca^e. There are, indeed, many books
in our library ; but most of them, as I). G. Ros-
setti used to say in his childhood of his father's
learned volumes, are " no good tor reading." The
"t the College library are delightful, in-
leeil, t" look at ; rows upon rows of big irregu-
Kir volumes, with tan ! < -d tooling and faded
L'ildiriL: on the sun-so r< h-d backs. What are
they r ''Id ; "i"ii-; of classics, old volumes of
lontrnvei MI ol the Fathers, topo-
graphical treatiM->, cumbrous philosophers, pam-
phlet-. f -""i \\hich, like drv ashes, the heat of
BOOKS. 39
the fire that warmed them once has fled. Take
one down : it is an agreeable sight enough ; there
is a gentle scent of antiquity ; the bumpy page
crackles faintly ; the big irregular print meets the
eye with a pleasant and leisurely mellowness. But
what do they tell one ? Very little, alas ! that
one need know, very much which it would be
a positive mistake to believe. That is the worst
of erudition that the next scholar sucks the few
drops of honey that you have accumulated, sets
right your blunders, and you are superseded. You
have handed on the torch, perhaps, and even
trimmed it. Your errors, your patient explana-
tions, were a necessary step in the progress of
knowledge ; but even now the procession has
turned the corner, and is out of sight.
Yet even here, it pleases me to think, some
mute and unsuspected treasure may lurk unknown.
In a room like this, for over a couple of centuries,
stood on one of the shelves an old rudely bound
volume of blank paper, the pages covered with
a curious straggling cipher ; no one paid any
heed to it, no one tried to spell its secrets. But
the day came when a Fellow who was both in-
quisitive and leisurely took up the old volume,
and formed a resolve to decipher it. Through
many baffling delays, through many patient wind-
ings, he carried his purpose out ; and the result
was a celebrated Day-book, which cast much light
upon the social conditions of a past age, as well
as revealed one of the most simple and genial
personalities that ever marched blithely through
the pages of a Diary.
But, in these days of cheap print and nasty
40 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
paper, with a central library into which pours the
annual cataract of literature, these little ancient
libraries have no use left, save as repositories or
store-rooms. They belong to the days when books
were few and expensive ; when few persons could
acquire a library of their own ; when lecturers
accumulated knowledge that was not the property
of the world ; when notes were laboriously copied
and handed on ; when one of the joys of learning
was the consciousness of possessing secrets not
known to other men. An ancient Dean of Christ
Church is said to have given three reasons for the
study of Greek : the first was that it enabled you
to read the words of the Saviour in the original
tongue ; the second, that it gave you a proper
contempt for those who were ignorant of it ; and
the third was th.it it led to situations of emolu-
ment. \\hat a rich aroma hangs about this judg-
ment ! The first reason is probably erroneous, the
second is un-Christian, and the third is a gross
motive \\hich would equally apply to any pro-
fessional training whatsoever.
Well, the knowledge of Greek, except for the
schoolmaster and the clergyman, has not now the
same obvious commercial \alue. Knowledge is
more dilFuscd, more accessible. It is no longer
thought to be a seen', precious, rather terrible
possession; the possessor i> no longer venerated
and revered ; on the Contrary, a learned man
is rather considered likely to be tire-some. Old
folios have, nulce 1, become merely the stock-in-
trade ot the illu tratoi of sensational novels. Who
does not 1.;; ,v the ;i ;nl old man, \sith white
silky hair, \el\et -,ku!l-cap, and venerable ap-
BOOKS. 41
pearance, who sits reading a folio at an oak table,
and who turns out to be the villain of the piece,
a mine of secret and unsuccessful wickedness ?
But no one in real life reads a folio now, because
anything that is worth reprinting, as well as a
good deal that is not, is reprinted in convenient
form, if not in England, at least in Germany.
And the result of it is that these College libra-
ries are almost wholly unvisited. It seems a pity,
but it also seems inevitable. I wish that some
use could be devised for them, for these old books
make at all events a very dignified and pleasant
background, and the fragrance of well-warmed old
leather is a delicate thing. But they are not even
good places for working in, now that one has one's
own books and one's own reading-chair. More-
over, if they were kept up to date, which would
in itself be an expensive thing, there would come
in the eternal difficulty of where to put the old
books, which no one would have the heart to de-
stroy.
Perhaps the best thing for a library like this
would be not to attempt to buy books, but to sub-
scribe like a club to a circulating library, and to
let a certain number of new volumes flow through
the place and lie upon the tables for a time. But,
on the other hand, here in the University there
seems to be little time for general reading ; and
indeed it is a great problem, as life goes on, as
duties grow more defined, and as one becomes
more and more conscious of the shortness of life,
what the duty of a cultivated and open-minded
man is with regard to general reading. I am in-
clined to think that as one grows older one may
42 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
read less ; it is impossible to keep up with the
vast output <>f literature, and it is hard enough to
find time to follow even the one or two branches
in \\hich one is specially interested. Almost the
only books which, I think, it is a duty to read,
are the lives of great contemporaries ; one gets
thus to have an idea of \\liat is going on in the
\sorld, and to re.ili/e it from different points of
view. \ A fiction, new poetry, new travels are
very hard to peruse diligently. The effort, I con-
fe^s, of 1 vinniii:' a new novel, of making acquaint-
ance with an unfamiliar scene, of getting the in-
di\ : - of a :;esh group of people into one's
head, is becoivinu' every year harder for me ; but
there are >till one or two authors of fiction for
uhom I have a predilection, and whose works 1
look out for. New poetry demands an even greater
rt : and as to tra\els, they are written so much
in the journalistic style, and consist so much of
the meals our traveller obtains at wayside sta-
tions, of conversations uith obviously reticent and
even unintelligent persons ; they have so many
ravures of places that are exactly like other
-, and of complacent people in grotesque
i "lines, hke supers in a play, that one feeds the
\\hole thi iii,' to be hopelely superficial and un-
re.d. I- a journalistic foreigner visiting the
1 m\er ilv, lunchim: at the station refreshment-
room, ; to ! !!-a-do/eii of the best known
o>!!' r in .1 tram through the main thor-
oui' on at a football match, intcr-
a I'.v.n Councillor, and being presented
to tin- \ ice Cham .'.hat uould be- the profit
"f v Mi!. i i i oiild <MVC us' \\hat would
BOOKS. 43
he have seen of the quiet daily life, the interests,
the home-current of the place ? The only books
of travel worth reading are those where a person
has settled deliberately in an unknown place, really
lived the life of the people, and penetrated the
secret of the landscape and the buildings.
I wish very much that there was a really good
literary paper, with an editor of catholic tastes,
and half-a-dozen stimulating specialists on the
staff, whose duty would be to read the books
that came out, each in his own line, write reviews
of appreciation and not of contemptuous fault-
finding, let feeble books alone, and make it their
business to tell ordinary people what to read, not
saving them the trouble of reading the books that
are worth reading, but sparing them the task of
glancing at a good many books that are not worth
reading. Literary papers, as a rule, either review
a book with hopeless rapidity, or tend to lag be-
hind too much. It would be of the essence of
such a paper as I have described, that there should
be no delay about telling one what to look out
for, and at the same time that the review's should
be deliberate and careful.
But I think that as one grows older one may
take out a licence, so to speak, to read less. One
may go back to the old restful books, where one
knows the characters well, hear the old remarks,
survey the same scenes. One may meditate more
upon one's stores, stroll about more, just looking
at life, seeing the quiet things that are happening:,
and beaming through one's spectacles. One ought
to have amassed, as life goes on and the shadows
lengthen, a good deal of material for reflection,
44 FROM A COLLI-GE WINDOW.
And, alter all, reading is not in itself a virtue ; it
is only one way of passing the time ; talking is
another \vay, watching things another. Bacon says
that reading makes a full man ; well, I cannot
help thinking that many people are full to the
brim when they reach the age of forty, and that
much which thev afterwards put into the over-
charged vase merely drips and slobbers uncom-
fortably down the side and loot.
The thing to determine then, as one's brain
hardens or softens, is what the object of reading
is. It is not, 1 venture to think, what used to be
called the pursuit oi knowledge. Of course, if a
man is a professional teacher or a professional
writer, he must read for professional purposes,
ju>t as a coral insect must eat to enable it to secrete
the substances out ot which it builds its branching
house. But 1 am not here speaking of professional
studies, but of general reading. I suppose that
there are three motives lor reading the first,
purely pleasurable ; the second, intellectual ; the
third, what may be called ethical. As to the
first, a man who reads at all, reads just as he eats,
>leep>, and takes exercise, because he likes it ; and
that is probably the best reason that can be given
tor the practice. It is an innocent mode ot passing
the time, it takes one out ol oneself, it is amusing.
< >t course, it can be carried to an excess; and
a man may become- a men book-eater, as a man
ma\ become an opium-eater. I used at one time
to L'O and Mav with an old friend, a clcn/vman
in a remote part ot Lur-land. lie was a bachelor
and tai:U well oti. lie did not care about excr-
M-e or In iMnlen, and he hail no taste for general
BOOKS. 45
society. He subscribed to the London Library and
to a lending library in the little town where lie
lived, and he bought, too, a good many books.
He must have spent, I used to calculate, about ten
hours of the twenty-four in reading. He seemed
to me to have read everything, old and new books
alike, and he had an astonishing memory ; any-
thing that he put into his mind remained there
exactly as fresh and clear as when he laid it away,
so that he never needed to read a book twice. If
he had lived at a University he would have been
a useful man ; if one wanted to know what books
to read in any line, one had only to pick his brains.
He could give one a list of authorities on almost
every subject. But in his country parish he was
entirely thrown away. He had not the least de-
sire to make anything of his stores, or to write.
He had not the art of expression, and he was a
distinctly tiresome talker. His idea of conversation
was to ask you whether you had read a number of
modern novels. If he found one that you had not
read, he sketched the plot in an intolerably prolix
manner, so that it was practically impossible to fix
the mind on what he was saying. He seemed to
have no preferences in literature whatever ; his
one desire was to read everything that came out,
and his only idea of a holiday was to go up to Lon-
don and get lists of books from a bookseller. That
is, of course, an extreme case ; and I cannot help
feeling that he would have been nearly as usefully
employed if he had confined himself to counting
the number of words in the books he read. But,
after all, he was interested and nmused, and a
perfectly contented man.
46 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
As to the intellectual motive for reading, it
hardly needs discussing ; the object is to get clear
conceptions, to arrive at a critical sense of what
is good in literature, to have a knowledge of events
and tendencies of thought, to take a just view of
history and of great personalities ; not to be at the
mercy of theorists, but to be able to correct a faulty
bias by having a large and wide view of the progress
of events and the development of thought. One
who reads from this point of view will generally
find some particular line which he tends to follow,
some special region of the mind where he is desir-
ous to know all that can be known ; but he will,
at the same time, \\ish to acquaint himself in a
general vsay with other departments of thought, so
that he may be inteiested in subjects in which he
is not u holly well-informed, and be able to listen,
even to ask intelligent questions, in matters with
uhich he has no minute acquaintance. Such a
man, if he steers clear of the contempt for indefinite
views which is otten the curse ot men with clear
md definite minds, makes the best kind ot talker,
stimulating and su'juestn e ; his talk seems to open
doors into garden^ and corridors of the house of
thought ; and others, who>e knowledge is frag-
mentary, would like to be at home, too, in that
picas, iu palace. But it is of the essence of such
talk that it should be natural and attractive, not
pro!' ! or didactic. IVnplc who are not used
to I niverMties tend t<> believe that academical per-
sons arc IM\ ..; ubly ton . The\ think .1 them
as p. i dj \aM ston - t precise knowledge, and
actuate! b\ a n to detect and to ridi-
cule dclicicncics. of attainment among unpiotes-
BOOKS. 47
sional people. Of course, there are people of this
type to be found at a University, just as in all other
professions it is possible to find uncharitable special-
ists who despise persons of hazy and leisurely views.
But my own impression is that it is a rare type
among University Dons ; I think that it is far com-
moner at the University to meet men of great at-
tainments combined with sincere humility and
charity, for the simple reason that the most erudite
specialist at a University becomes aware both of
the wide diversity of knowledge and of his own
limitations as well.
Personally, direct bookish talk is my abomina-
tion. A knowledge of books ought to give a man
a delicate allusiveness, an aptitude for pointed quo-
tation. A book ought to be only incidentally, not
anatomically, discussed ; and I am pleased to be
able to think that there is a good deal of this allusive
talk at the University, and that the only reason that
there is not more is that professional demands are
so insistent, and work so thorough, that academical
persons cannot keep up their general reading as
they would like to do.
And then we come to what I have called, for
want of a better word, the ethical motive for read-
ing ; it might sound at first as if I meant that people
ought to read improving books, but that is exactly
what I do not mean. I have very strong opinions
on this point, and hold that what I call the ethical
motive for reading is the best of all indeed the
only true one. And yet I find a great difficulty in
putting into words what is a very elusive and deli-
cate thought. But my belief is this. As I make
my slow pilgrimage through the world, a certain
48 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
sense of beautiful mystery seems to gather and grow.
I see that many people find the world drear)' -arid,
indeed, there must he spaces of dreariness in it for
us all some find it interesting ; some surprising ;
some find it entirely satisfactory. But those who
find it satisfactory seem to me, as a rule, to be
tough, coarse, healthy natures, who find success
attractiye and tood digestible : who do not trouble
their heads yery much about other people, but go
cheerfully and optimistically on their way, closing
their eyes as far as possible to things painful and
sorrowful, and getting .ill the pleasure they can out
of material enjoyments.
Well, to speak yery sincerely and humbly, such
a life seems to me the worst kind of failure. It is
the life that men were liying in the days of Noah,
and out of such h\es comes nothing that is wise or
useful or good. Such men leaye the world as they
tound it, except tor the fact that they haye eaten a
little way into it, like a mite into a cheese, and
leaye a track of decomposition behind them.
I do not know why so much that is hard and
painful and sad is interwoyen with our life here ;
but I see, or seem to see, that it is meant to be so
interwoyen. All the best and most beautiful flowers
of character and thought seem to me to spring up
in the track of sulferiiiL' ; ami what is the most sor-
rowful of all mysteries, the mystery of death, the
ceasing to be, tin- relinquishing of our hopes and
dreams, the breaking of our dearest ties, becomes
more solemn and au c-iii-piring the nearer we ad-
vance to it.
I do not mean tli.it \s e are to <M> ami search
lor unhappine: , ; hut, or) the oilier hand, the only
BOOKS. 49
happiness worth seeking for is a happiness which
takes all these dark things into account, looks them
in the face, reads the secret of their dim eyes and
set lips, dwells with them, and learns to be tranquil
in their presence.
In this mood and it is a mood which no thought-
ful man can hope or ought to \vish to escape read-
ing becomes less and less a searching for instructive
and impressive facts, and more and more a quest
after wisdom and truth and emotion. More and
more I feel the impenetrability of the mystery that
surrounds us ; the phenomena of nature, the dis-
coveries of science, instead of raising the veil, seem
only to make the problem more complex, more
bizarre, more insoluble ; the investigation of the
laws of light, of electricity, of chemical action, of
the causes of disease, the influence of heredity all
these things may minister to our convenience and
our health, but they make the mind of God, the
nature of the First Cause, an infinitely more mys-
terious and inconceivable problem.
But there still remains, inside, so to speak, of
these astonishing facts, a whole range of intimate
personal phenomena, of emotion, of relationship,
of mental or spiritual conceptions, such as beauty,
affection, righteousness, which seem to be an even
nearer concern, even more vital to our happiness
than the vast laws of which it is possible for men
to be so unconscious, that centuries have rolled
past without their being investigated.
And thus in such a mood reading becomes a
patient tracing out of human emotion, human feel-
ing, when confronted with the sorrows, the hopes,
the motives, the suilerings which beckon us and
5 o FROM A COLLECa: WINDOW.
threaten us on ever)- side. One desires to know
v. hat pure and wise and high-hearted natures have
made of the problem ; one desires to let the sense
of beaut v that most spiritual of all pleasures sink
deeper into the heart ; one desires to share the
thoughts and hopes, the dreams and visions, in the
strength of which the human spirit has risen superior
to suffering and death.
And thus, as 1 say, the reading that is done in
such a mood has little of precise acquisition or
definite attainment about it ; it is a desire rather
to feed and console the spirit to enter the region
in which it seems better to wonder than to know,
to aspire rather than to define, to hope rather than
o be satisfied. A spirit which walks expectantly
along this path grows to learn that the secret of
such happiness as we can attain lies in simplicity
and courage, in sincerity and loving-kindness ; it
grows more and more averse to material ambitions
and mean aims ; it more and more desires silence
and recollection and contemplation. In this mood,
the word'-, of the \sise tall like the tolling of sweet,
<_'rave bells upon the soul, the dreams of poets come
like music heard at evening from the depth of some
enchanted forest, wafted oxer a wide water; we
know not \\hat instrument it is whence the music
wells, bv \\hat finders swept, by what lips blown ;
but we know that there is some presence there that
is sorrouful or t^lad, uho has power to translate his
dream mt<i the conrord < >\ > \veet sounds. Such a
mood need DI. t \\it!idrau u^ from life, from toil,
from km iiv n l.ition In; s, hop; deep affections; but
it utll lather -end us back to lite uith a renewed
and joyful /e>t, uith a desire to discern the true
BOOKS. 51
quality of beautiful things, of fair thoughts, of cour-
ageous hopes, of wise designs. It will make us
tolerant and forgiving, patient with stubbornness
and prejudice, simple in conduct, sincere in word,
gentle in deed ; with pity for weakness, with affec-
tion for the lonely and the desolate, with admiration
for all that is noble and serene and strong.
Those who read in such a spirit will tend to
resort more and more to large and wise and beauti-
ful books, to press the sweetness out of old familiar
thoughts, to look more for warmth and loftiness of
feeling than for elaborate and artful expression.
They will value more and more books that speak
to the soul, rather than books that appeal to the
ear and to the mind. They will realize that it is
through wisdom and force and nobility that books
retain their hold upon the hearts of men, and not
by briskness and colour and epigram. A mind
thus stored may have little grasp of facts, little
garniture of paradox and jest ; but it will be full of
compassion and hope, of gentleness and joy. . . .
Well, this thought has taken me a long way
from the College library, where the old books look
somewhat pathetically from the shelves, like aged
dogs wondering why no one takes them for a walk.
Monuments of pathetic labour, tasks patiently ful-
filled through slow hours ! But yet I am sure that
a great deal of joy went to the making of them, the
joy of the old scholar who settled down soberly
among his papers, and heard the silvery bell above
him tell out the dear hours that, perhaps, he would
have delayed if he could. Yes, the old books are
a tender-hearted and a joyful company ; the days
slip past, the sunlight moves round the court, and
52 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
steals warmly tor an hour or two into the deserted
room. Lite delightful lite spins merrily past;
the perennial stream ot youth flows on ; and per-
haps the best that the old books can do for us is to
hid us cast back a wUttul and loving thought into
the pa.^t a little gift of love for the old labourers
who wrote so diligently in the forgotten hours, till
the weary, tailing hand laid down the familiar pen,
and soon lav silent in the dust.
IV
SOCIABILITIES
I HAVE a friend here, an old friend, who, in re-
freshing contrast with the majority of the human
race, possesses strongly marked characteristics. He
knows exactly the sort of life that suits him, and
exactly what he likes. He is not, as Mr. Enfield
said, one of the fellows who go about doing what is
called " good." But he contrives to give a great
deal of happiness without having any programme.
He is, in the first place, a savant with a great repu-
tation ; but he makes no parade of his work, and
sits down to it because he likes it, as a hungry man
may sit down to a pleasant meal. He is thus the
most leisurely man that I know, while, at the same
time, his output is amazing. His table is covered
deep with books and papers ; but he will work at
a corner, if he is fortunate enough to find one ; and,
if not, he will make a kind of cutting in the mass,
and work in the shade, with steep banks of stratified
papers on either hand. He is always accessible,
always ready to help any one. The undergraduate,
that shy bird in whose sight the net is so often
spread in vain, even though it be baited with the
priceless privilege of tea, tobacco, and the talk of
a well-informed man, comes, in troops and com-
54 FROM A COLLI-GK \VINDO\V
panics, to sec him. He is a man too with a deeo
vein of humour, and, what is far more rare, a keen
vein of appreciation of the humour of others. He
laughs as if he were amused, not like a man dis-
charging a painful duty. It is true that he will not
answer letters ; but then his writing-paper is gen-
erally drowned deeper than plummet can sound ;
his pens are rusty, and his ink is of the consistency
of tar ; but he will always answer questions, with
an incredible patience and sympathy, correcting
one's mistakes in a genial and tentative way, as if
a matter admitted of many opinions. If a man, for
instance, maintains that the Norman Conquest took
place in 1006 H.C., he will say that some historians
put it more than two thousand years later, but that
of course it is difficult to arrive at exact accuracy in
these matters. Thus one never feels snubbed or
snutFed out by him.
Well, for the purposes of my argument, I will
call my friend Perry, though it is not his name ;
and having finished mv introduction I will 110 on
O
to my main story.
I took in to dinner the other night a beautiful
and accomplished lady, uith v. horn it is always a
pleasure to talk. The conversation turned upon
Sir. Perry. She said v. itli a Liaceful air of judg-
ment that she had but <>;ie fault to find with him,
and that was that he hated women. 1 ha/arded a
belief that he was >hv, to \\hich she replied with a
di;;mv ! .. Durance that he \\as not shy ; he was la/y.
Pnidence and di-cretion forbade me to appeal
against this decision ; b'-it I endeavoured to arrive
at the principles th.it sup; ited such a verdict. I
gathered that Kreria roi cd that every one
SOCIABILITIES. 55
owed a certain duty to society ; that people had no
business to pick and choose, to cultivate the society
of those who happened to please and interest them,
and to eschew the society of those who bored and
wearied them ; that such a course was not fair to the
uninteresting people, and so forth. But the point
was that there was a duty involved, and that some
sacrifice was required of virtuous people in the matter.
Egeria herself is certainly blameless in the
matter : she diffuses sweetness and light in many
tedious assemblies ; she is true to her principles ;
but for all that I cannot agree with her on this point.
In the first place I cannot agree that sociability
is a duty at all, and to conceive of it as such seems
to me to misunderstand the whole situation. I
think that a man loses a great deal by being un-
sociable, and that for his own happiness he had
better make an effort to see something of his fellows.
All kinds of grumpinesses and morbidities arise
from solitude ; and a shy man ought to take occa-
sional dips into society from a medicinal point of
view, as a man should take a cold bath ; even if
he confers no pleasure on others by so doing, the
mere sense, to a timid man, of having steered a
moderately straight course through a social enter-
tainment is in itself enlivening and invigorating,
and gives the pleasing feeling of having escaped
from a great peril. But the accusation of unso-
ciability does not apply to Perry, whose doors are
open day and night, and whose welcome is always
perfectly sincere. Moreover, the frame of mind in
which a man goes to a party, determined to confer
pleasure and exercise influence, is a dangerously
self-satisfied one. Society is, after all, a recreation
5 6 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
and a delight, and ought to be sought for with
pleasurable motives, not \\ith a consciousness ot
rectitude and justice.
My own belief is that every one lias a perfect
right to choose his o\\ n circle, and to make it large
or small as lie desires. It is a monstrous thing to
hold that, it an agreeable or desirable person comes
to a pi. ice, one has but to leave a piece of paste-
board at his door to entail upon him the duty ot
coming round till he finds one at home, and of
disporting himselt gingerly, like a dancing bear
among the teacups. A card ought to be a species
of charity, left on solitary strangers, to give them
the chance ot coming, it they like, to see the leaver
>t it, or as a preliminary to a real invitation. It
ought to be a ticket of admission, which a man may
use or not as he likes, not a legal summons. That
any one should return a call should be a compliment
and an honour, not regarded as the mere discharg-
ing of a compulsory duty.
I have heard tair ladies complain of the bore-
dom they endured at tea-parties ; they speak ot
thcni<el\es as the martvrs and \ictims ot a sense of
duty. It MH'h peoj K- talked ot the duty of visit-
ing the MI. k and atilicted .IN a thing which their
eption ot Chn-nan love entailed upon them,
uhich they performed, reluctantly and unwillingly,
from a sense ot obligation, 1 .-hoidd respect them
dccpK and pr< <!"uii(il\ . Hut 1 h.ive not otteii found
that tl.f v. ho ioi ; lain most ot their social
duties, and \\ ho d; them most sedulously,
complain becau t upt .1 course ot
Christian i nee. !' is, indeed, rather the
othtr '\a\ ; it u geiiei.ilK 'i ue that those \sho see
SOCIABILITIES. 57
a good deal of society (from a sense of duty) and
find it dull, are the people who have no particular
interests or pursuits of their own.
There is less excuse in a University town than
in any other for adopting this pompous and formal
view of the duties of society, because there are very
few unoccupied people in such a place. My own
occupations, such as they are, fill the hours from
breakfast to luncheon and from tea to dinner ; men
of sedentary lives, who do a good deal of brain-
work, find an hour or two of exercise and fresh air
a necessity in the afternoon. Indeed, a man who
cares about his work, and who regards it as a primary
duty, finds no occupation more dispiriting, more
apt to unfit him for serious work, than pacing from
house to house in the early afternoon, delivering a
pack of visiting-cards, varied by a perfunctory con-
versation, seated at the edge of an easy-chair, on
subjects of inconceivable triviality. Of course there
are men so constituted that they find this pastime
a relief and a pleasure ; but their felicity of tem-
perament ought not to be made into a rule for
serious-minded men. The only social institution
which might really prove beneficial in a University
is an informal evening salon. If people might drop
in uninvited, in evening dress or not, as was con-
venient, from nine to ten in the evening, at a
pleasant house, it would be a rational practice ;
but few such experiments seem ever to be tried.
Moreover, the one thing that is fatal to all
spontaneous social enjoyment is that the guests
should, like the maimed and blind in the parable,
be compelled to come in. The frame of mind of
an eminent Cabinet Minister whom I once accom-
S 8 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
panicd to an evening party rises before my mind.
He was in deep depression at having to go ; and
when I ventured to ask his motive in going, he said,
with an air of unutterable self-sacrifice, " I suppose
that we ought sometimes to be ready to submit to
the tortures we inflict on others." Imagine a circle
of guests assembled in such a frame of mind, and
it would seem that one had all the materials for a
thoroughly pleasant party.
I was lately taken by a friend, with whom I was
staying in the country, to a garden party. I con-
fess that I think it would be hard to conceive cir-
cumstances less favourable to personal enjoyment.
The day was hot, and I was uncomfortably dressed.
I found myself first in a hot room, where the host
and hostess were en^a^ed in what is called receiv-
ing. A stream of pale, perspiring people moved
slowly through, some- of them frankly miserable,
some with an air of false geniality, which deceived
no one, written upon their laces. ' So pleasant to
see so many friends ! ' ' \\hat a delightful day
vou have got for your party ! ' Such ineptitudes
were the current coin of the market. I passed on
into another room where refreshment, 01 a nature
that I did not want, was sadly accepted. And I
'hen pa->cd out into the open air ; the garden was
disagiccahly crowded ; there was " a din of doubt-
ful talk." as RosM-tti says. The sun beat down
dr//ilv on my streaming brow. 1 joined group after
group, where the conversation was all of the same
easy and stimulating character, until I felt sick and
taint (tl <!<'!) of rol.iM constitution) with the
ma/e- < ,\ heat and sound ' in which my life
Kcemed ' tuniiii'j, turning," like the lite of the
I
SOCIABILITIES. 59
heroine of " Requiescat." I declare that such a
performance is the sort of thing that I should ex-
pect to find in hell, even down to the burning marl,
as Milton says. I got away dizzy, unstrung, unfit
for life, with that terrible sense of fatigue unac-
companied by wholesome tiredness, that comes of
standing in hot buzzing places. I had heard not
a single word that amused or interested me ; and
et there were plenty of people present with whom
should have enjoyed a leisurely talk, to whom I
felt inclined to say, in the words of Prince Henry
to Poins, " Prithee, Ned, come out of this fat room,
and lend me thy hand to laugh a little ! " But as
I went away, I pondered sadly upon the almost
inconceivable nature of the motive which could lead
people to behave as I had seen them behaving, and
resolutely to label it pleasure. I suppose that, as a
matter of fact, many persons find stir, and move-
ment, and the presence of a crowd an agreeable
stimulus. I imagine that people are divided into
those who, if they see a crowd of human beings in
a field, have a desire to join them, and those who,
at the same sight, long to fly swiftly to the utter-
most ends of the earth. I am of the latter tem-
perament ; and I cannot believe that there is any
duty which should lead me to resist the impulse as
a temptation to evil. But the truth is that sociable
people, like liturgical people, require, for the full
satisfaction of their instincts, that a certain number
of other persons should be present at the ceremonies
which they affect, and that all should be occupied
in the same way. It is of little moment to the
originators of the ceremony whether those present
arc there willingly or unwillingly ; and thus the
60 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
onlv resource of their victims is to go out on strike ;
so far from thinking it a duty to he present at social
or religious functions, in order that my sociable or
liturgical friends should have a suitable background
for their pleasures, I think it a solemn duty to resist
to the uttermost this false and vexatious theory of
society and religion !
I suppose, too, that inveterate talkers and dis-
coursers require an audience who should listen
meekly and admiringly, and not interrupt. I have
friends who are alllicted with this taste to such an
extent, who are so determined to hold the talk in
their own hands, that I declare they might as well
have a company of stulFed seals to sit down to dinner
with, as a circle ot living and breathing men. But
I do not think it right, or at all events necessary, in
the interests of human kindliness, that I should
victimize myself so for a man's pleasure. Neither
do I think it necessary that I should attend a cere-
mony u here I neither i;et nor give anything of the
nature ot pleasure, simply in order to conform to
a social rule, invented and propagated by those who
happen to en]oy such gatherings.
I remember being much struck by an artless
reminiscence, of an undergraduate, quoted in the
Memoirs ot a certain distinguished academical per-
sonage, who was fond ot uniting young men to
share his hospitality for experimental reasons. 1
cannot recollect the exact words, but the under-
graduate wrote of Ins celebrated entertainer some-
what to tt.r following clicct : 'He asked me to sit
do\sn, so I sate do\\ n ; he asked me to eat an
apple, so ! ate it. lie- askol me to take a glass of
wine, so 1 poured one out, and drank it. I am
SOCIABILITIES. 61
told that he tries to get you to talk so that he may
see the kind of fellow you are ; but I didn't want
him to know the kind of fellow I was, so I didn't
talk ; and presently I went away." I think that
this species of retaliation is perfectly fair in the
case of experimental entertainments. Social gather-
ings must be conducted on a basis of perfect equal-
ity, and the idea of duty in connection with them
is a bugbear invented in the interests of those who
are greedy of society, and not in a position to con-
tribute any pleasure to a social gathering.
It might be inferred from the above considera-
tions that I am an inveterately unsociable person ;
but such is not the case. I am extremely gre-
garious at the right time and place. I love to
spend a large part of the day alone ; I think that
a perfect day consists in a solitary breakfast and a
solitary morning ; a single companion for luncheon
and exercise ; again some solitary hours ; but then
I love to dine in company and, if possible, to spend
the rest of the evening with two or three congenial
persons. But more and more, as life goes on, do
I find the mixed company tiresome, and the tete-d-
t$te delightful. The only amusement of society is
the getting to know what other people really think
and feel : what amuses them, what pleases them,
what shocks them ; what they like and what they
loathe ; what they tolerate and what they con-
demn. A dinner-party is agreeable, principally be-
cause one is absolutely tied down to make the best
of two people. Very few English people have the
art of conversing unaffectedly and sincerely before
a circle ; when one does come across it, it is a rare
and beautiful art, like singing, or oratory. But the
62 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
presence of such an impravisatore is the only thing
that makes a circle tolerable. On the other hand,
a great many English people have the art of t/te-d-
tSte talking ; and I can honestly say that 1 have
very seldom been brought into close relations with
an individual without rinding an unsuspected depth
and width of interest in the companionship.
Hut in any case the whole thing is a mere ques-
tion of pleasure ; and 1 return to my thesis, which
is that the only possible theory is for every one to
rind and create the kind of society that he or she
may like. Depend upon it, congenial society is the
only kind of society to, and in which, any one will
give his best. If people like the society of the
restaurant, the club, the drawing-room, the dining-
room, the open air, the cricket-field, the moor, the
golf-course, in the name of pleasure and common
sense let them have it ; but to condemn people, by
brandishing the fierv sword of duty over their heads,
tc attend uncongenial gatherings seems to me to be
both absurd and unjust.
The case of my friend Perry is, I must admit,
complicated by the fact that he does add greatly
to the happiness of any circle of which he is a
member ; he is an admirable listener and a sym-
pathetic talker. But it Egeria desires to make a
Nurna of him, and to inspire him with her own
gentle wisdom, let her convince him quietly that
he does owe a duty to society, and not censure him
before his friends. If Egeria, in her own inimitable
way, would say to him that the lives of academical
ladies uere apt to be dull, and that it was a matte i
of gracetul chivalry for him to brighten the horizon,
why, IVrry could not resist he; But chivalry is a
SOCIABILITIES. 63
thing which must be courteously and generously
conceded, and must never he pettishly claimed ;
and indeed I do not want Perry interfered with
in this matter : he fills a very peculiar niche, he
is a lodestar to enthusiastic undergraduates ; he
is the joy of sober common-rooms. I wish with
all my heart that the convenances of life permitted
Egeria herself to stray into those book-lined rooms,
dim with tobacco-smoke, to warble and sing to the
accompaniment of Perry's cracked piano, to take
her place among the casual company. But as Egeria
cannot go to Perry, and as Perry will not go to
Egeria, they must respect each other from a dis-
tance, and do their best alone.
And, after all, simple, sincere, and kindly per-
sons are apt to find, as Stevenson wisely said, their
circle ready-made. The only people who cannot
get the friends and companions they want are those
who petulantly claim attention ; and the worst error
of all consists in mistaking the gentle pleasures of
life, such as society and intercourse, for the duties
of life, and of codifying and formalizing them.
For myself, I wish with all my heart that I had
Perry's power ; I wish that those throngs of young
men would feel impelled to come in and talk to
me, easily and simply. I have, it is true, several
faithful friends, but very few of them will come
except in response to a definite invitation ; and
really, if they do not want to come, I do not at all
wish to force them to do so. It mi^ht amuse me ;
o '
but if it amused them, they would come : as they
do not come, I am quite ready to conclude that
it does not amuse them. I am as conscious as
every one else of the exquisitely stimulating and
6 4 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
entertaining character of my own talk ; it con-
stantly pains me that so few people take advantage
of their opportunities of visiting the healing fount.
But the fact is incontestable that my talents are not
appreciated at their riidit value ; and I must be
content with such slender encouragement as I re-
ceive. In vain do I purchase choice brands of
cigars and cigarettes, and load my side-table with
the best Scotch whisky. Not even with that solace
will the vagrant undergraduate consent to be douched
under the stream of my suggestive conversation.
A humorous friend ot mine, Tipton by name,
an ofiicial of a neighbouring college, told me that
he held receptions of undergraduates on Sunday
evenings. I believe tli.it he is in reality a model
host, hill of resource and sprightliness, and that
admission to his entertainments is eagerly coveted.
Hut it pleases him to depreciate his own success.
Oh, yes," he said, in answer to my questions as
to the art he practised, " a tew of them come ; one
or tuo because they h!:e UK ; some because they
thin', there is going to he a row about attendance
at eli. '.pel, and hope- to mend matters ; one or two
! ecause the\ like to stand \\ell with the dons, when
there i> ;i chance of a fellowship; but the lowest
motive ot ;ill," he went on, " \\as the motive which
I he.trd from the lips of one on a summer evening,
when my \\mdo\\s were all open, and I was just
prepared to recei\e hoarders ; an ingenuous friend
of mine beneath : aid to ai unoccupied youth,
' U '' ' you tl::n!. about doing a Tipper to-
nr.dit : ' To \\hieh th'- other replied, ' Well, yes,
<>ne to do one a term ; let's go in at once
;md '/el it o\ er.'
CONVERSATION
I CANNOT help wishing sometimes that English
people had more theories about conversation.
Really good talk is one of the greatest pleasures
there is, and yet how rarely one comes across it !
There are a good many people among my ac-
quaintance who on occasions are capable of talking
well. But what they seem to lack is initiative, and
deliberate purpose. If people would only look
upon conversation in a more serious light, much
would be gained. I do not of course mean, Heaven
forbid ! that people should try to converse seriously ;
that results in the worst kind of dreariness, in feel-
ing, as Stevenson said, that one has the brain of a
sheep and the eyes of a boiled codfish. But I mean
that the more seriously one takes an amusement,
the more amusing it becomes. What I wish is that
people would apply the same sort of seriousness to
talk that they apply to golf and bridge ; that they
should desire to improve their game, brood over
their mistakes, try to do better. Why is it that so
many people would think it priggish and effemi-
nate to try to improve their talk, and yet think it
manly and rational to try to shoot better ? Of
course it must be done with a natural zest and
66 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
enjoyment, or it is useless. What a ghastly picture
one pets of the old-fashioned talkers and wits, com-
mitting a number of subjects to memory, turning
over a commonplace book for apposite anecdotes
and jests, adding dates to those selected that they
may not tell the same story again too soon, learn-
ing t.p a list of epigram?, stuck in a shaving-glass,
when they are dressing for dinner, and then sally-
ing forth primed to bursting with conversation ! It
is all very well to know beforehand the kind of line
you would vsish to take, but spontaneity is a neces-
sary ingredient of talk, and to make up one's mind
to get certain stories in, is to deprive talk of its
fortuitous charm. When two celebrated talkers of
the kind that I have described used to meet, the
talk was nothing but a smart interchange of anec-
dotes. There is a story of Macaulay and some
other great conversationalist getting into the swing
at breakfast when staying, 1 think, with Lord Lans-
downe. They drew their chairs to the tire, the rest
of the company formed a circle round them, and
listened meekly to the dialogue until luncheon.
What an appalling picture ! One sympathizes with
C'arlvle on the occasion when he was asked to
dinner to meet a ureat talker, who poured forth a
continuous ilow of jest and anecdote until the meal
was far advanced. Then came a lull ; Carlyle
laid d"wn his knife and fork, and looking round
\Mth the famous " crucified " expression on his face,
said in a voice of a^oni/ed entreaty, " For (Jod's
sake tal.c me auav, and put me in a room by my-
self, aiu! give me a pipe of tobacco!' He felt,
as I have felt on such occasions, an imperative need
of silence ;nul recollection and repose. Indeed, as
CONVERSATION. 67
he said on another occasion, of one of Coleridge's
harangues, " to sit still and be pumped into is never
an exhilarating process."
That species of talker is, however, practically
extinct ; though indeed I have met men whose idea
of talk was a string of anecdotes, and who employed
the reluctant intervals of silence imposed upon them
by the desperate attempt of fellow-guests to join
in the fun, in arranging the points of their next
anecdote.
What seems to me so odd about a talker of
that kind is the lack of any sense of justice about
his talk. He presumably enjoys the exercise of
speech, and it seems to me strange that it should
not occur to him that others may like it too, and
that he should not concede a certain opportunity
to others to have their say, if only in the interests
of fair play. It is as though a gourmet's satisfac-
tion in a good dinner were not complete unless he
could prevent every one else from partaking of the
food before them.
What is really most needed in social gatherings
is a kind of moderator of the talk, an informal presi-
dent. Many people, as I have said, are quite ca-
pable of talking interestingly, if they get a lead. The
perfect moderator should have a large stock of
subjects of general interest. He should, so to
speak, kick-off. And then he should either feel,
or at least artfully simulate, an interest in other
people's point of view. He should ask questions,
reply to arguments, encourage, elicit expressions of
opinion. He should not desire to steer his ow r n
course, but follow the line that the talk happens
to take. If he aims at the reputation of being a
68 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
pood talker, hi- will win a far higher fame by pur-
suing this course ; tor it is a lamentable fact that,
after a lively talk, one is apt to remember far better
what one has oneself contributed to the discussion
than what other people have said ; and if you can
send guests away from a gathering feeling that they
have talked well, they will be disposed in that genial
mood to concede conversational merit to the other
participators. A naive and simple-minded friend
of my own once cast an extraordinary light on the
subject, by sa\ing to me, the day after an agree-
able symposium at my own house, " We had a very
pleasant evening with you yesterday. I was in
great form " !
The only two kinds of talker that I find tire-
some are the talker of paradoxes and the egotist. A
few paradoxes are all vcrv v.ell; they are stimu-
lating and gently provocative. Hut one gets tired
ot a string of them ; they become little more than
a sort of fence erected round a man's mind ; one
despairs ot e\er knowing what a paradoxical talker
really thinks. Halt the charm of good talk con-
sists in the glimpses and peeps one gets into the
stutf ot a man's thoughts ; and it is wearisome to
feel that a talker is tor ever tossing subjects on his
horn-, perpetually tr\mg to say the unexpected, the
startling thing. In the best talk of all, a glade
suddenly opens up, like the glades in the Alpine
forests through which they bring the timber down
to the \;illev ; one sees a IMIV^ tureen vista, all bathed
in ' mg sun hme, \sith the dark head of :i
mountain it the t"p. Sn in the best talk one lr^
a sudden ^ighl ot something hu/h. sweet, serious
ansfrre
CONVERSATION. 69
The other kind of talk that I find very disagree-
able is the talk of a full-fledged egotist, who con-
verses without reference to his hearers, and brings
out what is in his mind. One gets interesting
things in this way from time to time ; but the
essence, as I have said, of good talk is that one
should have provoking and stimulating peeps into
other minds, not that one should be compelled to
gaze and stare into them. I have a friend, or rather
an acquaintance, whose talk is just as if he opened
a trap-door into his mind : you look into a dark
place where something flows, stream or sewer ;
sometimes it runs clear and brisk, but at other
times it seems to be charged with dirt and debris ;
and yet there is no escape ; you have to stand and
look, to breathe the very odours of the mind, until
he chooses to close the door.
The mistake that many earnest and persevering
talkers make is to suppose that to be engrossed is
the same thing as being engrossing. It is true of
conversation as of many other things, that the
half is better than the whole. People who are
fond of talking ought to beware of being lengthy.
How one knows the despair of conversing with
a man who is determined to make a clear and
complete statement of everything, and not to let
his hearer off anything ! Arguments, questions,
views, rise in the mind in the course of the harangue,
and are swept away by the moving stream. Such
talkers suffer from a complacent feeling that their
information is correct and complete, and that their
deductions are necessarily sound. But it is quite
possible to form and hold a strong opinion, and
yet to realize that it is after all only one point of
70 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
view, and that there is probably much to be said
on the other side. The unhappiest feature of drift-
ing into a habit of positive and continuous talk is
that one has few friends faithful enough to criticise
such a habit and tell one the unvarnished truth ; if
the habit is once confirmed, it becomes almost
impossible to break it <>tf. I know of a family con-
clave that was once summoned, in order, if possible,
to communicate the fact to one of the circle that
he was in danger of becoming a bore ; the head
of the family was finally deputed to convey the fact
as delicately as possible to the erring brother. He
did so, with much tender circumlocution. The
offender was deeply mortified, but endeavoured to
thank his elderly relative for discharging so painful
a task. He promised aim -lulment. He sate glum
and tongue-tied for several weeks in the midst of
cheerful gatherings. Verv gradually the old habit
prevailed. Within six months he was as tedious as
ever ; but uhat is the saddest part of the whole
business is that he has never quite forgiven the teller
of the unwelcome news, uhile at the same time he
labours under the impression that he has cured
himself of the habit.
It is, of course, useless to attempt to make one-
self into a brilliant talker, because the qualities
in-died humour, quickness, the power of seeing
unexpected connections, picturesque phrasing, nat-
ural charm, sympathv, readiness, and so forth-
are things hardly attainable by effort. But much
can be done |>v perseverance ; and it is possible to
form a deliberate habit ot conversation by deter-
mining that however mikh one may be indisposed
to talk, however unpromising one's comoamons
CONVERSATION. 71
may seem, one will at all events keep up an end.
I have known really shy and unready persons who
from a sheer sense of duty have made themselves
into very tolerable talkers. A friend of my ac-
quaintance confesses that a device she has occa-
sionally employed is to think of subjects in alpha-
betical order. I could not practise this device
myself, because when I had lighted upon, we will
say, algebra, archery, and astigmatism, as possible
subjects for talk, I should find it impossible to
invent any gambit by which they could be suc-
cessfully introduced.
The only recipe which I would offer to a student
of the art is not to be afraid of apparent egotism,
but to talk frankly of any subject in which he may
be interested, from a personal point of view. An
impersonal talker is apt to be a dull dog. There is
nothing like a frank expression of personal views to
elicit an equally frank expression of divergence or
agreement. Neither is it well to despise the day
of small things ; the weather, railway travelling,
symptoms of illness, visits to a dentist, sea-sick-
ness, as representing the universal experiences and
interests of humanity, will often serve as points
d'appui.
Of course there come to all people horrible
tongue-tied moments w r hen they can think of noth-
ing to say, and feel like a walrus on an ice-floe,
heavy, melancholy, ineffective. Such a catastrophe
is almost invariably precipitated in my own case by
being told that some one is particularly anxious to
be introduced to me. A philosopher of my acquaint-
ance, who was an admirable talker, told me that on
a certain occasion, an evening party, his hostess led
72 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
up a young girl to him, like Iphigcnia decked for
the sacrifice, and said that Miss - - was desirous
of meeting him. The world became instantly a
blank to him. The enthusiastic damsel stared at
him with large admiring eyes. After a period of
agonized silence, a remark occurred to him which
he felt might have been appropriate if it had been
made earlier in tin encounter. He rejected it as
useless, and after another interval a thought came
to him which he saw might have served, if the
suspense had not been already so prolonged ; this
was also put aside ; and after a series of belated
remarks had occurred to him, each of which seemed
to be hopelessly unworthy of the expectation he
had excited, the hostess, seeing that things had
gone wroni:, came, like Artemis, and led Iphigenia
away, without the philosopher having had the op-
portunity of induliMM'j in a single reflection. The
experience, he said, was of so appalling a character,
that he set to, and invented a remark which he said
was applicable to persons of all ages and of either
sex, under any circumstances whatever ; but, as
he would never reveal thi.- precious possession to
the most ardent inquirers, the secret, whatever it
was, has perished with him.
One of my friends has a perfectly unique gift of
conversation. He is a prominent man of alFairs,
a perfect mine of politu.il secrets. He is a ready
talker, and has the art, both in a tetc-a-tctt as well
as in a mixed comp.mv, ot mentioning things which
are cxtieri.-lv intere-tnrj. and appear to be- hope-
lessly null erect. He L'cnerallv accompanies hia
relation ot these incident.-, with a request that the
subject mav not be mentioned outside. The result
CONVERSATION. 73
is that every one who is brought into contact with him
feels that he is selected by the great man because of
some happy gift of temperament, trustworthiness,
or discretion, or even on grounds of personal im-
portance, to be the recipient of this signal mark of
confidence. On one occasion I endeavoured, after
one of these conversations, not for the sake of be-
traying him, but in the interests of a diary which I
keep, to formulate in precise and permanent terms
some of this interesting intelligence. To my in-
tense surprise and disappointment, I found myself
entirely unable to recollect, much less to express, any
of his statements. They had melted in the mind,
like some delicate confection, and left behind them
nothing but a faint aroma of interest and pleasure.
This would be a dangerous example to imitate,
because it requires a very subtle species of art to
select incidents and episodes which should both
gratify the hearers, and which at the same time it
should be impossible to hand on. Most people
who attempted such a task would sink into being
miserable blabbers of tacenda, mere sieves through
which matters of secret importance would granu-
late into the hands of ardent journalists. But at
once to stimulate and gratify curiosity, and to give
a quiet circle the sense of being admitted to the
inmost penetralia of affairs , is a triumph of con-
versational art.
Dr. Johnson used to say that he loved to stretch
his legs and have his talk out ; and the fact re-
mains that the best conversation one gets is the
conversation that one does not scheme for, and
even on occasions from which one has expected
but little. The talks that remain in my mind as
74 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
of pre-eminent interest are long leisurely
tfte talks, oftencst perhaps of all in the course ol
a walk, when exercise sends the blood coursing
through the brain, when a pleasant countryside
tunes the spirit to a serene harmony of mood, and
when the mind, stimulated into a joyful readiness by
association with some quiet, just, and perceptive
companion, visits its dusty warehouse, and turns
over its fantastic stores. Then is the time to pene-
trate into the inmost labyrinths of a subject, to in-
dulge in pleasing discursiveness, as the fancy leads
one, and yet to return again and again with renewed
relish to the central theme. Such talks as these,
with no overshadowing anxiety upon the mind, held
on bree/y uplands or in pleasant country lanes,
make the moments, indeed, to which the mind,
in the sad mood which remembers the days that
are ( j"iie, turns with that sorrowful desolation of
which Dante speaks, as to a treasure lightly spent
and ungratefully regarded. How such hours rise
up In-fore the mind ! Kven now as I write I think
of such a scene, when 1 walked with a friend, long
dead, on the broad vcllow sands beside a western
sea. I can re-call the ^liarp hiss of the shoreward
wind, the wholesome savours ot the brine, the soft
clap ot -mall waves, the sand-dunes behind the shore,
pricket! with L'i'cen tutts ot <jrass, the ships moving
slowlv on the sea's run, and the shadowy headland
to whit h we hardly seemed to draw more near, while
we spoke ot all that was in our hearts, and all that
we meant to do and be. That day was a great gitt
from ( MM! ; and yet, as 1 received it, 1 did not know
how tan a jewel of memory it would be. I like
to think that there are many such jewels of recollec-
CONVERSATION. 75
tion clasped close in the heart's casket, even in the
minds or men and women that I meet, that seem
so commonplace to me, so interesting to them-
selves !
It is strange, in reflecting about the memorable
talks I have held with different people, to find that
I remember best the talks that I have had with
men, rather than with women. There is a kind
of simple openness, an equal comradeship in talks
with men, which I find it difficult to attain in the
case of women. I suppose that some unsuspected
mystery of sex creeps in, and that with women
there is a whole range of experiences and emo-
tions that one does not share, so that there is an
invisible and intangible barrier erected between the
two minds. I feel, too, in talking with women,
that I am met with almost too much sympathy and
tact, so that one falls into an egotistical mood. It is
difficult, too, 1 find, to be as frank in talking with
women as with men ; because I think that women
tend more than men to hold a preconceived idea of
one's character and tastes ; and it is difficult to talk
simply and naturally to any one who has formed
a mental picture of one, especially if one is aware
that it is not correct. But men are slower to form
impressions, and thus talk is more experimental ;
moreover, in talking with men, one encounters
more opposition, and opposition puts one more on
one's mettle.
Thus a tSte-d-tete \vith a man of similar tastes,
who is just and yet sympathetic, critical yet appre-
ciative, whose point of view just differs enough to
make it possible for him to throw sidelights on a
subject, and to illumine aspect? of it that were un-
76 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
perceived and neglected this is a high intellectual
pleasure, a potion to be delicately sipped at leisure.
Hut after all it is impossible to say \vhat makes
a conversationalist. There are people who seem to
possess every qualification for conversing except the
power to converse. The two absolutely essential
things are, in the first place, a certain charm of
mind and even manner, which is a purely instinctive
gift ; and, in the second place, real sympathy with,
real interest in the deuteragonist.
People can be useful talkers, even interesting
talkers, without these gifts. One may like to hear
what a man of vigorous mind may have to say on a
subject that he knows well, even if he is unsym-
pathetic. Hut then one listens in a receptive frame
of mind, as though one were prepared to attend a
lecture. There are plenty of useful talkers at a
t'nivcrsitv, men whom it is a pleasure to meet occa-
sionally, men with whom one tries, so to speak, a
variety ot conversational Hies, and who will give
one line sport when they are lairly hooked. Hut
thoiiL'h a University is a place where one ought to
expect to find abundance ot the best talk, the want
<it leisure among the present generation of Dons
is a serious bar to interesting talk. By the evening
the majority of Dons are apt to be tired. They
have been hard at uork most of the day, and they
look upon the sociable evening hours as a time to
be given up to what the Scotch call " datiing " ;
that is to say, .1 sort ot nimble interchange ot humor-
ous or mte:rxtmg go^-ip ; a man who pursues a
subject intently is apt to be thought a bore. I think
that the mni .ie-a^i-d Don is apt to be less interest-
ing than cither the elderlv or the vouthtul Don
CONVERSATION. 77
The middle-aged Don is, like all successful pro-
fessional men, full to the brim of affairs. He has
little time for general reading. He lectures, he
attends meetings, his table is covered with papers,
and his leisure hours are full of interviews. But
the younger Don is generally less occupied and
more enthusiastic ; and best of all is the elderly
Don, who is beginning to take things more easily,
has a knowledge of men, a philosophy and a good-
humoured tolerance which makes him more acces-
sible. He is not in a hurry, he is not preoccupied.
He studies the daily papers with deliberation, and
he has just enough duties to make him feel whole-
somely busy. His ambitions are things of the past,
and he is gratified by attention and deference.
I suppose the same is the case, in a certain
degree, all the world over. But the truth about con-
versation is that, to make anything of it, people
must realize it as a definite mental occupation, and
not merely a dribbling into words of casual thoughts.
To do it well implies a certain deliberate intention,
a certain unselfishness, a certain zest. The diffi-
culty is that it demands a catholicity of interests, a
full mind. Yet it does not do to have a subject
on the brain, and to introduce it into all companies.
The pity is that conversation is not more recog-
nized as a definite accomplishment. People who
care about the success of social gatherings are apt
to invite an instrumentalist or a singer, or a man
with what may be called parlour tricks ; but few
people are equally careful to plant out two or three
conversationalists among their parties, or to take
care that their conversationalists are provided with
a sympathetic background.
78 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
For the fact remains that conversation is a
real art, and depends like all other arts upon con-
genial circumstances and suitable surroundings.
People are too apt to believe that, because they
have interests in their minds and can nut those in-
terests into words, they are equipped tor the pretty
and delicate game of talk. Hut a rare admixture of
qualities is needed, and a subtle conversational elfcct,
a sudden fancy, that throws a charming or a bizarre
light on a subject, a power of pleasing metaphorical
expression, the communication of an imaginative
interest to a familiar topic all these things are oi
the nature of instinctive ait. I have heard well-
intonncd and sensible people talk of a subject in a
way that made me feel that I desired never to
hear it mentioned ag.iin ; but I have heard, on the
other hand, people talk of matters which I had
believed to be worn threadbare by use, and yet
communicate a rich colour, a fragrant sentiment
to them, which made me ieel that I had never
thought adequately on the topic before. One
should be careful, I think, to express to such per-
sons one's appreciation and admiration of their
gifts, for the art is so rare that we ought to wel-
come it when we find it ; and, like all arts, it
depends to a urcat extent for its sustenance on
the avowed L'ratitude <>i tho>e who enjoy it. It is
on these subtle halt-toned glimpses of personality
and -ice that mo-t of our happv impre.-sions
of hie depend; and no one ean alioid wilfully to
neglect (it innocent lov, or to lose oppor-
tunities of pleasure through a stupid or brutal
contempt for the slender !e.sourccs out of \\luch
these gent !< elfect:-. arc pi > uluced
VI
BEAUTY
I WAS visited, as I sate in my room to-day, by
one of those sudden impressions of rare beauty
that come and go like flashes, and which leave
one desiring a similar experience. The materials
of the impression were simple and familiar enough.
My room looks out into a little court ; there is a
plot of grass, and to the right of it an old stone-
built wall, close against which stands a row of aged
lime-trees. Straight opposite, at right angles to the
wall, is the east side of the Hall, with its big plain
traceried window enlivened with a few heraldic
shields of stained glass. While I was looking out
to-day there came a flying burst of sun, and the
little corner became a sudden feast of delicate colour ;
the fresh green of the grass, the foliage of the lime-
trees, their brown wrinkled stems, the pale moss
on the walls, the bright points of colour in the
emblazonries of the window, made a sudden deli-
cate harmony of tints. I had seen the place a
hundred times before without ever guessing what
a perfect picture it made.
What a strange power the perception of beauty
is ! It seems to ebb and flow like some secret
tide, independent alike of health or disease, of joy
8o FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
or sorrow. There arc times in our lives when
we seem to go sinning on our way, and when the
beauty of the world sets itself like a quiet harmony
to the song we uplift. Then again come seasons
when all is well with us, when we are prosperous
and contented, interested in lite and all its concerns,
when no perception of beauty comes near us ;
when we are tranquil and content, and take no heed
of the delicate visions ot the day ; when music
has no inner voice, and poetry seems a mere cheer-
ful jingling of ordered phrases. Then again we
have a time of gloom and dreariness ; work has
no interest, pleasure no savour ; we go about our
business and our delight alike in a leaden mood of
dulness ; and yet again, when we are surrounded
\vith care and trouble, perhaps in pain or weakness
of body, there Hashes into the darkened life an
exquisite perception of things beautiful and rare ;
the vision of a spring copse with all its tapestry
of flowers, bright points of radiant colour, tills us
with a strange yearning, a delightful pain ; in such
a mood a tew chords ot music, the haunting melody
ot some familiar line of verse, the song of a bird at
dawn, the light of sunset on lonely fields, thrill us
with an inexpressible rapture. 1'erhaps some of
those who read these uorJs will say that it is all
an unreal, a fantastic experience of which I speak.
( )t course there are manv tranquil, wholesome,
equable natures to whom Mich an experience is un-
known ; but it is to me one ot the truest and com-
monest things of my lite to be \ isilcd by this strange
perception and appieciation ot beauty, which gives
the davs in which 1 am conscious ot it a memorable
quality, that seems to make them the momentous
BEAUTY. 81
days of one's life ; and yet again the mood is so
utterly withdrawn at intervals, that the despondent
spirit feels that it can never return ; and then a
new day dawns, and the sense comes back again
to bless me.
If the emotion which I describe followed the
variations of bodily health ; if it came when all
was prosperous and joyful, and was withdrawn
when the light was low ; if it deserted me in seasons
of robust vigour, and came when the bodily vitality
was depressed, I could refer it to some physical
basis. But it contradicts all material laws, and
seems to come and go with a whimsical determina-
tion of its own. When it is with me, nothing can
banish it ; it pulls insistently at my elbow ; it
diverts my attention in the midst of the gravest
business ; and, on the other hand, no extremity of
sorrow or gloom can suspend it. I have stood
beside the grave of one I loved, with the shadow
of urgent business, of hard detailed arrangements
of a practical kind, hanging over me, with the light
gone out of life, and the prospect unutterably
dreary ; and yet the strange spirit has been with
me, so that a strain of music should have power to
affect me to tears, and the delicate petals of the
very funeral wreaths should draw me into a rap-
turous contemplation of their fresh curves, their
lovely intricacy, their penetrating fragrance. In
such a moment one could find it in one's heart to
believe that some ethereal soulless creature, like
Ariel of the " Tempest," was floating at one's side,
directing one's attention, like a petulant child, to
the things that touched its light-hearted fancy, and
constraining one into an unsought enjoyment.
82 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
Neither does it seem to be an intellectual pro-
cess ; because it comes in the same self-willed way,
alike when one's mind is deeply engrossed in con-
genial work, as well as when one is busy and dis-
tracted ; one raises one's head for an instant, and
the sunlight on a flowing water or on an ancient
wall, the sound of the wind among trees, the calling
of birds, take one captive with the mysterious spell ;
or on another day when I am working, under ap-
parently the same conditions, the sun may fall
golden on the old garden, the dove may murmur
in the high elm, the daffodils may hang their sweet
heads among the meadow-grass, and yet the scene
may be dark to me and silent, with no charm and
no significance.
It all seems to enact itself in a separate region
of the spirit, neither in the physical nor in the
mental region. It may come for a few moments
in a day, and then it may depart in an instant.
I was taking a week ago \\hat, for the sake of the
associations, I call my holiday. I walked with a
cheerful companion amon^ spring woods, lying
nestled in the folds and dingles of the Sussex hills ;
the sky was full of flying gleams ; the distant ridges,
clothed in wood, lay blue and remote in the warm
air ; but I caret! for none of these things. Then,
when we stood for a moment in a place where I
have stood a hundred times before, where a full
stream spills itselt over a pair of broken lock-gates
into a deserted lock, \\here the stonecrop grows
among the masonry, ami tin- aiders root themselves
among the mouKlci ni-j brickwork, the mood came
upon me, and 1 felt lil.c a thirsty soul that has
found a bubbling spring coming out cool from its
BEAUTY. 83
hidden caverns on the hot hillside. The sight, the
sound, fed and satisfied my spirit ; and yet I had
not known that I had needed anything.
That it is, I will not say, a wholly capricious
thing, but a thing that depends upon a certain
harmony of mood, is best proved by the fact that
the same poem or piece of music which can at one
time evoke the sensation most intensely, will at
another time fail to convey the slightest hint of
charm, so that one can even wonder in a dreary
way what it could be that one had ever admired
and loved. But it is this very evanescent quality
which gives me a certain sense of security. If one
reads the lives of people with strong aesthetic per-
ceptions, such as Rossetti, Pater, J. A. Symonds,
one feels that these natures ran a certain risk of
being absorbed in delicate perception. One feels
that a sensation of beauty was to them so rap-
turous a thing that they ran the risk of making the
pursuit of such sensations the one object and busi-
ness of their existence ; of sweeping the w r aters of
life with busy nets, in the hope of entangling some
creature " of bright hue and sharp fin " ; of con-
sidering the days and hours that were unvisited
by such perceptions barren and drears 7 . This is,
I cannot help feeling, a dangerous business ; it is
to make of the soul nothing but a delicate instru-
ment for registering aesthetic perceptions ; and the
result is a loss of balance and proportion, an excess
of sentiment. The peril is that, as life goes on, and
as the perceptive faculty gets blunted and jaded, a
mood of pessimism creeps over the mind.
From this I am personally saved by the fact
that the sense of beauty is, as I have said, so whim-
84 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
sical in its movements. I should never think of
setting out deliberately to capture these sensations,
because it would be so futile a task. No kind of
occupation, however prosaic, however absorbing,
seems to be either favourable to this perception, or
the reverse. It is not even like bodily health,
which has its variations, but is on the whole likely
to result from a certain defined regime of diet, exer-
cise, and habits ; and what would still more preserve
me from making a deliberate attempt to capture it
would be that it comes perhaps most poignantly
and insistently of all when I am uneasy, overstrained,
and melancholy. No ! the only thing to do is to
live one's lite without reference to it, to be thankful
when it comes, and to be contented when it is with-
drawn.
1 sometimes think that a great deal of stufT is
both written and talked about the beauties of nature.
By this 1 do not mean for a moment that nature
is less beautiful than is supposed, but that many of
the rapturous expressions one hears and sees used
about the enjoyment ot nature are very insincere ;
though it is equally true on the other hand that a
great deal of genuine admiration of natural beauty
is not expressed, perhaps hardly consciously felt.
To have a true and deep appreciation of nature
dcmaiuU a certain poetical force, which is rare ;
and a threat many people who have a considerable
power ot expression, but little originality, feel
bound to expend a portion of this upon expressing
an ailn.ir.ition for nature uhich they do not so
much actually feel as think themselves hound to
feel, because they believe that people in general
expect it ot them.
BEAUTY. 85
But on the other hand there is, I am sure, in
the hearts of many quiet people a real love for
and delight in the beauty of the kindly earth, the
silent and exquisite changes, the influx and efflux
of life, which we call the seasons, the rich trans-
figuring influences of sunrise and sunset, the slow
or swift lapse of clear streams, the march and plunge
of sea-billows, the bewildering beauty and aromatic
scents of those delicate toys of God which we call
flowers, the large air and the sun, the star-strewn
spaces of the night.
Those who are fortunate enough to spend their
lives in the quiet country-side have much of this
tranquil and unuttered love of nature ; and others
again, who are condemned by circumstances to
spend their days in toilsome towns, and yet have
the instinct, derived perhaps from long generations
of country forefathers, feel this beauty, in the short
weeks when they are enabled to approach it, more
poignantly still.
FitzGerald tells a story of how he went to see
Thomas Carlyle in London, and sate with him in a
room at the top of his house, with a wide prospect
of house-backs and chimney-pots ; and how the
sage reviled and vituperated the horrors of city life,
and yet left on FitzGerald's mind the impression
that perhaps after all he did not really wish to leave it.
The fact remains, however, that a love of nature
is part of the panoply of cultivation which at the
present time people above a certain social standing
feel bound to assume. Very few ordinary persons
would care to avow that they took no interest in
national politics, in games and sport, in literature,
in appreciation of nature, or in religion. As a
86 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
matter of fact the vital interest that is taken in
these subjects, except perhaps in games and sport,
is far below the interest that is expressed in them.
A person who said frankly that he thought that
any of these subjects were uninteresting, tiresome
or absurd, would be thought stupid or affected,
even brutal. Probably most of the people who
express a deep concern for these things believe
that they are giving utterance to a sincere feel-
ing ; but not to expatiate on the emotions which
they mistake for the real emotion in the other de-
partments, there are probably a good many people
who mistake for a love of nature the pleasure of
fresh air, physical movement, and change of scene.
Many worthy golfers, for instance, who do not know
that they are speaking insincerely, attribute, in con-
versation, the pleasure they feel in pursuing their
game to the agreeable surroundings in which it is
pursued ; but my secret belief is that they pay
more attention to the lie of the little white ball,
and the character of bunkers, than to the pageantry
of sea and sky.
As with all other refined pleasures, there is
no doubt that the pleasure derived from the ob-
servation of nature can be, if not acquired, im-
rnen>ely increased by pi act ice. I am not now
speaking of the pursuit of natural history but the
pursuit of natural emotion. The thing to aim at,
as is the ease with all aitistic pleasures, is the per-
ception of quality, of small etiects. Many of the
people who believe themselves to have an appre-
ciation ot natural scenery cannot appreciate it ex-
cept on a sensational scale. They can derive a
certain pleasure from wui prospects of startling
BEAUTY. 87
beauty, rugged mountains, steep gorges, great falls
of water all the things that are supposed to be
picturesque. But though this is all very well as
far as it goes, it is a very elementary kind of thing.
The perception of which I speak is a perception
which can be fed in the most familiar scene, in the
shortest stroll, even in a momentary glance from a
window. The things to look out for are little
accidents of light and colour, little effects of chance
grouping, the transfiguration of some well-known
and even commonplace object, such as is produced
by the sudden burst into greenness of the trees
that peep over some suburban garden wall, or by
the sunlight falling, by a happy fortune, on pool
or flower. Much of course depends upon the inner
mood ; there are days when it seems impossible to
be thrilled by anything, when a perverse dreariness
holds the mind ; and then all of a sudden the
gentle and wistful mood flows back, and the world
is full of beauty to the brim.
Here, if anywhere, in this town of ancient col-
leges, is abundant material of beauty for eye and
mind. It is not, it is true, the simple beauty of
nature ; but nature has been invoked to sanctify
and mellow art. These stately stone-fronted build-
ings have weathered like crags and precipices. They
rise out of dark ancient embowered gardens. They
are like bright birds of the forest dwelling content-
edly in gilded cages. These great palaces of learn-
ing, beautiful when seen in the setting of sunny
gardens, and with even a sterner dignity when
planted, like a fortress of quiet, close to the very
dust and din of the street, hold many treasures of
statelv loveliness and fair association ; this city of
88 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
palaces, thick-set with spires and towers, as rich
and dim as Camclot, is invested with a romance
that few cities can equal ; and then the waterside
pleasaunces with their trim alleys, their air of
ancient security and wealthy seclusion, have an
incomparable charm ; day by day, as one hurries or
saunters through the streets, the charm strikes across
the mind with an incredible force, a newness of
impression which is the test of the highest beauty.
Vet these auain are beauties of a sensational order
which beat insistently upon the dullest mind. The
true connoisseur of natural beauty acquiesces in,
nay prefers, an economy, an austerity of effect. The
curve of a wood seen a hundred times before, the
gentle line of a fallow, a little pool among the pas-
tures, fringed with rushes, the long blue line of the
distant downs, the cloud-perspective, the still sunset
L'low these will give him ever new delights, and
delights that grow with observation and intuition.
1 have spoken hitherto ot nature as she appears
to the unruffled, the perceptive mind ; but let us
further consider what relation nature can bear to
rhe burdened heart and the overshadowed mood.
Is there indeed a vis nu'diciitrix in nature which can
heal our grief and console our anxieties ? The
country for a wounded heart " says the old proverb.
Is that indeed true ? 1 am here inclined to part
companv uith \vise men and poets who have spoken
and sun'.: ot the consoling power ot nature. I
think it is not so. It is true that anything which
\\e love very dceplv lias a certain power ot dis-
tracting the n.ind. hint 1 tliink there is no greater
at'ony than to be confronted \sitli tranquil pas-
>ionate beauty, when the heart and spirit are out
BEAUTY. 89
of tune with it. In the days of one's joy, nature
laughs with us ; in the days of vague and fantastic
melancholy, there is an air of wistfulness, of mys-
tery, that ministers to our luxurious sadness. But
when one bears about the heavy burden of a harass-
ing anxiety of sorrow, then the smile on the face
of nature has something poisonous, almost madden-
ing about it. It breeds an emotion that is like the
rage of Othello when he looks upon the face of
Desdemona, and believes her false. Nature has no
sympathy, no pity. She has her work to do, and
the swift and bright process goes on ; she casts her
failures aside with merciless glee ; she seems to say
to men oppressed by sorrow and sickness, " This is
no world for you ; rejoice and make merry, or I
have no need of you." In a far-off way, indeed, the
gentle beauty of nature may help a sad heart, by
seeming to assure one that the mind of God is set
upon what is fair and sweet ; but neither God nor
nature seems to have any direct message to the
stricken heart.
" Not till the fire is dying in the grate
Look we for any kinship with the stars,"
says a subtle poet ; and such comfort as nature
can give is not the direct comfort of sympathy
and tenderness, but only the comfort that can be
resolutely distilled from the contemplation of nature
by man's indomitable spirit. For nature tends to
replace rather than to heal ; and the sadness of
life consists for most of us in the irreplaceaMeness
of the things we love and lose. The lesson is a
hard one, that ' Nature tolerates, she does not
need." Let us only be sure that it is a true one,
90 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
for nothing but the truth can give us ultimate re-
pose. To the youthful spirit it is different, for all
that the young and ardent need is that, if the old
fails them, some new delight should be substituted.
They but desire that the truth should be hidden
from their gaze ; as in the childish stories, when
the hero and heroine have been safely piloted
through danger and brought into prosperity, the
door is closed with a snap. ' They lived happily
ever afterwards." But the older spirit knows that
the " ever " must be deleted, makes question of the
" afterwards," and looks through to the old age
of bereavement and sorrow, when the two must
again be parted.
But I would have every one who cares to estab-
lish a wise economy of life and joy, cultivate, by all
means in his power, a sympathy with and a delight
in nature. We tend, in this age of ours, when
communication is so easy and rapid, when the daily
paper brings the whole course of the world into our
secluded libraries, to be too busy, too much pre-
occupied ; to value excitement above tranquillity,
and interest above peace. It is good for us all to
be much alone, not to tly from society, but resolutely
to determine that we will not be dependent upon it
for our comfort. I would have all busy people
make times in their lives when, at the cost of some
amusement, and payintj the price perhaps of a little
melancholy, thcv should try to be alone with nature
and their own hearts. They should try to realize
the quiet unwearying life that manifests itself in
field and wood. They should wander alone in soli-
tary places, where the ha/el-hidden stream makes
music, and the bird sings out of the heart of the
BEAUTY. 91
forest ; in meadows where the flowers grow brightly,
or through the copse, purple with bluebells or
starred with anemones ; or they may climb the
crisp turf of the down, and see the wonderful world
lie spread out beneath their feet, with some cluster-
ing town " smouldering and glittering " in the dis-
tance ; or lie upon the cliff-top, with the fields of
waving wheat behind, and the sea spread out like
a wrinkled marble floor in front ; or walk on the
sand beside the falling waves. Perhaps a soi-
disant sensible man may see these words and think
that I am a sad sentimentalist. I cannot help it ;
it is what I believe ; nay, I will go further, and say
that a man who does not wish to do these things is
shutting one of the doors of his spirit, a door through
which many sweet and true things come in. " Con-
sider the lilies of the field " said long ago One
whom we profess to follow as our Guide and Master.
And a quiet receptiveness, an openness of eye, a
simple readiness to take in these gentle impressions
is, I believe with all my heart, of the essence of
true wisdom. We have all of us our work to
do in the world ; but we have our lesson to learn
as well. The man with the muck-rake in the old
parable, who raked together the straws and the
dust of the street, was faithful enough if he was
set to do that lowly work ; but had he only cared
to look up, had he only had a moment's leisure, he
would have seen that the celestial crown hung close
above his head, and within reach of his forgetful
hand.
There is a well-known passage in a brilliant
modern satire, where a trenchant satirist declares
that he has tracked all human emotions to their
92 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
lair, and has discovered that they all consist of
some dilution of primal and degrading instincts.
But the pure and passionless love of natural beauty
can have nothing that is acquisitive or reproductive
about it. There is no physical instinct to which
it can be referred ; it arouses no sense of proprie-
torship ; it cannot be connected with any impulse
for self-preservation. If it were merely aroused by
tranquil, comfortable amenities of scene, it might
be referable to the general sense of well-being, and
of contented life under pleasant conditions. But it
is aroused just as strongly bv prospects that are
inimical to life and comfort, lashing storms, inac-
cessible peaks, desolate moors, wild sunsets, foam-
ing seas. It is a sense of wonder, of mystery ; it
arouses a strange and yearning desire for we know
not what ; very often a rich melancholy attends it,
which is yet not painful or sorrowful, but heightens
and intensifies the significance, the value of life. I
do not know how to interpret it, but it seems to me
to be a call from without, a beckoning of some
large and loving power to the soul. The primal
instincts of which 1 have spoken all tend to con-
centrate the mind upon itself, to strengthen it tor
a selfish part ; but the beauty of nature seems to be
a call to the spirit to come forth, like the voice
which summoned La/arus from the rock-hewn
sepulchre. It bids us to believe that our small
identities, our limited desires, do not say the last
word for us, but that there is something larger
and stronger outside, in which we may claim a
share. As I write thoe vvonls 1 look out upon a
strairje tran^lr/uration of a familiar scene. The sky
is full of hl.icl. and mkv eloiuls, but from the low
BEAUTY. 93
setting sun there pours an intense pale radiance,
which lights up house-roofs, trees, and fields, with a
white light ; a flight of pigeons, wheeling high in the
air, become brilliant specks of moving light upon
a background of dark rolling vapour. What is the
meaning of the intense and rapturous thrill that
this sends through me ? It is no selfish delight, no
personal profit that it gives me. It promises me
nothing, it sends me nothing but a deep and mys-
terious satisfaction, which seems to make light of
my sullen and petty moods.
I was reading the other day, in a strange book,
of the influence of magic upon the spirit, the vague
dreams of the deeper mind that could be awak-
ened by the contemplation of symbols. It seemed
to me to be unreal and fantastic, a manufacturing of
secrets, a playing of whimsical tricks with the mind ;
and yet I ought not to say that, because it was evi-
dently written in good faith. But I have since re-
flected that it is true in a sense of all those who
are sensitive to the influences of the spirit. Nature
has a magic for many of us that is to say, a secret
power that strikes across our lives at intervals, with
a message from an unknown region. And this
message is aroused too by symbols ; a tree, a flash
of light on lonely clouds, a flower, a stream-
simple things that we have seen a thousand times
have sometimes the power to cast a spell over
our spirit, and to bring something that is great
and incommunicable near us. This must be called
magic, for it is not a thing which can be explained
by ordinary laws, or dcrmed in precise terms ; but
the spell is there, real, insistent, undeniable ; it
seems to make a bridge for the spirit to pass into
94 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
a far-off, dimly apprehended region ; it ^ives us
a sense of great issues and remote visions ; it leaves
us with a longing which has no mortal fulfilment.
These are of course merely idiosyncrasies of
perception ; but it is a far more difficult task to
attempt to indicate what the perception of beauty
is, and whence the mind derives the unhesitating
canons with which it judges and appraises beauty.
The reason, I believe, why the sense is weaker than
it need be in many people, is that, instead of trust-
ing their own instinct in the matter, they from their
earliest years endeavour to correct their perception
of what is beautiful by the opinions of other people,
and to superimpose on their own taste the taste of
others. I mvself hold strongly that nothing is worth
admiring which is not admired sincerely. Of course
one must not form one's opinions too early, or hold
them arrogantly or self-sufficiently. If one finds a
large number of people admiring or professing to
admire a certain class of objects, a certain species
of scene, one ought to make a resolute effort to see
what it is that appeals to them. But there ought to
come a time, when one has imbibed sufficient ex-
perience, when one should begin to decide and to
distinguish, and to form one's own taste. And then
I believe it is better to be individual than catholic,
and better to attempt to feed one's own genuine
sense of preference, than to continue attempting to
correct it by the standard of other people.
It remains th;it the whole instinct for admiring
beauty is one ot the most mysterious experiences
of the mind. There are certain things, like thr
curves and colours of flowers, the movements
of young animals, that seem to have a perennial
BEAUTY. 95
attraction for the human spirit. But the enjoy-
ment of natural scenery, at all events of wild and
rugged prospects, seems hardly to have existed
among ancient writers, and to have originated as
late as the eighteenth century. Dr. Johnson spoke
of mountains with disgust, and Gray seems to have
been probably the first man who deliberately culti-
vated a delight in the sight of those " monstrous
creatures of God," as he calls mountains. Till his
time, the emotions that " nodding rocks " and " cas-
cades " gave our forefathers seem mostly to have
been emotions of terror ; but Gray seems to have
had a perception of the true quality of landscape
beauty, as indeed that wonderful, chilly, unsatis-
fied, critical nature seems to have had of almost
everything. His letters are full of beautiful vig-
nettes, and it pleases me to think that he visited
Rydal and thought it beautiful, about the time that
Wordsworth first drew breath.
But the perception of beauty in art, in archi-
tecture, in music, is a far more complicated thing,
for there seem to be no fixed canons here ; what
one needs in art, for instance, is not that things
should be perfectly seen and accurately presented ;
a picture of hard fidelity is often entirely displeas-
ing ; but one craves for a certain sense of person-
ality, of emotion, of inner truth ; something that
seizes tyrannously upon the soul, and makes one
desire more of the intangible and indescribable
essence.
I always feel that the instinct for beauty is
perhaps the surest indication of some essence of
immortality in the soul ; and indeed there are
moments when it gives one the sense of pre-
96 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
existence, the feeling that one has loved these fair
things in a region that is further back even than
the beginnings of consciousness. Blake, indeed,
in one of his wild halt-inspired utterances, went
even further, and announced that a man's hopes of
immortality depended not upon virtuous conduct
but upon intellectual perception. And it is hard to
resist the belief, when one is brought into the pres-
ence of perfect beauty, in whatever form it may
come, that the deep craving it arouses is meant to
receive a satisfaction more deep and real than the
act of mere contemplation can give. I have felt in
such moments as if I were on the verge of grasping
some momentous secret, as if only the thinnest of
veils hung between me and some knowledge that
would set my whole lite and being on a different
plane. But the moment passes, and the secret
delays. Yet we are n<j;lit to regard such emotions
as direct messages from (lod; because they bring
with them no desire of possession, which is the
sign of mortality, but ratlin the divine desire to be
possessed by them ; that the reality, whatever it
be, of which beauty is the symbol, may enter in
and enthral the soul. It remains a mystery, like all
the best things to which we draw near. And the
joy of all mysteries is the certainty which comes
from their contemplation, that there are many doors
yet for the soul to open on her upward and inward
way : that we are at the threshold and not near the
goal; and then, like the :'low of sunset, rises the
hope that the i:rave, tar trom being the gate of
death, mav be indeed the vale of life.
VT1
ART
I OFTEN wish that we had a more beautiful
word than " art " for so beautiful a thing ; it
is in itself a snappish explosive word, like the cry
of an angry animal ; and it has, too, to bear the
sad burden of its own misuse by affected people.
Moreover, it stands for so many things, that one
is never quite sure what the people who use it in-
tend it to mean ; some people use it in an abstract,
some in a concrete sense ; and it is unfortunate,
too, in bearing, in certain usages, a nuance of un-
reality and scheming.
What I mean by art, in its deepest and truest
sense, is a certain perceptiveness, a power of see-
ing what is characteristic, coupled as a rule, in the
artistic temperament, with a certain power of
expression, an imaginative gift which can raise
a large fabric out of slender resources, building a
palace, like the Genie in the story of Aladdin, in
a single night.
The artistic temperament is commoner, I think,
than is supposed. Most people find it difficult to
believe in the existence of it, unless it is accom-
panied by certain fragile signs of its existence, such
as water-colour drawing, or a tendency to strum
4
98 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
on a piano. But, as a matter of fact, the posses-
sion of an artistic temperament, without the power
of expression, is one of the commonest causes of
unhappiness in the world. Who does not know
those ill-regulated, fastidious people, who have a
strong sense of their own significance and position,
a sense which is not justified by any particular
performance, who are contemptuous of others,
critical, hard to satisfy, who have a general sense
of disappointment and dreariness, a craving for
recognition, and a feeling that they are not appre-
ciated at their true worth ? To such people, sen-
sitive, ineffective, proud, every circumstance of life
gives food for discontent. They have vague percep-
tions which they cannot translate into words or
symbols. They find their work humdrum and un-
exciting, their relations with others tiresome ; they
think that under different circumstances and in
other surroundings they might have played a braver
part ; they never realize that the root of their un-
happiness lies in themselves ; and, perhaps, it is
merciful that they do not, for the fact that they
can accumulate blame upon the conditions imposed
on them by fate is the only thing that saves them
from irreclaimable depression.
Sometimes, again, the temperament exists with
a certain power of expression, but without sufficient
perseverance or hard technical merit to produce
artistic successes ; and thus we get the amateur.
Sometimes it is the other way, and the technical
power of production is developed beyond the inner
pcrceptivcness ; and this produces a species of dull
soulless art, and the rule ot the professional artist.
Verv rarclv one sees the outward and the inward
ART. 99
power perfectly combined, but then we get the
humble, hopeful artist who lives for and in his
work ; he is humble because he cannot reach the
perfection for which he strives ; he is hopeful
because he gets nearer to it day by day. But,
speaking generally, the temperament is not one that
brings steady happiness ; it brings with it moments
of rapture, when some bright dream is being real-
ized ; but it brings with it also moments of deep
depression, when dreams are silent, and the weary
brain fears that the light is quenched. There
are, indeed, instances of the equable disposition
being found in connection with the artistic temper ;
such were Reynolds, Handel, Wordsworth. But
the annals of art are crowded with the figures of
those who have had to bear the doom of art, and
have been denied the tranquil spirit.
But besides all these, there are artistic tempera-
ments which do not express themselves in any of
the recognized mediums of art, but which apply
their powers direct to life itself. I do not mean
successful, professional people, who win their tri-
umphs by a happy sanity and directness of view, to
whom labour is congenial and success enjoyable ;
but I mean those who have a fine perception of
quality in innumerable forms ; who are interested
in the salient points of others, who delight to enter
into appropriate relations with those they meet, to
whom life itself, its joys and sorrows, its gifts and
its losses, has a certain romantic, beautiful, mys-
terious savour. Such people have a strong sense
of the significance of their relations with others,
they enjoy dealing with characters, with problems,
with situations. Having both interest and sym-
ioo FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
pathy, they net the best out of other people ; they
pierce through the conventional fence that so manv
of us erect as a protection against intrusion. Such
people bring the same perception to bear on tech-
nical art. They enjov books, art, music, without
any envious desire to province ; they can enjoy the
noble pleasure of admiring and praising. Again and
again, in reading the lives of artists, one comes across
traces of these wise and generous spirits, who have
loved the society of artists, have understood them,
and whose admiration has never been clouded by
the least shadow of that jealousy which is the curse
of most artistic natures. People without artistic
sensibilities find the society of artists trying ; be-
cause they see only their irritability, their vanity,
their egotism, and cannot sympathize with the
visions by which they are haunted. But those who
can understand without jealousy, pass by the exact-
ing vagaries of the artist \\ith a gentle and tender
compassion, and evoke what is sincere and generous
and lovable, without am conscious elTort.
It is not, 1 think, often enough realized that the
ba.sis of the succc.^tul artistic temperament is a
certain hardness combined with great superficial
sensitiveness. Those who see the artistic nature
suittly and emotionalK aliected by a beautiful or
a pathetic thing, wh see Hi it a th.Mnjht, a line of
poetrv, a bar of music, a sketch, will c\okc a thrill
of feeling to \shich thev cannot themselves aspire,
are apt to think that -.uch a spirit is necessarily tar
and tender, and that it possesses unfathomable re-
serve- ' nob). 'i hi is otten a i;reat mis-
take ; tar belov. the ; rent of chan:j'f": and
glittering emotion there otten lies, in the artistic
ART. 101
nature, a reserve, not of tenderness or depth, but of
cold and critical calm. There are very few people
who are highly developed in one faculty who do not
pay for it in some other part of their natures. Below
the emotion itself there sits enthroned a hard intel-
lectual force, a power of appraising quality, a Rhada-
manthine judgment. It is this hardness which has
so often made artists such excellent men of business,
so alert to strike favourable bargains. In those
artists whose medium is words this hardness is not
so often detected as it is in the case of other artists,
for they have the power of rhetoric, the power of
luxuriously heightening impressions, indeed of
imaginatively simulating a force which is in reality
of a superficial nature. One of the greatest powers
of great artists is that of hinting at an emotion which
they have very possibly never intimately gauged.
I have sometimes thought that this is in all prob-
ability the reason why women, with all their power
of swift impression, of subtle intuition, have so sel-
dom achieved the highest stations in art. It is, I
think, because they seldom or never have that calm,
strong egotism at the base of their natures, which
men so constantly have, and which indeed seems
almost a condition of attaining the highest success in
art. The male artist can believe whole-heartedly
and with entire absorption in the value of \vhat he
is doing, can realize it as the one end of his being,
the object for which his life was given him. He can
believe that all experience, all relations with others,
all emotions, are and must be subservient to this one
aim ; they can deepen for him the channels in which
his art flows ; they can reveal and illustrate to him
the significance of the world of which he is the in-
102 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
terprcter. Such an aspiration can be a very high
and holy thing ; it can lead a man to live purely and
laboriously, to make sacrifices, to endure hardness.
But the altar on which the sacrifice is made, stands,
\vhcn all is said and done, before the idol of self.
But with women it is ditferent. The deepest quality
in their hearts is, one may gratefully say, an in-
tense devotion to others, an unselfishness which is
unconscious of itself ; and thus their aim is to help,
to encourage, to sympathize ; and their artistic gitts
are subordinated to a deeper purpose, the desire of
giving and serving. One with such a passion in the
heart is incapable of believing art to be the deepest
thing in the world ; it is to such an one more like
the lily which floats upwards, to bloom on the sur-
face of some dim pool, a thing exquisitely fair and
symbolical of mysteries ; but all growing out of the
depths of life, and not a thing which is deeper and
truer than life.
It is useless to try to dive deeper than the secrets
of personality and temperament. One must merely
be grateful for the beauty which springs from them.
We must reflect that the hard, vigorous, hammered
qualitv, which is characteristic of the best art, can
only be produced, in a mood ot blind and unquestion-
ing faith, by a temperament which believes that such
production is its highest end. But one who stands
a little apart from the artistic world, and yet ardently
loves it, can see that, be.uitiful as is the dream of
the artist, true and pure a^ hi> aspiration is, there is
yet a d'-eper mystery ot life still, of which art is
nothing but a symbol and an evidence. Perhaps
that very belief ma\ \ \' ; If \\eaken a man's possi-
bilities in nt. But, tor m\<e!f', I know that I regard
ART. 103
the absorption in art as a terrible and strong temp-
tation for one whose chief pleasure lies in the delight
of expression, and who seems, in the zest of shaping
a melodious sentence to express as perfectly and
lucidly as possible the shape of the thought within,
to touch the highest joy of which the spirit is capable.
A thought, a scene of beauty comes home with an
irresistible sense of pow r er and meaning to the mind
or eye ; for God to have devised the pale liquid
green of the enamelled evening sky, to have set the
dark forms of trees against it, and to have hung a
star in the thickening gloom to have done this, and
to see that it is good, seems, in certain moods, to be
the dearest work of the Divine mind ; and the de-
sire to express it, to speak simply of the sight, and
of the joy that it arouses, comes upon the mind with
a sweet agony, an irresistible spell ; life would seem
to have been well spent if one had only caught a
few such imperishable ecstasies, and written them
down in a record that might convey the same joy to
others. But behind this rises the deeper conviction
that this is not the end ; that there are deeper and
sweeter secrets in the heavenly treasure-house ; and
then comes in the shadow of a fear that, in yielding
thus delightedly to these imperative joys, one is
blinding the inner eye to the perception of the
remoter and more divine truth. And then at last
comes the conviction, in which it is possible alike
to rest and to labour, that it is right to devote one's
time and energy to presenting these rich emotions
as perfectly as they can be presented, so long as
one keeps open the further avenues of the soul, and
believes that art is but one of the antechambers
through which one must take one's faithful way,
104 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
before the doors of the Presence itself can be flung
wide.
But \vhether one be of the happy number or
not who have the haunting instinct for some special
form of expression, one may learn at all events to
deal with lite in an artistic spirit. I do not at all
mean by that that one should learn to overvalue the
artistic side of lite, to hold personal emotion to be
a finer thing than m; Itish usefulness. I mean
rather that one should aim at the perception of
qualitv, the quality of actions, the quality of thoughts,
the quality of character ; that one should not be
misled by public opinion, that one should not con-
sider the value of a man's thoughts to be affected
by his social position ; but that one should look
out for and appreciate sense, vigour, faithfulness,
kindness, rectitude, and <\ i-Mnality, in ho\\ever
humble a sphere these qualities may be displayed.
That one should tight hard against conventionality,
that one should welcome beauty, both the beauty
of natural things, as \\ell as the beauty displayed
in sincere and simple- live- in every rank of life.
I have heard conventional p; i!e>sional people, who
thought they were giving utterance to manly and
independent sentiments, speak slightingly of dukes
and duchesses, as it the possession of high rank
nece^arilv forfeited all claims to simplicity and
true-heartedness. Sueli an attitude is as inartistic
and offensive as tor a duchess to think that fine
courier and con -; lei ation could not be found
among washerwomen. The truth is that beauty
of char.u ter i> ju ' n and just as un-
common ai;i"i-' people ol high rank as it is among
bagmen ; and the only just attitude to adopt is
ART. 105
to approach all persons simply and directly on the
grounds of our common humanity. One who does
this will find simplicity, tenderness, and rectitude
among persons of high rank ; he will also find
conventionality, meanness, and complacency among
them ; when he is brought into contact with bag-
men, he will find bagmen of sincerity, directness,
and delicacy, while he will also find pompous, com-
placent, and conventional bagmen.
Of course the special circumstances of any life
tend to develop certain innate faults of character
into prominence ; but it may safely be said that
circumstances never develop a fault that is not
naturally there ; and, not to travel far for in-
stances, I will only say that one of the most un-
affected and humble-minded persons I have ever
met was a duke, while one of the proudest and
most affected Pharisees I ever encountered was a
servant. It all depends upon a consciousness of
values, a sense of proportion ; the only way in
which wealth and poverty, rank and insignificance,
can aiTect a life, is in a certain degree of personal
comfort ; and it is one of the most elementary
lessons that one can learn, that it is not either
wealth or poverty that can confer even comfort,
but the sound constitution and the contented mind.
What I would here plead is that the artistic
sense, of which I have spoken, should be deliber-
ately and consciously cultivated. It is not an easy
thing to get rid of conventionality, if one has been
brought up on conventional lines ; but I know by
personal experience that the mere desire for sim-
plicity and sincerity can effect something.
All persons engaged in education, whether for-
io6 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
mally or informally, whether as professed teachers
or parents, ought to regard it as a sacred duty to
cultivate this sense among the objects of their care.
They ought to demand that all people, whether
high or low, should be met with the same simple
courtesy and consideration ; they ought to train
children both to speak their mind, and also to pay
respect to the opinion of others ; they ought not
to insist upon obedience, without giving the reasons
why it is desirable and necessary ; they ought reso-
lutely to avoid malicious gossip, but not the inter-
ested discussion of other personalities ; they ought
to follow, and to give, direct and simple motives
for action, and to learn, if they do not know it,
that it is from this simple and quiet independence
of mind that the best blessings, the best happinesses
come ; above all, they ought to practise a real and
perceptive sympathy, to allow for differences of
character and taste, not to try so much to form
children on the model of their own characters, as
to encourage them to develop on their own lines.
To do this completely needs wisdom, tact, and
justice ; but nothing can excuse us from attempt-
ing it.
The reason why life is so often made into a
dull and dreary business for ourselves and others,
is that we accept some conventional standard of
duty anil rectitude, ami heavily enforce it ; we
neglect the interest, the /.est, the beauty of life.
In my own career as an educator, 1 can truthfully
say that when I arrived at some of the perceptions
enunciated above, it made an immense difference
to me. I saw that it \\as a mistake to coerce, to
correct, to enforce ; of course such things have to
ART 107
be done occasionally with wilful and perverse
natures ; but I realized, after 1 had gained
some practice in dealing with boys, that generous
and simple praise, outspoken encouragement,
admiration, directness, could win victories that
no amount of strictness or repression could win.
I began to see that enthusiasm and interest were
the contagious things, and that it was possible
to sympathize genuinely with tastes which one did
not share. Of course there w r ere plenty of failures
on my own part, failures of irritability, stupidity,
and indolence ; but 1 soon realized that these w r ere
failures ; and, after all, in education it matters
more which way one's face is set than how fast
one proceeds !
I seem, perhaps, to have strayed into the edu-
cational point of view ; but it is only an instance
of how the artistic method may be applied in a
region which is believed by many to be remote
from the region of art. The principle, after all, is a
very clear one ; it is that life can be made with a
little effort into a beautiful thing ; that the real
ugliness of life consists not in its conditions, not
in good or bad fortune, not in joy or sorrow, not
in health or illness, but upon the perceptive atti-
tude of mind which we can apply to all experi-
ences. Everything that comes from the hand of
God has the quality of which I am speaking ; our
business is to try to disentangle it from the pre-
judices, the false judgments, the severities, the
heavinesses, with which human nature tends to
overlay it. Imagine a man oppressed by all the
ills which humanity can suffer, by shame and
disease and failure. Can it be denied, in the
loS FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
presence of the life of Christ, that it is yet possible
to make out of such a situation a noble and a beau-
tiful tiling ? And that is the supreme value of the
example of Christ to the world, that He displayed,
if I may so speak, the instinct which I have de-
scribed in its absolute perfection. lie met all
humanity face to face, with perfect directness,
perfect sympathy, perfect perception. He never
ceased to protest, with shame and indignation,
against the unhappincsscs which men brin^ upon
themselves, by the yielding to lower desires, by
prejudice, by complacency; but He made allow-
ance for weakness, and despaired of none ; and in
the presence of those darker and sadder afflictions
of body ami spirit, which it seems that God per-
mits, if He does not authorize, He bore Himself with
di'jnity, patience, and o<nfulence; He proved that
nothing was unbearable, but that the human spirit
can face the worst calamities with an indomitable
simplicity, which adorns it with an imperishable
beauty, and proves it to be indeed divine.
VIII
EGOTISM
1HAD an experience the other day, very dis-
agreeable but most wholesome, which held up
for a moment a mirror to my life and character.
I suppose that, at least once in his life, every one
has known what it is, in some corridor or stair-
way, to see a figure advancing towards him, and
then to discover with a shock of surprise that he
has been advancing to a mirror, and that the stranger
is himself. This happened to me some short while
ago, and I was by no means favourably impressed
by what I saw !
Well, the other day I was conducting an argu-
ment with an irascible man. His temper suddenly
boiled over, and he said several personal things to
me, of which I did not at once recognize the truth ;
but I have since considered the criticisms, and have
decided that they are mainly true, heightened per-
haps by a little tinge of temper.
I am sorry my friend said the things, because it
is difficult to meet, on cordial terms, a man whom
one knows to hold an unfavourable opinion of one-
self. But in one way I am glad he said them,
because I do not think I could in any other manner
have discerned the truth. If a friend had said them
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without anger, he would no doubt have so gilded
the pill that it would have seemed rather a precious
ornament than a hitter remedy.
I will not here say in detail what my friend
accused me of, but it amounted to a charge of
egotism ; and as egotism is a common fault, and
particularly common with lonely and unmarried
men, I will make no excuse for propounding a
few considerations on the point, and how it may
perhaps be cured, or, if not cured, at least modified.
I suppose that the egotist is the man who re-
gards the world as a setting for himself, as opposed
to the man who realizes that he is a small unit in
a gigantic system. The characteristic of the egotist
is to consider himself of too great importance, while
the danger of the non-egotist is not sufficiently to
realize his significance. Kgotism is the natural
temptation of all those \\liose individuality is strong ;
the man of intense desires, of acute perceptions, of
vigorous preferences, of ea-jcr temperament, is in
danger of trying to construct his life too sedulously
on his own lines ; and vet these are the very people
who help other people most, and in whom the hope
of the race- lies. Meek, humble, timid persons, who
accept things as they arc-, uho tread in beaten paths,
who are easily persuaded, uho are cautious, pru-
dent, and submissive, leave things very much as
they find them. I need make no attempt at indi-
cating the line that such people ous^ht to follow,
because it is, unhappily, certain that they will follow
the line of least re>i>tance. and that they have no
more {tower of initialise tl.an the brick^ of a wall
or the waters of a stream. The- following con-
siderations will be addressed to people of a cer-
EGOTISM. in
tain vividness of nature, who have strong impulses,
fervent convictions, vigorous desires. I shall try
to suggest a species of discipline that can be prac-
tised by such persons, a line that they can follow,
in order that they may aim at, and perhaps attain,
a due subordination and co-ordination of themselves
and their temperaments.
To treat of intellectual egotism first, the danger
that besets such people as I have described is a
want of sympathy with other points of view, and
the first thing that such natures must aim at, is the
getting rid of what I will call the sectarian spirit.
We ought to realize that absolute truth is not the
property of any creed or school or nation ; the
whole lesson of history is the lesson of the danger
of affirmation. The great difference between the
modern and the ancient world is the growth of the
scientific spirit, and the meaning and value of evi-
dence. There are many kinds of certainties. There
is the absolute scientific certainty of such proposi-
tions as that two and two make four, and cannot
possibly make five. This is of course only the
principle that two and two cannot be said to make
four, out that they are four, and that 2 + 2 and 4
are only different ways of describing the same
phenomenon. Then there come the lesser cer-
tainties, that is to say, the certainties that justify
practical action. A man who is aware that he has
twenty thousand pounds in the hands of trustees,
whose duty it is to pay him the interest, is justified
in spending a certain income ; but he cannot be
said to know at any moment that the capital is
there, because the trustees may have absconded
with the money, and the man may not have been
ii2 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
informed of the fact. The danger of the egotist is
that he is apt to regard as scientific certainties what
are only relative certainties ; and the first step to-
wards the tolerant attitude is to get rid of these
prejudices as far as possible, and to perceive that
the first duty of the philosopher is not to deal in
assumptions, but to reali/e that other people's
regions of what may be called practical certainties
that is to say, the assurances which justify prac-
tical action may be both smaller or even larger than
his own. The first duty then of the man of vivid
nature is to fight resolutely against the sin of im-
patience, lie must reali/e that some people may
regard as a certainty what is to him a questionable
opinion, and that his business is not the destruc-
tion of the certainties of others, but the defining
the limits of his own. The sympathy that can be
practised intellectually is the resolute attempt to
enter into the position of others. The temptation
to argue with people of convinced views should
be resolutely resisted ; argument only strengthens
and fortifies the com ictions of opponents, and I can
honestly say that I have never yet met a man of
strong intellectual fibre who was ever converted by
argument. Yet I am sure that it is a duty for all
of us to aim at a just appreciation ot various points
of view, and that we on-.;! it to try to understand
others rather than to persuade them.
So far I have been speaking of the intellectual
region, and I would sum it up by saying that 1
think that the duty of everv thoughtful person, who
desires to a\<ul egotism in the intellectual reL'ion,
is to cultivate uh.it may be called the scientific, or
even the sceptical spirit, to ^eigh evidence, and
EGOTISM. 113
not to form conclusions without evidence. Thus
one avoids the dangers of egotism best, because
egotism is the frame of mind of the man who says
credo quia credo. Whereas the aim of the philosopher
should be to take nothing for granted, and to be
ready to give up personal preferences in the light
of truth. In dealing with others in the intellectual
region, the object should be not to convince, but
to get people to state their own views, and to realize
that unless a man converts himself, no one else can ;
the method therefore should be not to attack con-
clusions, but to ask patiently for the evidence upon
which those conclusions are based.
But there is a danger in lingering too long in
the intellectual regions ; the other regions of the
human spirit may be called the aesthetic and the
mystical regions. To take the aesthetic region next,
the duty of the philosopher is to realize at the out-
set that the perception of beauty is essentially an
individual thing, and that the canons of what are
called good taste are of all things the most shifting.
In this region the danger of dogmatism is very great,
because the more that a man indulges the rapturous
perception of the beauty that appeals to himself,
the more likely he is to believe that there is no
beauty outside of his own perceptions. The duty
of a man who wishes to avoid egotism in this region
is to try and recognize faithful conception and firm
execution everywhere ; to realize that half, and
more than half, of the beauty of everything is the
beauty of age, remoteness, and association. There
is no temptation so strong for the aesthetic nature,
as to deride and contemn the beauty of the art
that we have just outgrown. To take a simple case.
u 4 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
The Early Victorian upholsterers derided the still-
ness and austerity of Queen Anne furniture, and
the public genuinely admired the florid and rococo
forms of Early Victorian art. A generation passed,
and Early Victorian art was relentlessly derided,
while the Queen Anne was reinstalled. Now there
are signs of a growing tolerance among connois-
seurs of the Early Victorian taste again. The truth
is that there is no absolute beauty in either ; that
the thing to aim at is progress and development in
art, and that probably the most dangerous and
decadent sign of all is the reverting to the beauty
of a previous age rather than striking out a new
line of our own. The aim then of the man who
would avoid aesthetic egotism should be, not to lay
down canons of what is or what is not good art,
but to try to recognize, as I have said, faithful
conception and firm execution wherever he can
discern it ; and, for himself, to express as vividly
as he can his own keenest and acutcst perceptions
of beauty. The only beauty that is worth anything,
is the beauty perceived in sincerity, and here again
the secret lies in resolutely abstaining from laying
down laws, from judging, from condemning. The
victory always remains \\ith those who admire,
rather than with those \sho deride, and the power
ot appreciating is worth any amount ot the power
of despising.
And now we pass to the third and most in-
tangible region of the spirit, the region that 1 will
call the mystical rei/inn. This is in a sense akin
to the uMhetic rei'iiin, bec.ui^e it partly o>n>i>ts in
the appreciation ol be.nity in ethic.il things. Here
the danger of the vivid personality is to let his
EGOTISM. 115
preferences be his guide, and to contemn certain
types of character, certain qualities, certain modes
of thought, certain points of view. Here again
one's duty is plain. It is the resolute avoidance
of the critical attitude, the attempt to disentangle
the golden thread, the nobility, the purity, the
strength, the intensity, that may underlie char-
acters and views that do not superficially appeal
to oneself. The philosopher need not seek the
society of uncongenial persons : such a practice is
a useless expenditure of time and energy ; but no
one can avoid a certain contact with dissimilar
natures, and the aim of the philosopher must be
to try and do sympathetic justice to them, to seek
earnestly for points of contact, rather than to at-
tempt to emphasize differences. For instance, if
the philosopher is thrown into the society of a man
who can talk nothing but motor jargon or golfing
shop I select the instances of the conversation
that is personally to me the dreariest -he need not
attempt to talk of golf or motors, and he is equally
bound not to discourse of his own chosen intel-
lectual interests ; but he ought to endeavour to
find a common region, in which he can meet the
golfer or the motorist without mutual dreariness.
Perhaps it may be thought that i have drifted
out of the mystical region, but it is not so, for the
relations of human beings with each other appear
to me to belong to this region. The strange affini-
ties and hostilities of temperament, the inexplicable
and undeniable thing called charm, the attraction
and repulsion ot character all this is in the mys-
tical region of the spirit, the region of intuition and
instinct, which is a far stronger, more vital, and
u6 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
more general region than the intellectual or the
artistic. And further, there comes the deepest in-
tuition of all, the relation of the human spirit to its
Maker, its originating cause. Whether this rela-
tion can he a direct one is a matter for each person
to decide from his own experience ; but perhaps
the only two things of which a human being can
be said to be absolutely conscious are his own
identity, and the existence of a controlling Power
outside of him. And here lies the deepest danger
of all, that a man should attempt to limit or define
his conception of the Power that originated him, by
his own preferences. The deepest mystery of all
lies in the conviction, which seems to be inex-
tricably rooted in the human spirit, namely, the
instinct to distinguish between the impulses which
we believe emanate from (iod, and the impulses
which we believe emanate from ourselves. It is
incontestable that the greater part ot the human race
have the instinct that in following beneficent, un-
seltish, noble impulses tin v are following the will
ot their Maker ; but that in yielding to cruel, sen-
sual, low impulses they are acting contrary to the
will ot the C'reator. And this intuition is one which
many ot us do not doubt, though it is a principle
uhich cannot be scientifically proved. Indeed, it
is incontestable that, though we believe the will ot
( iod to be on the side ot v. hat is good, yet lie puts
manv obstacles, or permit^ tlfiu to be put, in the
way of the man who d to act rr.;litlv.
1 lie onlv way, I believe, in tins List region, in
which \\ e e.'.n hope to improve, to uin victories, is
the uav oj a (j-net and sincere -ul >niis>ion. It is
easy to submit to the \\ill ol ( Jod when it sends
EGOTISM. 117
us joy and peace, when it makes us courageous,
high-hearted, and just. The difficulty is to ac-
quiesce when He sends us adversity, ill-health,
suffering ; when I le permits us to sin, or if that
is a faithless phrase, does not grant us strength
to resist. But we must try to be patient, we must
try to interpret the value of suffering, the meaning
of failure, the significance of shame. Perhaps it
may be urged that this too is a temptation of
egotism in another guise, and that we grow thus
to conceive of ourselves as filling too large a space
in the mind of God. But unless we do this, we can
only conceive of ourselves as the victims of God's
inattention or neglect, which is a wholly despairing
thought.
In one sense we must be egotistic, if self-know-
ledge is egotism. We must try to take the measure
of our faculties, and we must try to use them. But
while we must wisely humiliate ourselves before
the majesty of God, the vast and profound scheme
of the Universe, we must at the same time believe
that we have our place and our work ; that God
indeed purposely set us where we find ourselves ;
and among the complicated difficulties of sense, of
temptation, of unhappiness, of failure, we must try
to fix our eyes humbly and faithfully upon the
best, and seek to be worthy of it. We must try
not to be self-sufficient, but to be humble and yet
diligent.
I do not think that we practise this simple
resignation often enough ; it is astonishing how
the act of placing our own will as far as possible
in unison with the Will of God restores our tran-
quillity.
n8 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
It was only a short time ago that I was walking
alone among fields and villages. It was one of
those languid days of early spring, when the frame
and the mind alike seem unstrung and listless.
The orchards were white with flower, and the
hedges were breaking into fresh green. I had just
returned to my work after a brief and delightful
holiday, and was overshadowed with the vague
depression that the resumption of work tends to
bring to anxious minds. 1 entered a little ancient
church that stood open ; it was full of sunlight,
and had been tenderly decked with an abundance
of spring flowers. If I had been glad at heart it
would have seemed a sweet place, full of peace and
beautiful mysteries. But it had no voice, no mes-
sage for me. I was overshadowed too by a sad
anxiety about one whom I loved, who was acting
perversely and unworthily. There came into my
mind a sudden gracious thought to commit myself
to the heart of God, not to disguise my weakness
and anxiety, not to ask that the load should be
lightened, (nit that I might endure His will to the
uttermost.
In a moment came the strength I sought ; no
lightening of the load, but a deeper serenity, a desire
to bear it faithfully. The very fragrance of the
flowers seemed to mingle like a sweet incense with
my vow. The old walls whispered of patience and
hope. I do not know where the peace that then
settled upon me came from, but not, it seemed, out
of the slender resources of my o\\n vexed spirit.
Hut alter all, the wonder is, in this mysterious
world, not that there is so much egotism abroad,
but that there is so little ! Considering the narrow
EGOTISM. 119
space, the little cage of bones and skin, in which
our spirit is confined, like a fluttering bird, it often
astonished me to find how much of how many
people's thoughts is not given to themselves, but
to their work, their friends, their families.
The simplest and most practical cure for egotism,
after all, is resolutely to suppress public manifes-
tations of it ; and it is best to overcome it as a
matter of good manners, rather than as a matter
of religious principle. One does not want people
to be impersonal ; all one desires to feel is that
their interest and sympathy is not, so to speak,
tethered by the leg, and only able to hobble in a
small and trodden circle. One does not want
people to suppress their personality, but to be
ready to compare it with the personalities of others,
rather than to refer other personalities to the stand-
ard of their own ; to be generous and expansive, if
possible, and if that is not possible, or not easy, to
be prepared, at least, to take such deliberate steps
as all can take, in the right direction. We can all
force ourselves to express interest in the tastes and
idiosyncrasies of others, we can ask questions, we
can cultivate relations. The one way in which we
can all of us improve, is to commit ourselves to a
course of action from which we shall be ashamed to
draw back. Many people who would otherwise
drift into self-regarding ways do this when they
marry. They may marry for egotistical reasons ;
but once inside the fence, affection and duty and
the amazing experience of having children of their
own give them the stimulus they need. But even
the most helpless celibate has only to embark upon
relations with others, to find them multiply and
izo FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
increase. After all, egotism has little to do with
the forming or holding ot strong opinions, or even
with the intentness with which we pursue our aims.
The dog is the intentest ot all animals, and throws
himself most eagerly into his pursuits, but he is
also the least egotistical and the most sympathetic
of creatures. Egotism resides more in a kind of
proud isolation, in a species of contempt for the
opinions and aims ot others. It is not, as a rule,
the most successful men who are the most ego-
tistical. The most uncompromising egotist I know
is a would-be literary man, who has the most
pathetic beliel in the interest and significance of
his own very halting performances, a belief which
no amount of rejection or indifference can shake, and
who has hardly a good word for the books of other
writers. I have sometimes thought that it is in his
case a species ot mental disease, because he is an
acute critic of all %vork except his own. Doctors
will indeed tell one that transcendent egotism is
very nearly allied to insanity ; but in ordinary cases
a little common sense ,uul a little courtesy vsill soon
suppress the manifestations of the tendency, if a
man can only reali/e that the forming of decided
opinions is the cheapest luxury in the world, while
a licence to exprc>> them uncompromisingly is one
ot the most expensive. Perhaps the hardest kind of
cgotiMii to cure, is the egoti in that is combined with
a deferential courtesy, and the- power ot displir. ing
a superlicial sympath\, because an egotist of this
type so seldom encounter^ anv checks \\luch \\otild
convince him ot hi. tault. Such people, it they
have natural abiht\, eve '.M'cat success,
because thev pursue their own ambitions with re-
EGOTISM. 121
lentless perseverance, and have the tact to do it
without appearing to interfere with the designs of
others. They bide their time ; they are all con-
sideration and delicacy ; they are never importunate
or tiresome ; if they fail, they accept the failure as
though it were a piece of undeserved good fortune ;
they never have a grievance ; they simply wipe up
the spilt milk, and say no more about it ; baffled
at one point, they go quietly round the corner, and
continue their quest. They never for a moment
really consider any one's interests except their own ;
even their generous impulses are deliberately calcu-
lated for the sake of the artistic effect. Such people
make it hard to believe in disinterested virtue ; yet
they join with the meek in inheriting the earth, and
their prosperity seems the sign of Divine approval.
But apart from the definite steps that the ordi-
nary, moderately interesting, moderately successful
man may take, in the direction of a cure for ego-
tism, the best cure, after all, for all faults, is a
humble desire to be different. That is the most
transforming power in the world ; we may fail a
thousand times, but as long as we are ashamed of
our failure, as long as we do not helplessly acqui-
esce, as long as we do not try to comfort ourselves
for it by a careful parade of our other virtues, we
are in the pilgrim's road. It is a childish fault,
after all. I watched to-day a party of children at
play. One detestable little boy, the clumsiest and
most incapable of the party, spent the whole time
in climbing up a step and jumping from it, while he
entreated all the others to see how far he could
project himself. There was not a child there who
could not have jumped twice as far, but they were
122 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
angelically patient and sympathetic with the odious
little wretch. It seemed to me a sad, small parable
of what we so many of us are engaged all our lives
long in doing. The child had no eyes for and no
thoughts of the rest ; he simply reiterated his ridic-
ulous performance, and claimed admiration. There
came into my mind that exquisite and beautiful ode,
the work too, strange to say, of a transcendent ego-
tist, Coventry Patmore, and the prayer he made :
" Ah, when at last we lie with tranced breath,
Nor vexing Thee in death,
And Thou rememl>erest of what toys
We made our J<>YX (
How weakly understood
Thy great commanded good,
Then, fatherly not l->s
Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay,
Thou'lt leave Thy wrath, and say,
' I will be sorry for th-ir childishness.' '
This is where we may leave our problem ; leave
it, that is to say, if we have faithfully struggled
with it, if we have tried to amend ourselves and
to encourage others ; if we have done all this, and
reached a point beyond which progress seems im-
possible. But we must not fling our problems
and perplexities, as we are apt to do, upon the
knees of God, the very instant they begin to be-
wilder us, as children bring a tangled skein, or a
toy bent crooked, to a nurse. We must not, I
say ; and yet, after all, I ;im not sure that it is
not the best and simplest \say of all !
IX
EDUCATION
1SAID that I was a public-school master for
nearly twenty years ; and now that it is over I
sometimes sit and wonder, rather sadly, I am
afraid, what we were all about.
We were a strictly classical school ; that is to
say, all the boys in the school were practically
specialists in classics, whether they had any apti-
tude for them or not. We shoved and rammed
in a good many other subjects into the tightly
packed budget we called the curriculum. But it
was not a sincere attempt to widen our education,
or to give boys a real chance to work at the things
they cared for ; it was only a compromise with
the supposed claims of the public, in order that
we might try to believe that we taught things \ve
did not really teach. We had an enormous and
elaborate machine ; the boys worked hard, and
the masters were horribly overworked. The whole
thing whizzed, banged, grumbled, and hummed
like a factory ; but very little education was the
result. It used to go to my heart to see a sparkling
stream of bright, keen, lively little boys arrive, half
after half, ready to work, full of interest, ready
to listen breathlessly to anything that struck their
124 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
fancy, ready to ask questions such excellent ma-
terial, I used to think. At the other end used to
depart a slow river of cheerful and conventional
boys, well-dressed, well-mannered, thoroughly nice,
reasonable, sensible, and <j;ood-humoured creatures,
but knowing next to nothing, without intellectual
interests, and, indeed, honestly despising them. I
do not want to exasperate ; and I will frankly con-
fess that there were always a few well-educated
boys among them ; but these were boys of real
ability, with an aptitude for classics. And as pro-
viding a classical education, the system was effective,
though cumbrous ; hampered and congested by the
other subjects, which were well enough taught, but
which had no adequate time given to them, and
intruded upon the classics without having oppor-
tunity to develop themselves. It is a melancholy
picture, but the result certainly was that intellectual
cynicism was the note of the place.
The pity of it is that the machinery was all
there ; cheerful industry among masters and boys
alike ; but the whole thing fro/en and chilled,
partly by the congestion of subjects, partly by
antiquated methods.
Moreover, to provide a classical education for
the best boys, everything ;l^e was sacrificed. The
boys were taught classics, not on the literary method,
but on the academic method, as it they were all to
enter for triposes and scholarships, and to end by
becoming professors. Instead ot simply reading
away at interesting and be.r.it'.lul books, and trying
to cover some ground, a threat qnantitv of pedantic
grammar uas taught ; time was uastcd m trying
to make the bo\ s compose m both Latin aiul ( ireek.
EDUCATION. 125
when they had no vocabulary, and no knowledge of
the languages. It was like setting children of six
and seven to write English in the style of Milton
and Carlyle.
The solution is a very obvious one ; it is, at
all costs to simplify, and to relieve pressure. The
staple of education should be French, easy mathe-
matics, history, geography, and popular science. 1
would not even begin Latin or Greek at first. Then,
when the first stages were over, I would have every
boy with any special gift put to a single subject,
in which he should try to make real progress, but
so that there would be time to keep up the simpler
subjects as well. The result would be that when a
boy had finished his course, he would have some
one subject which he could reasonably be expected
to have mastered up to a certain point. He would
have learnt classics, or mathematics, or history, or
modern languages, or science, thoroughly ; while
all might hope to have a competent knowledge of
French, English, history, easy mathematics, and
easy science. Boys who had obviously no special
aptitude would be kept on at the simple subjects.
And if the result was only that a school sent out
boys who could read French easily, and write simple
French grammatically, who knew something of
modern history and geography, could work out
sums in arithmetic, and had some conception of
elementary science well, they would, I believe,
be very fairly educated boys.
The reason why intellectual cynicism sets in,
is because the boys, as they go on, feel that they
have mastered nothing. They have been set to
compose in Greek and Latin and French ; the
iz6 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
result is that they have no power of composing in
any of these languages, when they might have
learnt to compose in one. Meanwhile, they have
not had time to read any English to speak of, or
to be practised in writing it. They know nothing
of their own history or of modern geography ; and
the blame is not with them if they find all know-
ledge arid and unattractive.
I would try all sorts of experiments. I would
make boys do easy precis-writing ; to give a set
of boys a simple printed correspondence and tell
them to analyze it, would be to give them a task
in which the dullest would find some amusement.
I should read a story aloud, or a short episode of
history, and require them to re-tell it in their
own words. Or I would relate a simple incident,
and make them write it in French ; make them
write letters in French. And it would be easy thus
to make one subject play into another, because
they could be made to give an account in French
of something that they had done in science or
history.
At present each of the roads Latin, Greek,
French, mathematics, science leads ofT in a
separate direction, and seems to lead nowhere in
particular.
The defenders of the classical system say that
it fortifies the mind and makes it a strong and
vigorous instrument. Where is the proof of it ?
It is true that it fortifies and invigorates minds
which have, to start with, plenty of grip and in-
terest ; but pure classics are, as the results abun-
dantly prove, too hard a subject for ordinary minds,
and they are taught in too abstruse and elaborate
EDUCATION. 127
a way. If it were determined by the united good
sense of educational authorities that Latin and Greek
must be retained at all costs, then the only thing
to do would be to sacrifice all other subjects, and
to alter all the methods of teaching the classics.
I do not think it would be a good solution ; but it
would be better than the present system of intel-
lectual starvation.
The truth is that the present results are so poor
that any experiments are justified. The one quality
which you can depend upon in boys is interest,
and interest is ruthlessly sacrificed. When I used
to press this fact upon my sterner colleagues, they
would say that I only wanted to make things amus-
ing, and that the result would be that we should
only turn out amateurs. But amateurs are at least
better than barbarians ; and my complaint is that
the majority of the boys are not turned out even
professionally equipped in the elaborate subjects
they are supposed to have been taught.
The same melancholy thing goes on in the
older Universities. The classics are retained as a
subject in which all must qualify ; and the educa-
tion provided for the ordinary passman is of a con-
temptible, smattering kind ; it is really no educa-
tion at all. It gives no grip, or vigour, or stimulus.
Here again no one takes any interest in the average
man. If the more liberal residents try to get rid
of the intolerable tyranny of compulsory classics,
a band of earnest, conventional people streams up
from the country and outvotes them, saying sol-
emnly, and obviously believing, that education is
in danger. The truth is that the intellectual edu-
cation of the average Englishman is sacrificed to
128 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
an antiquated humanist system, administered by
unimaginative and pedantic people.
The saddest part of it all is that we have, most
of us, so little idea of what we want to effect by
education. My own theory is a simple one. I
think that we ought first of all to equip boys, as
far as we can, to play a useful part in the world.
Such a theory is decried by educational theorists
as being utilitarian ; but if education is not to be
useful, we had better close our schools at once.
The idealist says, " Never mind the use ; get the
best educational instrument for the training of the
mind, and, when you have finished your work, the
mind will be bright and strong, and capable of dis-
charging any labour." That is a beautiful theory ;
but it is not borne out by results ; and one of the
reasons of the profound disbelief which is rapidly
spreading in the coun'rv \\ith regard to our public
schools, is that we send out so many boys, not only
without intellectual life, but not even capable of
humble usefulness. These theorists continue to talk
of classics as a splendid gymnastic, but in their
hands it becomes a rack ; instead of leaving the
limbs supple and well knit, they are strained, dis-
jointed, and feeble. Iv.rn the flower of our classical
system are too often leit without anv original power
of expression ; critical, fastidious minds, admiring
erudition, preferring the elucidation of second-rate
authors to the study o! tin- best. A man who reads
Virgil for pleasure is a better result of a system of
education than one who re-edits Tibullus. Instead
of having original thn<: -';? , and a Mvle ol their own
to expre-s them in, '!.;< i-la^iei-t^ are left
with a profound l:now Icd-jc 0} the -tvle and usage
EDUCATION. 129
of ancient authors, a thing not to be undervalued
as a step in a progress, but still essentially an ante-
room of the mind.
The further task that lies before us educators,
when we have trained a mind to be useful, con-
sists in the awakening, in whatever regions may-
be possible, of the soul. By this I do not mean
the ethical soul, but the spirit of fine perception of
beauty, of generous admiration for what is noble
and true and high. And here I am sure that we
fail, and fail miserably. For one thing, these great
classicists make the mistake of thinking that only
through literature, and, what is more, the austere
literature of Greece and Rome, can this sense be
developed. I myself have a deep admiration for
Greek literature. I think it one of the brightest
flowers of the human spirit, and I think it well that
any boy with a real literary sense should be brought
into contact with it. I do not think so highly of
Latin literature. There are very few writers of the
first rank. Virgil is, of course, one ; and Horace
is a splendid craftsman, but not a high master of
literature. There is hardly any prose in Latin fit
for boys to read. Cicero is diffuse, and often
affords little more than small-talk on abstract
topics ; Tacitus a brilliant but affected prosateur,
Caesar a dull and uninspiring author. But to many
boys the path to literary appreciation cannot lie
through Latin, or even Greek, because the old
language hangs like a veil between them and the
thought within. To some boys the enkindling ot
the intellectual soul comes through English litera-
ture, to some through history, to 'some through a
knowledge of other lands, which can be approached
130 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
by geography. To some through art and music ;
and of these two things we trifle with the latter and
hardly touch upon the former. I cannot see that
a knowledge of the lives, the motives, the perform-
ances of artists is in itself a less valuable instrument
of education than a knowledge of the lives, motives,
and performances of writers, even though they be
Greek.
What our teachers fail in and the most en-
thusiastic often f.'.il most hopelessly is in sym-
pathy and imagination. They cannot conceive
that what moves, touches, and inspires themselves
may have no meanin-: for boys with a different
type of mind.
The result of our education can be well re-
viewed by one who, like myself, after wrestling,
often very sorrowfully, with the problems of school
education, comes up to a university and gets to
know something of these boys at a later stage.
Many of them are tine, vigorous fellows ; but
they often tend to look upon their work as a dis-
agreeable necessity, which they do conscientiously,
expecting nothing in particular from it. They
play games ardently, and till their hours of leisure
with talk about them. Yet one discerns in mind
after mind the genus of intellectual things, unde-
veloped and bewildered. Many of them have an
interest in something, but they are often ashamed
to talk about it. Tlu-v have a deep horror of bein;:
supposed to be superior; thev listen politely to
about bonks and pictures, conscious of igno-
rance, not ill-'!i--p'^ed to listen; but it is all an
unreal uorld t<> them.
I am all f<>r hard ami strenuous work. 1 do
EDUCATION. 131
not at all wish to make work slipshod and dil-
ettante. I would raise the standards of simple
education, and force boys to show that they are
working honestly. I want energy and zeal above
everything. But my honest belief is that you cannot
get strenuous and zealous work unless you also have
interest and belief in work. At present, education
as conducted in our public-school and university
system appears to me to be neither utilitarian nor
intellectual. It aims at being intellectual first and
utilitarian afterwards, and it misses both.
Whether anything can be done on a big scale
to help us out of the poor tangle in which we are
involved, I do not know. I fear not. I do not
think that the time is ripe. I do not believe that
great movements can be brought about by prophets,
however enlightened their views, however vigorous
their personalities, unless there is a corresponding
energy below. An individual may initiate and con-
trol a great force of public opinion ; I do not think
he can originate it. There is certainly a vague and
widespread discontent with our present results ;
but it is all a negative opinion, a dissatisfaction
with what is being done. The movement must
have a certain positive character before it can take
shape. There must arise a desire and a respect
for intellectual things, a certain mental tone, which
is wanting. At present, public opinion only indi-
cates that the rising generation is not well trained,
and that boys, after going through an elaborate edu-
cation, seem to be very little equipped for practical
life. There is no complaint that boys are made
unpractical ; the feeling rather is that they are
turned out healthy, well-drilled creatures, fond of
i 3 2 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
games, manly, obedient, but with a considerable
aversion to settling down to work, and with a firm
resolve to extract what amusement they can out of
life. All that is, I feel, perfectly true ; but there
is little demand on the part of parents that boys
should have intellectual interests or enthusiasms
for the things of the mind. What teachers ought
to aim at is to communicate something of this en-
thusiasm, by devising a form of education which
should appeal to the simpler forms of intellectual
curiosity, instead of starving boys upon an ideal of
inaccessible dignity. I do not ifor a moment deny
that those who defend the old classical tradition
have a high intellectual ideal. But it is an unprac-
tical ideal, and takes no account of the plain facts
of experience.
The result is that we teachers have forfeited
confidence ; and we must somehow or other re-
gain it. We are tolerated, as all ancient and
respectable things are tolerated. We have become
a part of the social order, and we have still the
prestige of wealth and dignity. But what wealthy
people ever dream nowadays of building and en-
dowing colleges on purely literary lines ? All the
buildings which have an>en of late in my University
are either buildings for scientific purposes or clerical
foundations for ecclesiastical ends. The vitality of
our literary education is slouly fading out oi" it.
This lack ot vitality is not so evident until you go
a little way beneath the surface. Classical profi-
ciency is still liberally rewarded by scholarships
and fellowships; and while the classical tradition
remains in our schools th'-re are a good many men,
uho intend to be teachers, who enter for classical
EDUCATION. 133
examinations. But where we fail grievously is in
our provision for average men ; they are provided
with feeble examinations in desultory and diffuse
subjects, in which a high standard is not required.
It is difficult to imagine a condition of greater
vacuity than that in which a man leaves the Uni-
versity after taking a pass degree. No one has
endeavoured to do anything for him, or to cultivate
his intelligence in any line. And yet these are our
parents in the next generation. And the only way
m which we stifle mental revolt is by leaving our
victims in such a condition of mental abjectness and
intellectual humility, that it does not even occur
to them to complain of how unjustly they have been
treated. After all, we have interfered with them
so little that they have contrived to have a good
time at the University. They have made friends,
played games, and lived a healthy life enough ;
they resolve that their boys shall have a good time
too, if possible ; and so the poor educational farce
is played on from generation to generation. It is
melancholy to read the sonnet which Tennyson
wrote, more than sixty years ago, a grave and bitter
indictment of Cambridge
" Because you do profess to teach,
And teach us nothing, feeding not the heart."
That is the mistake : we do not feed the heart ;
we are too professional ; we concern ourselves with
methods and details ; we swallow blindly the elab-
orate tradition under which we have ourselves been
educated ; we continue to respect the erudite mind,
and to decry the appreciative spirit as amateurish
and dilettante. We continue to think that a boy
134 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
is well trained in history it he has a minute know-
ledge of the sequence of events that is, of course,
a necessary part of the equipment of a professor or
a teacher ; but here again lies one of the fatal fal-
lacies of our system that \ve train from the pro-
fessorial point of view. Omniscience is not even
desirable in the ordinary mind. A boy who has
appreciated the force of a few great historical char-
acters, who has learnt generous insight into the un-
selfish patriotism that wins the great victories of
the world, who can see the horror of tyranny and
the wrongs done to humanity in the name of au-
thority, who has seen how a nation in earlier stages
is best ruled by an enlightened despotism, until it
has learnt vigour and honesty and truth, who has
learnt to perceive that political agitation only sur-
vives in virtue of the justice which underlies its
demands a boy, I say, who has been taught to
perceive such things, has learnt the lesson of his-
tory in a way which a student crammed with dates
and facts may have whollv missed.
The truth is that we do not know what we are
aiming at. Our school and university systems aim
at present at an austere standard of mental disci-
pline, and then fail to enforce it, by making in-
evitable concessions to the mental weakness in-
herited from long generations trained upon the
system of starvation. The system, indeed, too
often reminds me of an ol-.i picture in Punch, of
genteel poverty dining in state ; in a room hung
with portraits, attended by t<><>tmen, two attenuated
persons sit, v-hile a silver cover is removed from a
dish containing a ro;i ted mouse. The resources
that ought to be spent on ;i wholesome meal are
EDUCATION 135
wasted in keeping up an ideal of state. Of coins*
there is something noble in all sacrifice of personal
comfort and health to a dignified ideal ; but it is
our business at present to till the dish rather than
to insist on the cover being of silver.
One very practical proof of the disbelief which
the public has in education is that, while the charges
of public schools have risen greatly in the last fifty
years, the margin is all expended in the comfort
of boys, and in opportunities for athletic exer-
cises ; while masters, at all but a very few public
schools, are still so poorly paid that it is impossible
for the best men to adopt the profession, unless
they have an enthusiasm which causes them to put
considerations of personal comfort aside. It is only
too melancholy to observe at the University that
the men of vigour and force tend to choose the
Civil Service or the Bar in preference to educa-
tional work. I cannot wonder at it. The drudgery
of falling in with the established system, of teaching
things in which there is no interest to be communi-
cated, of insisting on details in the value of which
one does not believe, is such that fe\v people, ex-
cept unambitious men, who have no special mental
bent, adopt the profession ; and these only because
the imparting of the slender accomplishments that
they have gained is an obvious and simple method
of earning a livelihood.
The blame must, I fear, fall first upon the
Universities. I am not speaking of the educa-
tion there provided for the honour men, which
is often excellent of its kind ; though it must be
confessed that the keenest and best enthusiasm
seems to me tjhere to be drifting away from the
136 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
literary side of education. But while an old and
outworn humanist tradition is allowed to prevail,
while the studies of the average passman are al-
lowed to he dilluse, desultory, and aimless, and
of a kind from which it is useless to expect either
animation or precision, so long will a blight rest
upon the education of the country. While hoys
of average abilities continue to be sent to the Uni-
versities, and while the Universities maintain the
classical fence, so long will the so-called modern
sides at schools continue to be collections of more
or less incapable boys. And in decrying modern
sides, as even headmasters of great schools have
been often known to do, it is very seldom stated
that the average of ability in these departments
tends to be so low that even the masters who teach
in them teach without taith or interest.
It may be thought of these considerations that
they resemble the attitude of Carlyle, of whom
Fit/(jcrald said that he had sat tor many years
pretty comfortably in his study at Chelsea, scold-
ing all the world for not being heroic, but without
being very precise in telling them how. But this
is a case where individual action is out of the ques-
tion ; and it I am asked to name a simple reform
which would have an elfcct, I would suggest that
a caret ul revision of the education of passmen at
our Universities is the best and most practical step
to take.
And, for the schools, the only solution possible
is that the directors of secondary education should
devise a real and simple form of curriculum. If
they wholc-heartcdlv believe in the classics as the
best possible form of education, then let them realize
EDUCATION. 137
that the classics form a large and complicated sub-
ject, which demands the whole of the energies of
hovs. Let them resist utilitarian demands alto-
j
gether, and bundle all other subjects, except classics,
out of the curriculum, so that classics may, at all
events, be learnt thoroughly and completely. At
present they make large and reluctant concessions
to utilitarian demands, and spoil the effect of the
classics to which they cling, and in which they
sincerely believe, by admitting modern subjects to
the curriculum in deference to the clamour of utili-
tarians. A rigid system, faithfully administered,
would be better than a slatternly compromise. Of
course, one would like to teach all boys everything
if it were possible ! But the holding capacity of
tender minds is small, and a few subjects thoroughly
taught are infinitely better than a large number of
subjects flabbily taught.
I say, quite honestly, that I had rather have
the old system of classics pure and simple, taught
with relentless accuracy, than the present hotch-
potch. But I earnestly hope myself that the pres-
sure of the demand for modern subjects is too
strong to be resisted.
It seems to me that, when the whole world is
expanding and thrilling with new life all around
us, it is an intolerable mistake not to bring the
minds of boys in touch with the modern spirit.
The history of Greece and Rome may well form
a part of modern education ; but we want rather
to bring the minds of those who are being educated
into contact with the Greek and Roman spirit, as
part of the spirit of the world, than to make them
acquainted with the philological and syntactical
138 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
peculiarities of the two languages. It may be
said that we cannot come into contact with the
Greek and the Roman spirit except through read-
ing their respective literatures ; hut if that is the
case, how can a system of teaching classics be
defended which never brings the vast majority of
the boys, who endure it, in contact with the liter-
ature or the national spirit of the Greeks and
Romans at all ? I do not think that classical
teachers can sincerely maintain that the average
product of a classical school has any real insight
into, or familiarity with, either the language or
the spirit of these two great nations.
And if that is true of average boys educated
on this system, what is it that classical teachers
profess to have given them ? They will say grip,
vigour, the fortified mind. But where is the proof
of it ? If I saw classically educated boys flinging
themselves afterwards with energy and ardour into
modern literature, history, philosophy, science, I
should be the first to concur in the value of the
system. But I see, instead, intellectual cynicism,
intellectual apathy, an absorbing love of physical
exercise, an appetite lor material pleasures, a dis-
taste for books and thought. I do not say that
these tendencies would at once yield to a simpler
and more enlightened system of education ; but
the results of the present system seem to me so
negative, so unsatisfactory, as to justify, and in-
deed necessitate, the Irving of educational experi-
ments. It is terrible to see the patient acquies-
cence, the humble conscientiousness with which
the present system is administered. It is pathetic
to see so much labour expended upon an impos-
EDUCATION. 139
sible task. There is something, of course, morally
impressive about the courage and loyalty of those
who stick to a sinking ship, and attempt to bale
out with teacups the inrush of the overwhelming
tide. But one cannot help feeling that too much
is at stake ; that year by year the younger genera-
tion, which ought to be sent out alive to intel-
lectual interests of every kind, in a period which is
palpitating with problems and thrilled by wonder-
ful surprises, is being starved and cramped by an
obstinate clinging to an old tradition, to a system
which reveals its inadequacy to all who pass by ;
or, rather, our boys are being sacrificed to a weak
compromise between two systems, the old and the
new, which are struggling together. The new
system cannot at present eject the old, and the
old can only render the new futile without exer-
cising its own complete influence.
The best statesmanship in the world is not to
break rudely \vith old traditions, but to cause
the old to run smoothly into the new. My own
sincere belief is that it is not too late to attempt
this ; but that if the subject continues to be shelved,
if our educational authorities refuse to consider the
question of reform, the growing dissatisfaction will
reach such a height that the old system will be
swept away root and branch, and that many vener-
able and beautiful associations will thereby be
sacrificed. And with all my heart do I deprecate
this, believing, as I do, that a wise continuity, a
tendency to temperate reform, is one of the best
notes of the English character. We have a great
and instinctive tact in England for avoiding revo-
lutions, and for making freedom broaden slowly
140 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
down ; that is what, one ventures to hope, may
be the issue of the present discontent. But I
would rather have a revolution, with all its de-
structive agencies, than an unintelligent and op-
pressive tyranny.
AUTHORSHIP
I HAVE been sometimes consulted by young
aspirants in literature as to the best mode of
embarking upon the profession of letters ; and
if my inquirer has confessed that he will be obliged
to earn his living, I have always replied, dully but
faithfully, that the best way to realize his ambi-
tion is to enter some other profession without
delay. Writing is indeed the most delightful thing
in the world, if one has not to depend upon it
for a livelihood ; and the truth is that, if a man
has the real literary gift, there are very few pro-
fessions which do not afford a margin of time
sufficient for him to indulge what is the happiest
and simplest of hobbies. Sometimes the early
impulse has no root, and withers ; but if, after a
time, a man finds that his heart is entirely in
his writing, and if he feels that he may without
imprudence give himself to the practice of the
beloved art, then he may formally adopt it as a
profession. But he must not hope for much
monetary reward. A successful writer of plays
may make a fortune, a novelist or a journalist of
the first rank may earn a handsome income ; but to
achieve conspicuous mundane success in literature,
a certain degree of good fortune is almost more
i 4 2 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
important than genius, or even than talent. Ability
by itself, even literary ability of a high order, is
not sufficient ; it is necessary to have a vogue, to
create or satisfy a special demand, to hit the taste
of the age. But the writer of belles-lettres, the
literary writer pure and simple, can hardly hope
to earn a living wage, unless he is content to do,
and indeed fortunate enough to obtain, a good deal
of hackwork as well, lie must be ready to write
reviews and introductions ; to pour out occasional
articles, to compile, to edit, to select ; and the
chances are that if his livelihood depends upon his
labour, he will have little of the tranquillity, the
serenity, the leisure, upon the enjoyment of which
the quality of the best work depends. John Ad-
dington Symonds makes a calculation, in one of
his published letters, to the eilect that his entire
earnings for the years in which he had been em-
ployed in writing his history of the Italian Re-
naissance, had been at the rate of about 100 a
year, from which probably nearly half had to be
subtracted for inevitable incidental expenses, such
as books and travelling. The conclusion is that
unless a man has private resources, or a sufficiently
robust constitution to be able to earn," on his literary
work side by side with his professional work, he can
hardly afford to turn his attention to belles-lettres.
Nowadays literature ha> become a rather fashion-
able pui^ :it than otherwise. Tunes have changed
since (iray refused to accept monev for his pub-
lications, and gave it to be understood that he
was an eccentric gentleman who wrote solely for
his own amusement ; since tin- inheritor of Kokeby
found among the iamilv porti.i;'-; of the magnates
AUTHORSHIP. 143
that adorned his walls a picture of the novelist
Richardson, and was at the pains of adding a rib-
bon and a star, in order to turn it into a portrait
of Sir Robert Walpole, that he might free his gal-
lery from such degrading associations.
But now a social personage is hardly ashamed
of writing a book, of travels, perhaps, or even of
literary appreciations, so long as it is untainted by
erudition ; he is not averse to publishing a volume
of mild lyrics, or a piece of simple fiction, just to
show how easy it is, and what he could do, if only,
as Charles Lamb said, he had the mind. It adds
a pleasant touch of charming originality to a great
lady if she can bring out a little book. Such com-
positions are indubitably books ; they generally
have a title-page, an emotional dedication, an ultra-
modest preface, followed by a certain number of
pages of undeniable print. It is common enough
too, at a big dinner-party, to meet three or four
people, without the least professional dinginess, who
nave w r ritten books. Mr. Winston Churchill said
the other day, with much humour, that he could
not reckon himself a professional author because
he had only written five books the same number
as Moses.* And 1 am far from decrying the pleasant
labours of these amateurs. The writing of such
books as I have described has been a real amuse-
ment to the author, not entailing any particular
strain ; the sweet pride of authorship enlarges
one's sympathies, and gives an agreeable glow to
life. No inconvenient rivalry results. The little
* This sentence was, of course, written before the publi-
cation by Mr. Churchill of the Life of his father, Lord
Randolph Churchill.
144 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
volumes just flutter into the sunshine, like gauzy
flies from some tiny cocoon, and spread their
slender wings very gracefully in the sun.
I would not, then, like some austere critics,
forbid such leisurely writers as I have described
to indulge in the pleasant diversion of writing
books. There are reviewers who think it a sacred
duty to hunt and chase these amiable and well-
meaning amateurs out of the field, as though they
had trespassed upon some sacred enclosure. I do
not think that it is necessary or even kind to do
this. 1 would rather regard literature as a kind
of Tom Tiddler's ground, where there is gold as
well as silver to be picked up. Amateurs tend, it
is true, rather to scatter gold and silver in the field
of literature than to acquire it ; and I had just as
soon, after all, that they should lavish their super-
fluous wealth there, to be picked up by honest pub-
lishers, as that they should lavish it in other regions
of unnecessary expenditure. It is not a crime,
when all is said, to write or even to print an in-
ferior book ; I would indeed go further, and say
that writing in any shape is at worst a harmless
diversion ; and I see no reason why people should
be discouraged from such diversion, any more than
that they should be discouraged from practising
music, or making sketches in water-colour, because
they only attain a low standard of execution in
such pursuits. Indeed, 1 think that hours devoted
to the production of interior literature-, by persons
of leisure, are quite as well bestowed as hours spent
in golfing and motoring ; to engage in the task of
writing a book implies a certain sympathy with
intellectual things ; and I an. disposed to applaud
AUTHORSHIP. 145
and encourage anything which increases intellectual
appreciation in our country at the present time.
There is not too much of it abroad ; and I care
very little how it is acquired, if only it is acquired.
The only way in which these amateurs can be tire-
some is if they insist upon reading their composi-
tions aloud in a domestic circle, or if they request
one to read a published book and give them a
candid opinion. I once stayed with a worthy
country gentleman who, evening after evening,
after we had returned from shooting, insisted on
reading aloud in the smoking-room, with solemn
zest, the novel on which he was engaged. It was
heavy work ! The shooting was good, but I am
not sure that it was not dearly purchased at the
price. The plot of the book was intricate, the
characters numerous ; and I found it almost im-
possible to keep the dramatis persona apart. But
I did not grudge my friend the pleasure he took
in his composition ; I only grudged the time I
was obliged to spend in listening to it. The novel
was not worth writing from the point of view of
its intrinsic merits ; but it gave my old friend an
occupation ; he was never bored ; he flew back to
his book whenever he had an hour to spare. It
saved him from dulness and ennui ; it gave him, I
doubt not, many a glowing hour of secret joy ; it
was an unmixed benefit to himself and his family
that he had this indoors resource ; it entailed no
expense ; it was simply the cheapest and most harm-
less hobby that it is possible to conceive.
It is characteristic of our nation to feel an im-
perative need for occupation. I suppose that there
is no nation in the \vorld which has so little capacity
146 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
for doing nothing gracefully, and enjoying it, as the
English. This characteristic is part of our strength,
because it testifies to a certain childlike vitality.
We are impatient, restless, unsatisfied. We cannot
be happy unless \ve have a definite end in view.
The result of this temperament is to be seen at the
present time in the enormous and consuming pas-
sion for athletic exercise in the open air. We are
not an intellectual nation, and we must do some-
thing ; we are wealthy and secure, and, in default
of regular work, we have got to organize our hours
of leisure on the supposition that we have some-
thing to do. I have little doubt that if we became
a more intellectual nation the change would be
signalized by an immense output of interior books,
because we have not the student temperament, the
gift of absorbing literature. We have a deep in-
stinct for publicity. \l we are athletically gifted,
we must display our athletic prowess in public. If
we have thoughts <>t our own, we must have a
hearing ; we look upon meditation, contemplation,
conversation, the arts of leisurely living, as a waste
of time ; we are above all things practical.
But I would pass on to consider the case of
more serious writers ; and I would begin by mak-
ing a personal confession. My own occupations
are mainly literary ; and I would say frankly that
there seems to me to be no pleasure comparable
to the pleasure of unti:r r . To find a congenial
subject, and to expre^> tliat subject as lucidly, as
sincerely, as frankly as p< ;Me, appears to me tc
be the must delightful occupation in the world.
Nature is full of e\<|i;i it- ts and sounds, da\
by day ; the hta-je of the \\orld is crowded with
AUTHORSHIP. 147
interesting and fascinating personalities, rich in
contrasts, in characteristics, in humour, in pathos.
We are surrounded, the moment we pass outside
of the complex material phenomena which surround
us, by all kinds of wonderful secrets and incompre-
hensible mysteries. What is this strange pageant
that unrolls itself before us from hour to hour ? this
panorama of night and day, sun and moon, summer
and winter, joy and sorrow, life and death ? We
have all of us, like Jack Horner, our slice of pic
to eat. Which of us does not know the delighted
complacency with which we pull out the plums ?
The poet is silent of the moment when the plate is
empty, when nothing is left but the stones ; but
that is no less impressive an experience.
The wonderful thing to me is, not that there is
so much desire in the world to express our little
portion of the joy, the grief, the mystery of it all,
but that there is so little. I wish with all my heart
that there was more instinct for personal expres-
sion ; Edward FitzGerald said that he wished we
had more lives of obscure persons ; one wants to
know what other people are thinking and feeling
about it all ; what joys they anticipate, what fears
they sustain, how they regard the end and cessation
of life and perception, which waits for us all. The
worst of it is that people are often so modest ; they
think that their own experience is so dull, so unro-
mantic, so uninteresting. It is an entire mistake.
If the dullest person in the world would only put
down sincerely what he or she thought about his
or her life, about work and love, religion and emo-
tion, it would be a fascinating document. My only
sorrow is that the amateurs of whom I have spoken
148 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
above will not do this ; they rather turn to external
and impersonal impressions, relate definite things,
what they see on their travels, for instance, describ-
ing just the things which any one can see. They
tend to indulge in the melancholy labour of trans-
lation, or employ customary, familiar forms, such
as the novel or the play. If only they would write
diaries and publish them ; compose imaginary
letters ; let one inside the house of self instead of
keeping one wandering in the park ! The real in-
terest of literature is the apprehending of other
points of view ; one spriuls an immense time in
what is called society, in the pursuit of other people's
views ; but what a very little grain results from an
intolerable deal of chal: ! And all because people
are conventional and not simple-minded ; because
they will not say what they think ; indeed they
will not as a rule try to find out what they do think,
but prefer to trailic with the conventional counters.
Vet what a refreshment it is to meet with a per-
fectly sincere person, who makes you feel that you
are in real contact with a human being ! This is
'..hat we ought to aim at in writing : at a perfectly
sincere presentment of our thoughts. We cannot,
of course, all of us hope to have views upon art,
upon theology, upon politics, upon education, be-
cause we may not ha\e any experience in these
subjects ; but we have all of us experience in life, in
nature, in emotion, in reli. :mn ; and to express
\\hat we feel, as sincerely .is we can, is certainly
useful to ourselves, because it clears our view,
leads us not to confuse hopes with certainties, en-
.ti'lcs us to disentangle what we really believe from
uhat we conventionally adopt.
AUTHORSHIP. 149
Of course this cannot be done all at once ;
when we first begin to write, we find how difficult
it is to keep the thread of our thoughts ; we keep
turning out of the main road to explore attractive
by-paths ; we cannot arrange our ideas. All writers
who produce original work pass through a stage in
which they are conscious of a throng of kindred
notions, all more or less bearing on the central
thought, but the movements of which they can-
not wholly control. Their thoughts are like a tur-
bulent crowd, and one's business is to drill them
into an ordered regiment. A writer has to pass
through a certain apprenticeship ; and the cure for
this natural vagueness is to choose small precise
subjects, to say all that we have in our minds about
them, and to stop when we have finished ; not
to aim at fine writing, but at definiteness and
clearness.
I suppose people arrive at their end in different
ways ; but my own belief is that, in writing, one
cannot do much by correction. I believe that
the best way to arrive at lucidity is by incessant
practice ; we must be content to abandon and
sacrifice faulty manuscripts altogether ; we ought
not to fret over them and rewrite them. The two
things that I have found to be of infinite service to
myself, in learning to write prose, have been keep-
ing a full diary, and writing poetry. The habit of
diarizing is easily acquired, and as soon as it be-
comes habitual, the day is no more complete with-
out it than it is complete without a cold bath and
regular meals. People say that they have not time
to keep a diarv ; but they would never say that
they had not time to take a bath or to have their
150 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
meals. A diary need not be a dreary chronicle of
one's movements ; it should aim rather at giving
a salient account of some particular episode, a walk,
a book, a conversation. It is a practice which brings
its own reward in many ways ; it is a singularly
delightful thing to look at old diaries, to see how
one was occupied, say, ten years ago ; what one
was reading, the people one was meeting, one's
earlier point of view. And then, further, as I have
said, it has the immense advantage of developing
style ; the subjects are ready to hand ; and one
may learn, by diarizing, the art of sincere and frank
expression.
And then there is the practice of writing poetry ;
there are certain years in the life of most people
with a literary temperament, when poetry seems
the most natural and desirable mode of scli-expres-
sion. This impulse should be freely yielded to.
The poetry need not be very good ; I have no illu-
sions, for instance, as to the merits of my own ; but
it gives one a copious vocabulary, it teaches the art
of poise, of cadence, of choice in words, of pictur-
escjueness. There comes a time when one aban-
dons poetry, or is abandoned by it ; and, after all,
prose is the most real and natural form of expres-
sion. 'There arrives, in the case of one who has
practised poetical expression diligently, a wonder-
ful sense of freedom, ot expansiveness, of delight,
when he begins to use what has been material for
poetry for the purposes of prose. Poetical expres-
sion is strictly conditioned by length of stanzas,
dignity of vocabulary, and the painful exigencies of
rhyme. How good are the days when one has
escaped from all that tyranny, when one can say
AUTHORSHIP. 151
the things that stir the emotion, freely and liber-
ally, in Howing phrases, without being brought to
a stop by the severe fences of poetical form ! The
melody, the cadence, the rise and fall of the sen-
tence, antithesis, contrast, mellifluous energy these
are the joys of prose ; but there is nothing like
the writing of verse to make them easy and in-
stinctive.
A word may be said about style. Stevenson
said that he arrived at flexibility of style by frank
and unashamed imitation of other writers ; he
played, as he said, " the sedulous ape " to great
authors. This system has its merits, but it also
has its dangers. A sensitive literary temperament
is apt to catch, to repeat, to perpetuate the charm-
ing mannerisms of great writers. I have sometimes
had to write critical monographs on the \vork of
great stylists. It is a perilous business ! If for
several months one studies the work of a conta-
gious and delicate writer, critically and apprecia-
tively, one is apt to shape one's sentences with a
dangerous resemblance to the cadences of the
author whom one is supposed to be criticising.
More than once, when my monograph has been
completed, I have felt that it might almost have
been written by the author under examination ;
and there is no merit in that. I am sure that one
should not aim at practising a particular style.
The one aim should be to present the matter as
clearly, as vigorously, as forcibly as one can ; if
one does this sincerely, one's own personality will
make the style ; and thus I feel that people whose
aim is to write vigorously should abstain from even
reading authors whose style aifects them strongly.
152 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
Stevenson himself da reel not read Livy ; Pater con-
fessed that he coulel not afford to read Stevenson ;
he addeel, that he did not consider his own style
better than the style of Stevenson rather the re-
verse hut he had his ou n theory, his own method
of expression, deliberately adopted anel diligently
pursued. He therefore carefully refrained from
reading an author whom he felt unconsciously com-
pelled to imitate. The question of style, then, is
one which a writer who desires originality should
leave altogether alone. It must emerge of itself,
or it is sure to lack distinctiveness. I saw once a
curious instance of this. I knew a diligent writer,
whose hasty and unconsidercd writings were forcible,
lively, and lucid, penetrated by his own poetical anel
incisive personality ; but he set no store by these
writings, and if they were ever praised in his pres-
ence, he said that he was ashamed of them for being
so rough. This man devoted many years to the
composition of a great literary work. He took in-
finite pains with it ; he concentrated whole sen-
tences into epithets ; lie hammered and chiselled
his phrases ; he was for ever retouching and re-
writing. But when the book at last appeared it
was a complete disappointment. The thing was
really unintelligible ; it hael no motion, no space
about it ; the reader had to devote heart-breaking
thought to the exploration of a paragraph, anel was
as a rule only reuardeel by finding that it was .1
simple thought, e\pre>>eil \\ith profound obscurity ;
whereas the object ot the '/.liter ou^ht to be to ex-
press a profound and ciii.A'ih thought clearly and
lucidly. The only piece ot literary advice that I
have ever louiul to be ot real ami abiding use, is
AUTHORSHIP. 153
the advice I once heard given by Professor Seeley
to a youthful essayist, who had involved a simple
subject in mazes of irrelevant intricacy. ' Don't
be afraid," said the Professor, " of letting the bones
show." That is the secret : a piece of literary art
must not be merely dry bones ; the skeleton must
be overlaid with delicate flesh and appropriate
muscle ; but the structure must be there, and it
must be visible.
The perfection of lucid writing, which one sees
in books such as Newman's Apologia or Ruskin's
Prceterita, seems to resemble a crystal stream, which
flows limpidly and deliciously over its pebbly bed ;
the very shape of the channel is revealed ; there
are transparent glassy water-breaks over the pale
gravel ; but though the very stream has a beauty
of its own, a beauty of liquid curve and delicate
murmur, its chief beauty is in the exquisite trans-
figuring effect which it has over the shingle, the
vegetation that glimmers and sways beneath the
surface. How dry, how commonplace the pebbles
on the edge look ! How stiff and ruinous the
plants from which the water has receded ! But
seen through the hyaline medium, what coolness,
what romance, what secret and remote mystery,
lingers over the tiny pebbles, the little reefs of
rock, the ribbons of weed, that poise so delicately
in the gliding stream ! What a vision of unimagined
peace, of cool refreshment, of gentle tranquillity, it
all gives !
Thus it is with the transfiguring power of art,
of style. The objects by themselves, in the com-
monplace light, in the dreary air, are trivial and
unromantic enough ; one can hold them in one's
154 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
hand, one seems to have seen them a hundred
times before ; but, plunged beneath that clear and
fresh medium, they have a unity, a softness, a
sweetness which seem the result of a magical spell,
an incommunicable influence ; they bring all heaven
before the eyes ; they whisper the secrets of a re-
gion which is veritably there, which we can discern
and enjoy, but the charm of which we can neither
analyze nor explain ; we can only confess its ex-
istence with a grateful heart. One who devotes
himself to writing should find, then, his chief joy
in the practice of his art, not in the rewards of it ;
publication has its merits, because it entails upon
one the labour of perfecting the book as far as
possible ; if one wrote without publication in view,
one would be tempted to shirk the final labour of
the file ; one would leave sentences incomplete,
paragraphs unfinished ; and then, too, imperfect
as reviews often are, it is wholesome as well as
interesting to see the impression that one's work
makes on others. If one's work is generally con-
temned, it is bracing to know that one fails in one's
appeal, that one cannot amuse and interest readers.
High literature has often met at first with unmerited
neglect and even obloquy ; but to incur neglect and
obloquy is not in itself a proof that one's standard
is high and one's taste fastidious. Moreover, if
one has done one's best, and expressed sincerely
what one feels and believes, one sometimes has
the true and rare pleasure of eliciting a grateful
letter from an unknown person, uho has derived
pleasure, perhaps even encouragement, from a
book. These are some of the pleasant re\\ards of
writing, and though one should not write vsith
AUTHORSHIP. 155
one's eye on the rewards, yet they may be accepted
with a sober gratitude.
Of course there will come moods of discourage-
ment to all authors, when they will ask themselves,
as even Tennyson confesses that he was tempted
to do, what, after all, it amounts to ? The author
must beware of rating his own possibilities too high.
In looking back at one's own life, in trying to trace
what are the things that have had a deep and per-
manent influence on one's character, how rarely is
it possible to point to a particular book, and say r
' That book gave me the message I most needed,
made me take the right turn, gave me the requisite
bias, the momentous impulse " ? We tend to want
to do things on too large a scale, to affect great
masses of people, to influence numerous hearts.
An author should be more than content if he finds
he has made a difference to a handful of people,
or given innocent pleasure to a small company.
Only to those whose heart is high, whose patience
is inexhaustible, whose vigour is great, whose emo-
tion is passionate, is it given to make a deep mark
upon the age ; and there is needed too the magical
charm of personality, overflowing in ; ' thoughts
that breathe and words that burn." But we can
all take a hand in the great game ; and if the lead-
ing parts are denied us, if we are told off to sit
among a row of supers, drinking and whispering
on a bench, while the great characters soliloquize,
let us be sure that we drain our empty cup with
zest, and do our whispering with iutentness ; not
striving to divert attention to ourselves, but con-
tributing with all our might to the naturalness, the
effectiveness of the scene.
XI
THE CRITICISM OF OTHERS
I WAS staying the other day in the house of an
old friend, a public man, who is a deeply inter-
esting character, energetic, able, vigorous, with very
definite limitations. The only male guest in the
house, it so happened, was also an old friend of
mine, a serious man. One night, when we were
all three in the smoking-room, our host rose, and
excused himself, saying that he had some letters
to write. When he was gone, I said to my serious
friend : ' What an interesting fellow our host is !
He is almost more interesting because of the quali-
ties that he does not possess, than because of the
qualities that he does possess." My companion,
who is remarkable for his power of blunt statement,
looked at me gravely, and said : ' If you propose
to discuss our host, you must find some one else
to conduct the argument ; he is my friend, whom
I esteem and love, and I am not in a position to
criticise him." I laughed, and said : " Well, he is
my friend, too, and / <.>u-cm and love him ; and
that i.-> the very reason \\liy I should like to discuss
him. Nothing that eitin-r you or I could sav would
make me love him less; but I uish to understand
him. I have a very clear impression of him, and
THE CRITICISM OF OTHERS. 157
I have no doubt you have a very clear impression
too ; yet we should probably differ about him in
many points, and 1 should like to see what light
you could throw upon his character." My com-
panion said : " No ; it is inconsistent with my idea
of loyalty to criticise my friends. Besides, you
know I am an old-fashioned person, and I dis-
approve of criticising people altogether. I think
it is a violation of the ninth commandment ; I do
not think we are justified in bearing false witness
against our neighbour."
" But you beg the question," I said, " by saying
'false witness.' I quite agree that to discuss people
in a malicious spirit, or in a spirit of mockery, with
the intention of exaggerating their faults and mak-
ing a grotesque picture of their foibles, is wrong.
But two just persons, such as you and I are, may
surely talk over our friends, in what Mr. Chadband
called a spirit of love ? " My companion shook his
head. " No," he said, " I think it is altogether
wrong. Our business is to see the good points of our
friends, and to be blind to their faults." " Well,"
I said, " then let us ' praise him soft and low, call
him worthiest to be loved,' like the people in ' The
Princess.' You shall make a panegyric, and I will
say ' Hear, hear ! ' ' You are making a joke out
of it," said my companion, " and I shall stick to
my principles and you won't mind my saying,"
he went on, " that I think your tendency is to
criticise people much too much. You are always
discussing people's faults, and I think it ends in
your having a lower estimate of human nature than
is either kind or necessary. To-night, at dinner,
it made me quite melancholy to hear the way in
158 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
which you spoke of several of our best friends."
4 Not leaving Lancelot brave nor Galahad pure ! '
I said ; " in fact you think that I behaved like the
ingenious demon in the Acts, who always seems to
me to have had a strong sense of humour. It was
the seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, was it not, who
tried to exorcise an evil spirit ? But he ' leapt upon
them and overcame them, so that they fled out of
the house naked and wounded.' You mean that I
use my friends like that, strip off their reputations,
belabour them, and leave them without a rag of
virtue or honour ? " My companion frowned, and
said : " Yes ; that is more or less what I mean,
though I think your illustration is needlessly pro-
fane. My idea is that we ought to make the best
of people, and try as far as possible to be blind to
their faults." ' Unless their fault happens to be
criticism ? " I said. My companion turned to me
very solemnly, and said : ' I think we ought not
to be afraid, if nccessarv, of telling our friends
about their faults ; but that is quite a different
thing from amusing oneself by discussing their
faults with others." " Well," I said, " I believe
that one is in a much better position to speak to
people about their faults, it one knows them ; and
personally I think I arrive at a juster view both of
my friends' faults and virtues by discussing them
with others. I think one takes a much fairer view,
by seeing the impression that one's friends make
on other people ; and I think that I generally
arrive at admiring my friends more by seeing
them reflected in the mind of another, than I do
when they are merely reflected in my own mind.
Besides, if one is possessed of critic. il faculties, it
THE CRITICISM OF OTHERS. 159
seems to me absurd to rule out one part of life,
and that, perhaps, the most important one's fel-
low-beings, I mean and to say that one is not
to exercise the faculty of criticism there. You
would not think it wrong, for instance, to criticise
books ? ' " No," said my companion, " certainly
not. I think that it is not only legitimate, but a
duty, to bring one's critical faculties to bear on
books ; it is one of the most valuable methods of
self-education." " And yet books are nothing but
an expression of an author's personality," I said.
* Would you go so far as to say that one has no
business to criticise one's friends' books ? " ' You
are only arguing for the sake of arguing," said my
companion. ' With books it is quite different ;
they are a public expression of a man's opinions,
and consequently they are submitted to the world
for criticism." ' I confess," I said, " that I do not
think the distinction is a real one. I feel sure one
has a right to criticise a man's opinions, delivered
in conversation ; and I think that much of our
lives is nothing but a more or less public expres-
sion of ourselves. Your position seems to me no
more reasonable than if a man was to sav : ' I
j
look upon the whole world, and all that is in it, as
the work of God ; and I am not in a position to
criticise any of the works of God.' If one may
not criticise the character of a friend whom one
esteems and loves, surely, a fortiori, we ought not
to criticise anything in the world at all. The whole
of ethics, the whole of religion, is nothing else than
bringing our critical faculties to bear upon actions
and qualities ; and it seems to me that if our crit-
ical faculty means anything at all, we are bound to
160 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
apply it to all the phenomena \ve see about us."
My companion said disdainfully that I was indul-
ging in the merest sophistry, and that he thought
that \ve had better go to bed, which we presently
did.
I have, since this conversation, been reflecting
about the whole subject, and I am not inclined to
admit that my companion was right. In the first
place, if every one were to follow the principle
that one had no business to criticise one's friends,
it would end in being deplorably dull. Imagine
the appalling ponderosity of a conversation in
which one felt bound to praise every one who was
mentioned. Think of the insensate chorus which
would arise. 'How tall and stately A is!
How sturdy and compact B - is ! Then there
is dear C ; how wise, judicious, prudent, and
sensible ! And the excellent D , what can-
dour, what impulsiveness ! E , how worthy,
how business-like ! Yes, how true that is ! How
thankful we should be for the examples of A ,
B , C- -, D- , and E- A very little
of such conversation would go a long way. How
it would refresh and invigorate the mind ! What a
field for humour and subtlety it would open up !
It may be urged that we ought not to regulate
our conduct upon the basis of trying to avoid
what is dull ; but 1 am myself of opinion that
dulness is responsible lor a large amount of human
error and misery. Readers of The Pilgrim's Prog-
ress will no doubt remember the young woman whose
name was Dull, and her choice of companions
Simple, Sloth, Presumption, Short-mind, Slow-
pace, No-heart, Linger-after-lust, and Sleepy-head.
THE CRITICISM OF OTHERS. 161
These are the natural associates of Madam Dull.
The danger of dulness, whether natural or ac-
quired, is the danger of coa^placently lingering
among stupid and conventional ideas, and losing
all the bright interchange of the larger world.
The dull people are not, as a rule, the simple
people they are generally provided with a narrow
and self-sufficient code ; they are often entirely
self-satisfied, and apt to disapprove of everything
that is lively, romantic, and vigorous. Simplicity,
as a rule, is either a natural gift, or else can be
attained only by people of strong critical powers,
who will, firmly and vigorously, test, examine, and
weigh motives, and arrive through experience at a
direct and natural method of dealing with men and
circumstances. True simplicity is not an inherited
poverty of spirit ; it is rather like the poverty of
one who has deliberately discarded what is hamper-
ing, vexatious, and unnecessary, and has learnt that
the art of life consists in disentangling the spirit
from all conventional claims, in living by trained
impulse and fine instinct, rather than by tradition
and authority. I do not say that the dull people
are not probably, in a way, the happier people ;
I suppose that anything that leads to self-satisfac-
tion is, in a sense, a cause of happiness ; but it is
not a species of happiness that people ought to
pursue.
Perhaps one ought not to use the word dul-
ness, because it may be misunderstood. The kind
of dulness of which I speak is not inconsistent
with a high degree, not only of practical, but even
of mental, ability. I know several people of very
great intellectual power who are models of dulness.
6
i6 2 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
Their memories are loaded with what is no doubt
very valuable information, and their conclusions
are of the weightiest character ; but they have no
vivid perception, no alertness, they are not open
to new ideas, they never say an interesting or a
suggestive thing ; their presence is a load on the
spirits of a lively party, their very facial expression
is a rebuke to all light-mindedness and triviality.
Sometimes these people are silent, and then to be
in their presence is like being in a thick mist ;
there is no outlook, no enlivening prospect. Some-
times they are talkers ; and I am not sure that
that is not even worse, because they generally
discourse on their own subjects with protound
and serious conviction. They have no power of
conversation, because they are not interested in
any one else's point of view ; they care no more
who their companions are, than a pump cares what
sort of a vessel is put under it they only demand
that people should listen in silence. I remember
not long ago meeting one of the species, in this
case an antiquarian. He discoursed continuously,
with a hard eye, fixed as a rule upon the table,
about the antiquities ot the neighbourhood. I was
on one side of him, aiul was lar too much crushed
to attempt resistance. I ate and drank mechani-
callv ; I said " Yes " and " Very interesting " at
intervals ; and the onlv ray of hope upon the
hon/on was that the hands of the clock upon the
mantelpiece- did undoubtedly move, though they
moved with leaden slowness. On the other side
of the stii'tint was a hvelv talker, Matthews by
name, who grew vcrv restive under the process.
The iM'-'t man had seln ted Dorchester as his
THE CRITICISM OF OTHERS. 163
theme, because he had unhappily discovered that
I had recently visited it. My friend Matthews,
who had been included in the audience, made
desperate attempts to escape ; and once, seeing
that I was fairly grappled, began a conversation
with his next neighbour. But the antiquary was not
to be put off. He stopped, and looked at Mat-
thews with a relentless eye. ' Matthews," he said,
" MATTHEWS ! " raising his voice. Matthews looked
round. ' I was saying that Dorchester was a very
interesting place." Matthews made no further at-
tempt to escape, and resigned himself to his fate.
Such men as the antiquary are certainly very
happy people ; they are absorbed in their subject,
and consider it to be of immense importance. I
suppose that their lives are, in a sense, well spent,
and that the world is in a way the gainer by their
labours. My friend the antiquary has certainly,
according to his own account, proved that certain
ancient earthworks near Dorchester are of a date
at least five hundred years anterior to the received
date. It took him a year or two to find out, and I
suppose that the human race has benefited in some
way or other by the conclusion ; but, on the other
hand, the antiquary seems to miss all the best things
of life. If life is an educative process, people who
have lived and loved, who have smiled and suffered,
who have perceived beautiful things, who have felt
the rapturous and bewildering mysteries of the
world well, they have learnt something of the
mind of God, and, when they close their eyes upon
the world, take with them an alert, a hopeful, an
inquisitive, an ardent spirit, into whatever may be
the next act of the drama ; but my friend the anti-
1 64 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
quary, when he crosses the threshold of the un-
seen, when he is questioned as to what has been his
relation to life, will have seen and perceived, and
learnt nothing, except the date of the Dorchester
earthworks, and similar monuments of history.
And of all the shitting pageant of life, by far
the most interesting and exquisite part is our re-
lations with the other souls who are bound on the
same pilgrimage. One desires ardently to know
what other people fee! about it all what their
points of view are, what their motives are, what
are the data on which they form their opinions
so that to cut oil the discussion of other personal-
ities, on ethical grounds, is like any other stiff and
Puritanical attempt to limit interests, to circum-
scribe experience, to maim life. The criticism, then,
or the discussion, of other people is not so much
a cause ot interest in lite, as a sign of it ; it is no
more to be suppressed by codes or edicts than any
other form of temperamental activity. It is no more
necessary to justify the habit, than it is necessary
to give good reasons tor eating or for breathing ;
the only thing that it is advisable to do, is to lay
down certain rules about it, and prescribe certain
methods ot practising it. The people who do not
desire to discuss others, or who disapprove of doing
it, may be pronounced to be, as a rule, either stupid,
or egotistical, or Pharisaical ; and sometimes they
arc- ;iil three. The only principle to bear in mind is
the principle of justice. It a man discusses others
spitefully or malevolently, with the sole intention
ot eitln-; extracting amusement out ot their foibles,
or with the still more odious intention of emphasizing
his own \irtues bv discovering the weakness of
THE CRITICISM OF OTHERS. 165
others, or with the cynical desire which is per-
haps the lowest of all of proving the whole busi-
ness of human life to he a vile and sordid spectacle,
then he may be frankly disapproved of, and if
possible avoided ; but if a man takes a generous
view of humanity, if he admires what is large and
noble, if he gives full credit for kindliness, strength,
usefulness, vigour, sympathy, then his humorous
perception of faults and deficiencies, of whims and
mannerisms, of prejudices and unreasonablenesses,
will have nothing that is hard or bitter about it.
For the truth is that, if we are sure that a man
is generous and just, his little mannerisms, his fads,
his ways, are what mostly endear him to us. The
man of lavish liberality is all the more lovable if he has
an intense dislike to cutting the string of a parcel,
and loves to fill his drawers with little hanks of
twine, the untying of which stands for many wasted
hours. If we know a man to be simple-minded,
forbearing, and conscientious, we like him all the
better when he tells for the fiftieth time an ancient
story, prefacing it by anxious inquiries, which are
smilingly rebutted, as to whether any of his hearers
have ever heard the anecdote before.
But we must not let this tendency, to take a
man in his entirety, to love him as he is, carry
us too far ; we must be careful that the foibles
that endear him to us are in themselves innocent.
There is one particular form of priggishness,
in this matter of criticism of others, which is apt
to beset literary people, and more especially at a
time when it seems to be considered by many
writers that the first duty of a critic they would
probably call him an artist for the sake of the asso-
166 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
ciations is to get rid of all sense ot right and wrong
I was reading the other day a sensible and appre-
ciative review of Mr. Lucas's new biography of
Charles Lamb. The reviewer quoted with cordial
praise Mr. Lucas's remark referring, of course, to
the gin-and-water, which casts, I fear, in my own
narrow view, something of a sordid shadow over
Lamb's otherwise innocent life " A man must be
very secure in his own righteousness who would
pass condemnatory judgment upon Charles Lamb's
only weakness." I do not myself think this a
sound criticism. \Ve ought not to abstain from
condemning the weakness, we must abstain from
condemning Charles Lamb. His beautiful virtues,
his tenderness, his extraordinary sweetness and
purity of nature, far outweigh this weakness. But
what are we to do ? Are we to ignore, to condone,
to praise the habit ? Are we to think the better
of Charles Lamb and love him more because he
tippled ? Would he not have been more lovable
without it ?
And the fact that one may be conscious of
similar faults and moral weaknesses, ought not to
make one more, but less, indulgent to such a fault
when we see it in a beautiful nature. The fault
in question is no more in itself adorable, than it
is in another man who docs not possess Lamb's
genius.
\\ < have a prrtrct n-jlit nay, we do well
to coiuknm in others faults which we frankly
coii'icii'ii in ourselves. It i!u-s not help on tin. 1
\\orM it \\ c : r o about e\er\v.here slobbering \\ith
foriMvt ;u 1 affection; it i -, the ino-t mawkish
scutum iil.ihtv to lo\ c people m ->ueh a \\a\ that
THE CRITICISM OF OTHERS. 167
we condone grave faults in them ; and to condone
a fault because a man is great, when \ve condemn
it if he is not great, is only a species of snob-
bishness. It is right to compassionate sinners, to
find excuse for the faults or every one but our-
selves ; but we ought not to love so foolishly and
irrationally, that we cannot even bring ourselves to
wish our hero's faults away.
I confess to feeling the most minute and de-
tailed interest in the smallest matters connected
with other people's lives and idiosyncrasies. I
cannot bear biographies of the dignified order,
which do not condescend to give what are called
personal details, but confine themselves to matters
of undoubted importance. When I have finished
reading such books I feel as if I had been reading
The Statesman's Year-book, or The Annual Regis-
ter. I have no mental picture of the hero ; he is
merely like one of those bronze statues, in frock-
coat and trousers, that decorate our London squares.
I was reading, the other day, an ecclesiastical
biography. The subject of it, a high dignitary of
the Church, had attended the funeral of one of his
episcopal colleagues, with whom he had had sev-
eral technical controversies. On the evening of the
day he wrote a very tender and beautiful account
of the funeral in his diary, which is quoted at length :
' How little," he wrote, " the sense of difference,
and how strong my feeling of his power and solid
sense ; how little I care that ne was wrong about
the Discipline Bill, how much that he was so happy
with us in the summer ; how much that he was, as
all the family told me, so ' devoted ' to my Nellie !
That is a thoroughly human statement, nnd
i68 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
preserves a due sense of proportion. In the pres-
ence of death it is the kindly human relations that
matter more than policies and statesmanship.
And so it may be said, in conclusion, that \ve
cannot taste the fulness ot lite, unless we can hon-
estly say, \iliil humani a me alienum puto. If we
grow absorbed in work, in business, in literature,
in art, in policy, to the exclusion of the nearer
human elements, we dock and maim our lives.
We cannot solve the mystery of this difficult world ;
but we may be sure of this that it is not for noth-
ing that we are set in the midst of interests and
relationships, of liking and loving, of tenderness
and mirth, of sorrow and pain. It we are to get
the most and the best out of life, we must not
seclude ourselves from these things ; and one of
the nearest and simplest of duties is the perception
of others' points of view, of sympathy, in no limited
sense ; and that sympathy we can only gain through
looking at humanity in its wholeness. If we allow
ourselves to be blinded by false conscience, by
tradition, by stupidity, even by affection, from
realizing what others are, we sulFer, as we always
suffer from any wilful blindness ; indeed, wilful
blindness is the most dr.-peratc of all faults, per-
haps the only one that can hardly be condoned,
because it argues a confidence in one's own opinion,
a self-sufficiency, a self-estimation, which shut out,
as by an opaque and soulid screen, the light of
heaven tiom the soul.
XII
PRIESTS
I HAVE been fortunate in the course of my life
in knowing, more or less intimately, several
eminent priests ; and by this I do not mean neces-
sarily eminent ecclesiastics ; several famous ecclesi-
astics with whom circumstances have brought me
into contact have not been priestly persons at all ;
they have been vigorous, wise, energetic, states-
manlike men, such as I suppose the Pontifex Maxi-
mus at Rome might have been, with a kind of formal,
almost hereditary, priesthood. And, on the other
hand, I have known more than one layman of dis-
tinctly priestly character, priestly alter the order
of Melchizedek, who had not, I suppose, received
any religious consecration for his ministry, apart
from perhaps a kingly initiation.
The essence of the priest is that he should
believe himself, however humbly and secretly, to
be set in a certain sense between humanity and God.
He is conscious, if not of a mission, at least of a
vocation, as an interpreter of secrets, a guardian of
mysteries ; he would believe that there are certain
people in the world who are called to be apostles,
whose work it is to remind men of God, and to
justify the ways of God to men. lie feels that he
6a
i yo FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
stands, like Aaron, to make atonement ; that he is
in a certain definite relation to God, a relation which
all do not share ; and that this gives him, in a
special sense, something of the divine and fatherly
relation to men. In the hands of a perfectly humble,
perfectly disinterested man. this may become a very
beautiful and tender thing. Such a man, from long
and intimate relations with humanity, will have a
very deep knowledge of the human heart. lie will
be surprised at no weakness or frailty ; he will be
patient with all perverseness and obduracy ; he will
be endlessly compassionate, because he will realize
the strength and insistence of temptation ; he will
be endlessly hopeful, because he will have seen, a
hundred times over, the tlower of virtue and love
blooming in an arid and desolate heart. He will
have seen close at hand the transforming power of
faith, even in natures which have become the shud-
dering victims of evil habit.
Such a priest as 1 describe had occasion once
to interview a great doctor about the terrible case
of a woman of high social position who had become
the slave of drink. The doctor was a man of great
force and ability, and ot unwearying devotion ; but
he was what \\ould be called a sceptic and a material-
ist. The priest asked it the case was hopeless ; the
great doctor shrugged his shoulders. ' Yes," he
said, " pathologically speaking, it is hopeless ; there
may be periods of recoverv, but the course that the
case v. ill normally run \sill be a series of relapses,
each more serious and ot longer duration than the
hist." ' Is there no chance ot recovery on any line
that you could sirji.'<^t ? ' said the priest. The
two looked at each other, both good men and true.
PRIESTS. 171
4 Well," said the doctor after a pause, " this is more
in your line than mine ; the only possible chance
lies in the will, and that can only be touched through
an emotion. I have seen a religious emotion suc-
cessful, where everything else failed." The priest
smiled and said, " I suppose that would seem to
you a species of delusion ? You would not admit
that there was any reality behind it ? " " Yes,"
said the doctor, " a certain reality, no doubt ; the
emotional processes are at present somewhat ob-
scure from the scientific point of view : it is a for-
lorn hope." * Yes," said the priest, " and it is
thus the kind of task for which I and those of my
calling feel bound to volunteer."
Of course one of the difficulties that the priest
has to struggle against is his inheritance. If we
trace back the vocation of the priest to the earliest
times, we find their progenitors connected with
some of the darkest and saddest things in human
history. They are of the same tribe as wizards and
magicians, sorcerers and medicine-men, the cele-
brators of cruel and unholy rites. The priests of
Moloch, of Chemosh, of Baal, are the dark and
ancient ancestors of the same vocation. All who
have trafficked in the terrors of mankind, who have
gained power by trading on superstitious imagi-
nings, who have professed to propitiate wrathful and
malignant spirits, to stand between men and their
dreadful Maker all these have contributed their
share to the dark and sad burden which the priest
has to bear. As soon as man, rising out of pure
savagery, began to have any conception of the laws
of nature, he found in himself a deep instinct for
happiness, a terror of suffering and death ; yet, at
172 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
the same time, he found himself set in a world
where afflictions seemed to be rained down upon
humanity by some mysterious, unseen, and awful
power. Could man believe that God wished him
well, who racked him with cruel pain, sent plagues
among his cattle, swept away those whom he loved,
destroyed his crops with hail and thunderbolts, and
at the end of all dragged him reluctant and shud-
dering into the darkness, out of a world where so
much was kind and cheerful, and where, after all,
it was sweet to live ?
He turned in his despair to any one who could
profess to hold out any shield over him, who could
claim to read the dreadtul mind of God, and to
propitiate His mercy. Even then a demand created
a supply. Men have always loved power and in-
fluence ; and so spirits of sterner and more tena-
cious mould, who could perhaps despise the lesser
terrors of mankind, and who desired, above all
things, to hold the destinies of others in their hands,
to make themselves felt, naturally seized the oppor-
tunity of surrounding themselves with the awe and
dignity that the supposed possession of deeper
knowledge and more recondite powers offered
them.
Then as the world broadened and widened, as
reason began to extend its sway, the work of the
priest became more beneficent, and tended to
bless and hallow rather than to blast and curse.
Hut still the temptation remains a terribly strong
one tor men of a certain type, man who can afford
to de>piM- the more material successes of the world,
who can n;cii:e their personal ambition in ambi-
tions for an order and a raste, still to claim to
PRIESTS. 173
stand between man and God, to profess to with-
hold His blessings, to grasp the keys of I lis mysteries,
to save men from the consequences of sin. As long
as human terror exists, as long as men fear sutler-
ing and darkness and death, they will turn to any
one who can profess to give them relief ; and re-
lief, too, will come ; for the essence of courage is,
for many timid hearts, the dependence upon a
stronger will. And if a man can say, with a tran-
quil conviction, to a suffering and terrified com-
rade, " There is no need to fear," the fear loses
half its terrors and half its sting.
Now, when religion of any kind becomes a part
of the definite social life of the world, there must
of course be an order of ministers whose business
it is to preach it, and to bring it home to the minds
of men. Such men will be set apart by a solemn
initiation to their office ; the more solemn the ini-
tiation is, the more faithful they will be. The ques-
tion rather is what extent of spiritual power such
ministers may claim. The essence of religious
liberty is that men should feel that there is noth-
ing whatever that stands between themselves and
God ; that they can approach God with perfect
and simple access ; that they can speak to I lim
without concealment of their sins, and receive from
Him the comforting sense of the possibility of for-
giveness. Of course the sense of sin is a terribly
complicated one, because it seems to be made up
partly of an inner sense of transgression, a sense of
failure, a consciousness that we have acted un-
worthily, meanly, miserably. Yet the sense of sin
follows many acts that are not in themselves neces-
sarily disastrous either to oneself or the community.
i 7 4 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
Then there is a further sense of sin, perhaps devel-
oped by long inheritance of instinct, which seems
to attend acts not in themselves sinful, but which
menace the security of society. For instance, there
is nothing sinful in a man's desiring to save him-
self, and in fact saving himself, from a sudden
danger. If a man leaps out of the way of a run-
away cart, or throws himself on the ground to avoid
the accidental discharge of a gun, lie would never
be blamed, nor would he blame himself, for any
want of courage. Vet if a man in a battle saves
himself from death by Hight, he would regard him-
self, and be regarded by others, as having failed in
his duty, and he would be apt to feel a lifelong
shame and remorse for having yielded to the im-
pulse. Again, the deliberate killing of another
human being in a fit of anger, however just, would
be regarded by the offender as a deeply sinful act,
and he would not quarrel with the justice of the
sentence of death which would be meted out to
him ; but when we transfer the same act to the
region of war, which is consecrated by the usage of
society, a man uho had slam a hundred enemies
would regard the iact with a certain complacency,
and would not be even encouraged by a minister
of religion to repent ot his hundred heinous crimes
upon his deathbed.
The sense, then, of sin is in a certain degree
an artificial sense, and \\ouhl seem to consist partly
of a deep and divine instinct which arraigns the soul
for acts, which may be in themselves trifling, but
which seem to possess the sinful quality ; and
partly of a conventional instinct \\lnch considers
certain things to be abominable, which are not
PRIESTS. 175
necessarily in themselves sinful, because it is the
custom of the world to consider them so.
And then to the philosopher there falls a darker
tinge upon the whole matter, when he considers
that the evil impulses, to yield to which is sin, are
in themselves deliberately implanted in man by his
Creator, or at least not apparently eradicated ; and
that many of those whose whole life has been dark-
ened, embittered, and wrecked by sin, have in-
curred their misery by yielding to tendencies which
in themselves are, by inheritance, practically irre-
sistible.
What room is there, then, in these latter days,
when reason and science together have dispelled
the darkness of superstition, have diminished the
possibility of miraculous occurrences, have laughed
empirical occultism out of the field, for the
priest ?
There is no room for him if there lingers in
the depth of his mind any taint of the temptation
to serve his own ends, or to exalt himself or his
order, by trading on the fears of irrational and credu-
lous humanity. Against such priestcraft as this the
true priest must array himself, together with the
scientist, the statesman, the physician. Against all
personal and priestly domination all lovers of
liberty and God must combine. Theirs is the sin
of Simon Magus, the sin of Hoplmi, the sin of
Caiaphas ; the sin that desires that men should still
be bound, in order that they may themselves win
worship and honour. It is the deadliest and vilest
tyranny in the world.
But of the true priesthood there is more need
than there ever was, as the rninds of men awaken
176 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
to the truth ; for in a world where there is so much
that is dark, men need to be constantly encouraged,
reminded, even rebuked. The true priest must
leave the social conscience alone, and entrust it to
the hands of statesmen and officials. His concern
must be with the individual ; he must endeavour
to make men realize that tranquillity and security
of heart can only be won by victories over self,
that law is only a cumbrous and incomplete organi-
zation for enforcing upon men a sense of equality ;
and he must show how far law lags behind morality,
and that a man may be legally respectable yet mor-
ally abominable. The true priest must not ob-
scure the oracles of God ; he must beware of
teaching that faith is an intricate intellectual process.
He must pare religion to the bone, and show that
the essence of it is a perfectly simple relation with
God and neighbour. He must not concern him-
self with policy or ceremony ; he must warn men
against mistaking iusthetic impulse for the percep-
tion of virtue ; he must light against precedent and
tradition and custom ; he must realize that one
point of union is more important than a hundred
points of difference. He must set himself against
upholsteries and uniforms, against formalities and
rituals. He must abjure wealth and position, in
favour of humble kindliness and scrviceableness.
He must have a sense <>t poetry and romance and
beauty about life ; where other men are artists in
words, in musical tones, in pigments or sculptured
stone, he must be an artist in virtue. lie must be
the friend and lover of humble, inefficient, inarticu-
late, unpleasing persons ; and he must be able to
show that there is a desirable quality of beauty in
PRIESTS. 177
the most sordid and commonplace action, if faith-
fully performed.
Against such an ideal are arrayed all the forces
of the world. Christ and Christ-like men have
held up such an ideal to humanity ; and the sorrow
of it is that, the moment that such thoughts have
won for themselves the incredible and instant power
that they do win among mortals, men of impure
motive, who have desired the power more than the
service, have seized upon the source, have fenced
it off, have systematized its distribution, have en-
riched themselves by withholding and denying it to
all but those who can pay a price, if not of wealth,
at all events of submission and obedience and re-
cognition.
A man who desires the true priesthood may
perhaps find it readiest to his hand in some eccle-
siastical organization ; yet there he is surrounded
by danger ; his impulses are repressed ; he must
sacrifice them for the sake of the caste to which he
belongs ; he is told to be cautious and prudent ; he
is praised and rewarded for being conventional. But
a man may also take such a consecration for himself,
as a king takes a crown from the altar and crowns
himself with might ; he need not require it at the
hands of another. If a man resolves not to live for
himself or his own ambitions, but to walk up and
down in the earth, praising simplicity and virtue
and the love of God wherever he sees it, protesting
against tyranny and selfishness, bearing others' bur-
dens as far as he can, he may exercise the priesthood
of God. Such men are to be found in every Church,
and even holding the highest places in them ; but
such a priesthood is found, though perhaps few
178 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
suspect it, by thousands among women \vhcre it is
found by tens among men. Perhaps it may be said
that if a man adds the tenderness of a woman to the
serene strength of a man, he is best fitted for the
task ; but the truth lies in the fact that the qualities
for the exercise of such an influence are to be found
far more commonly among women than among men,
though accompanied as a rule by less consciousness
of it, and little desire to exercise it officially ; indeed
it is the very absence of egotism among women, the
absence of the personal claim, that makes them less
effective than they otherwise might be, because they
do not hold an object or an aim dear enough. They
desire to achieve, rather than to be known to have
achieved ; and yet in this unperceptive world,
human beings are apt to choose for their guides
and counsellors people whom they know by repu-
tation, rather than those whom they know famil-
iarly. And thus mere recognition often brings with
it a power of wider influence, because people are
apt to trust the judgment of others rather than their
own. In seeking for an adviser, men are apt to
consider who has the greatest reputation for wis-
dom, rather than whom they themselves have found
wisest ; and thus the man who seeks for influence
often attains it, because he has a wider circle of
those who recommend him. It is this absence of
independent judgment that ^'ives strength to the
self-seeking priest ; while the natural priesthood
of women is less recognixed because it is attended
with no advertisement.
The natural priest is one whom one ran in-
stinctively and utterly trust, in \\hom one can
deposit secrets as one dep<>. it>, them in the cus-
PRIESTS. 179
tody of a hank, without any fear that they will be
used for other purposes. In the true priest one
finds a tender compassion, a deep and patient love ;
it is not worth while to wear disguises before him,
because his keen, weary, and amused eye sees
through the mask. It is not worth while to keep
back, as Ananias did, part of the price of the land,
to leave sordid temptations untold, because the true
priest loves the sinner even more than he hates the
sin ; it is best to be utterly sincere with him, be-
cause he loves sincerity even more than unstained
virtue ; and one can confess to him one's desires
for good with as little false shame as one can
confess one's hankering after evil. Perhaps in
one respect the man is more fitted to be a con-
fessor than a woman, because he has a deeper
experience of the ardour and the pleasure of
temptation ; and yet the deeper tenderness of the
woman gives her a sympathy for the tempted,
which is not even communicated by a wider ex-
perience of sin.
Perhaps there is nothing that reflects our anthro-
pomorphic ideas of God more strongly than the fact
that no revelation of prophets has ever conceived of
the Supreme Deity as other than masculine ; and
no doubt the Mariolatry of the Church of Rome is
the reflection of the growing influence in the world
of the feminine element ; and yet the conception of
God as masculine is in itself a limitation of His in-
finite perfection. That we should carry our con-
ception of sex into the infinite is perhaps a mere
failure of imagination, and if we could divest our-
selves of a thought which possibly has no reality in
it, we should perhaps grow to feel that the true
i8o FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
priesthood of life could be exercised as well by
women as by men, or even better. The true prin-
ciple is that all those who are set free by a natural
grace, a divine instinct, from grosser temptations,
and whose freedom leads them not to a cold self-
sufficiency, to a contempt for what is weaker, but
to an ardent desire to save, to renew, to upraise, are
the natural priests or priestesses of the world ; for
the only way in which the priest can stand between
man and God is, when smaller and more hampered
natures realize that he lias a divine freedom and
compassion conferred upon him, which sets him
above themselves ; when they can feel that in reli-
gion it is better to agree with the saints than to
differ from them ; when they can see that there
are certain people whose religious intuitions can
be trusted, because they are wider and deeper
than the narrower intuitions of more elementary
natures.
The priest, then, that I would recognize is not
the celebrator of lonely and forlorn mysteries, the
proprietor of divine blessings, the posturer in solemn
ceremonies, but the man or woman of candid gaze,
of fearless heart, of deep compassion, of infinite
concern. It is these qualities which, if they are
there, lend to rite and solemnity a holiness and a
significance which they cannot win from antiquity or
tradition. Such priests as these are the interpreters
of the Divine will, the channels of Divine grace ;
and the hope of the race lies in the fact that such
men and women are sent into the world, and go in
and out among us, more than in all the stately
organizations, the mysterious secrets, the splendid
shrines, devised by the art of man to make fences
PRIESTS. 181
about the healing spring ; shrines \vherc, though
sound and colour may lavish their rich hues, their
moving tones, yet the raiment of the priest may hide
a proud and greedy heart, and the very altar may
be cold.
I
XIII
AMBITION
AM afraid that Milton's great line about am-
bition,
" That last infirmity of noble minds,"
is responsible for a pood deal of harm, because it
induces high-minded persons of inexact ideas to
think ambition a noble infirmity, or at least to
believe that they need not try to get rid of their
personal ambitions until they have conquered all
their other evil dispositions. I suppose that what
Milton meant was that it was the hardest of all
faults to get rid of ; and the reason why it is so
difficult to eject it, is because it is so subtle and
ingenious a spirit, and masquerades under such
splendid disguises, arrayed in robes of light. A
man who desires to fill a hi^h position in the world
is so apt to disguise his craving to himself by think-
ing, or trying to think, that he desires a great place
because of the beneficent influence he can exert,
and all the <jond that he will be able to do, which
shall -ire.un from him as light from the sun. Of
course to a high-minded man that is naturally one
of the honest pleasures of an important post ; but
he ought to be quite sure that his motive is that the
AMBITION. 183
good should he done, and not that he should have
the credit of doing it. I have burnt my own finders
not once nor twice at the fire of ambition, and the
subject has been often in my mind. But my ex-
periences were so wholly unlike anything that I had
anticipated, though I suppose they are in reality
normal enough, that I will venture to set them
dow r n here. The first curious experience was how,
on a nearer survey of the prospect of obtaining an
important post, all the incidental advantages and
conveniences of the position sank into nothingness.
This was a quite unexpected development ; I had
imagined that a prospect of dignity and importance
would have had something vaguely sustaining about
it. A brilliant satirist once said that a curate did
not as a rule desire to be a bishop that he might
exercise a wide and useful influence, but primarily
that he might be called " my lord." I myself was
brought, as a child, in contact with one who was
somewhat unexpectedly called to a high office. I
was much with him in the days when his honours
first invested him, and I confess with a certain
shame that it did undoubtedly seem to me that the
^ J
dignity of the office, the sense of power, the obvious
respect paid to him by people of position, were things
that must pleasantly sweeten a mortal cup. The
other day I was in the company of an eminent pre-
late ; there were three curates present : they hov-
ered round the great man like bees round a flower ;
they gazed with innocent rapture upon his shapely
legs, somewhat strangely swathed, as Carlyle said,
his bright, grotesque hat ; and I could not help
feeling that they thought how well such raiment
would become themselves. It is of course a childish
1 84 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
view ; hut then how long our childish views sur-
vive, though hidden under grave pretences ! To
see a great personage move with dignity to his
appointed place in a great ceremony, attended by
all the circumstances of pomp, a congregation gaz-
ing, with an organ above thundering out rich and
solemn music, how impressive it all appears ! How
hard to think that the central actor in such a scene
does not feel his heart swell with a complacent joy !
And yet I suppose that any sensible man under
such conditions is far more likely to be oppressed
with a sense of weakness and anxious responsibility ;
how soon such surroundings ought to, nay, do find
their true value in a wise man's mind ! The tri-
umph rather is if, in the midst of all this glitter
and glory, when a silence is made, the worshipful
man speaks simple and strong words out of a pure
and noble heart ; and then one can feel that the
pomp is nothing but the due homage of mankind
for real greatness, and that it has followed him
rather than been followed by him.
It was a relief to find, as I say, that, on a nearer
prospect, all the circumstance oi greatness vanished
into shadow indeed more than that it became one
of the distinct disadvantages of the position. I felt
that time and money and thought would have to
be spent on the useless and fatiguing mise-cn-scenc,
and that it would all entail a quantity of futile worry,
of tiresome publicity, of intolerable- functions, that
meant nothing but weariness of spirit. I think that
men of \\vj\\ official position are most to be pitied
because of the time that they ha\e to spend, not in
their work, but in the ornamental appearances en-
tniled on them bv their duties. These things have
AMBITION. 185
a certain value, I suppose, in stimulating the imagi-
nation of gazers ; but surely it is a poor value after
all. A secretary of state in his study, working out
the hard and tiresome details of a plan that will
benefit perhaps a whole nation in humble ways, is
a more admirable figure than the same man, in
ribbon and star, bowing and smiling at an evening
party. And yet the dignified trappings of the post
are what ordinary men desire.
The next step in my own progress when con-
fronted, as I say, with the prospect of the possi-
bility that I might feel bound to accept an important
position, was the consciousness of the anxious and
wearing responsibilities that it involved. I felt that
a millstone was to be bound round my neck, and
that I must bid farewell to what is after all the
best gift of heaven, my liberty ; a liberty won b)
anxious years of hard toil.
And here I have no doubt, though I tried hard
not to let it affect me, that my desire not to sacri-
fice my liberty did make me exaggerate the diffi-
culties that lay before me ; difficulties which I
should probably have unconsciously minimized if
I had desired the position which was in prospect.
It was a happy moment when I found myself
relieved from the responsibility of undertaking
an impossible task. I felt, too, that I was further
disqualified by my reluctance to attempt the task ;
a reluctance which a near prospect of the position
had poignantly revealed to me. A great task ought
to be taken up with a certain buoyancy and eager-
ness of spirit, not in heaviness and sadness. A cer-
tain tremor of nerves, a stage fright, is natural to all
sensitive performers. But this is merely a kind of
186 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
anteroom through which one must needs pass to a
part which one desires to play ; but if one does
not sincerely desire to play the part, it is clear
that to attempt it merely from a sense of duty is
an ill omen for success. And so I felt sincerely
and humbly that I ought not to feel compelled to
attempt it. The conviction came in a flash like
a divine intuition, and was followed by a peace of
mind which showed me that I was acting rightly.
I seemed too to perceive that the best work in the
world was not the work of administration and or-
ganization, but humble and individual ministries
performed in a corner without tangible rewards.
For such work I was both equipped and prepared,
and I turned back to the fallentis semi t a viter, which
is the true path for the sincere spirit, aware that I
had been truly and tenderly saved from committing
a grave mistake.
Perhaps if one could have looked at the whole
question in a simpler and larger-minded way, the
result might have been dilTerent. But here tempera-
ment comes in, and the very complexities and in-
tricacies that clouded the matter were of themselves
evidence that after all it was the temperament that
was at fault. Cecil Rhodes, it is recorded, once
asked Lord Acton why Mr. Bent, the explorer, did
not pronounce certain ruins to be of Pha-nician
origin. Lord Acton replied with a smile that it was
probably because he was not sure. ' Ah ! " said
Cecil Rhodes, " that is nut the way that Empires are
made." A true, interesting, and characteristic com-
ment ; but it also contains a lesson that people who
are not sure should not attempt to make empires,
or undertake tasks that involve the welfare of many.
AMBITION. 187
And so there remains the duty to me, after my
piece ot experience, to gather up the fragments that
remain, to interpret. Dante assigns the lowest place
in the lower world to those who refuse a great oppor-
tunity, but he is speaking of those who perversely
reject a great task, which is plainly in their power,
for some false and low motive. But the case is
different for those who have a great temptation put
before them, and who, desiring to do what is right,
have it brought home to them in a convincing way
that it is not their opportunity. No one ought to
assume great responsibilities if he is not equal to
them. One of the saddest things ever said on a
human deathbed was what was said by a great eccle-
siastic, who had disappointed the hopes that had
been formed of him. In his last moments he turned
to one who stood near him and murmured, " I have
held a great post, and I have not been equal to it."
The misery was that no one could sincerely con-
tradict him. It is not a piece of noble self-sacrifice
to have assumed confidently a great responsibility
to which one is not equal. It is a mere mistake,
and a mistake which is even more reprehensible
than the mistake of being over-persuaded into at-
tempting a task for which one is not fitted. One is
given reason and common sense and prudence that
one may use them, and to act contrary to their dic-
tates because those who do not know you so well
as you know yourself advise you cheerfully that it
will probably be all right, is an act of criminal
folly. Heavy responsibilities are lightly assumed
nowadays, because the temptations ot power and
publicity are very strong, and because too hiirh a
value is set upon worldly success. It is a plainer
1 88 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
and simpler duty for those who wish to act rightly,
and who have formed a deliberate idea of their
own limitations, to refuse great positions humbly
and seriously, if they know that they will be un-
equal to them.
Of course I knew that I should be reproached
with indolence and even cowardice. I knew that
I should be supposed to be one of those consist-
ently impracticable people who insist on going of!
at a tangent when the straight course lies before
them. That I should be relegated to the class of
persons who have failed in life through some deep-
seated defect of will. The worst of a serious deci-
sion of the kind is that, whichever step one takes,
one is sure to be blamed. I saw all this with painful
clearness, but it is better to be arraigned before the
tribunal of other men's consciences than to be con-
demned before one's own. It is better to refuse
and be disappointed, than to accept and be dis-
appointed. Failure in the course marked out, in
the event of acceptance, would have been disastrous,
not only to myself but to the institution I was to
be set to rule and guide. Far better that the task
should be entrusted to one who had no difHdence,
no hesitation, but a sincere confidence in his power
of dealing with the ditiiculties of the situation, and
an ardent de-sire to grapple with them.
The only difficulty, it one believes very strongly,
as I do, in a great ami \\ise Providence that guides
our path, is to interpret why the possibility of a
great task is indicated to one if it is not intended
that one should perform it. Hut the essence of a
true belief in the call of Providence seems to me
to lie not in the rash acceptance of any invitation
AMBITION. 189
that happens to come in one's way, hut a stern and
austere judgment of one's own faculties and powers.
I have not the smallest doubt that Providence in-
tended that this great task should be refused by
me ; my only dilriculty is to see what to make of
it, and why it was even suggested. One lesson is
that one must beware of personal vanity, another
that one should not indulge in the temptation to
desire important posts for any reason except the
best : the humble hope to do work that is useful
and valuable. If I had sternly repressed these
tendencies at an earlier stage of life, this tempta-
tion would not have been necessary, nor the humilia-
tion which inevitably succeeds it.
But
He that is down need fear no fall,
He that is low no pride.
And there can be now no more chance of these
bitter and self-revealing incidents, which show one,
as in a clear mirror, the secret weaknesses of the
heart.
But in setting aside the desire for the crowns
and thrones of ambition, we must be very careful
that we are not merely yielding to temptations of
indolence, of fastidiousness, of cowardice, and call-
ing a personal motive unworldliness for the sake of
the associations. No man need set himself to seek
great positions, but a man who is diffident, and
possibly indolent, will do well to pin himself down
in a position of responsibility and influence, if it
comes naturally in his way. There are a good many
men with high natural gifts of an instinctive kind
who are yet averse to using them diligently, who,
1 90 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
indeed, from the very facility with which they ex-
ercise them, hardly know their value. Such men
as these and I have known several undertake a
great responsibility if they refuse to take advantage
of obvious opportunities to use their gifts. Men
of this kind have often a certain vague, poetical,
and dreamy quality of mind ; a contemplative gift.
They see and exaggerate the difficulties and perils
of posts of high responsibility. If they yield to
temptations of temperament, they often become
ineffective, dilettante, half-hearted natures, playing
with life and speculating over it, instead of setting
to work on a corner of the tangle. They hang
spiritless upon the verge of the battle instead of
mingling with the fray. The curse of such tem-
peraments is that they seem destined to be un-
happy whichever way they decide. If they accept
positions of responsibility, they are fretted and
strained by difficulties and obstacles ; they live un-
easily and anxiously ; they lose the buoyancy with
which great work should be done ; if, on the other
hand, they refuse to come forward, they are tor-
tured with regrets for having abstained ; they be-
come conscious of ineffectiveness and indecision ;
they are haunted by the spectres of what might
have been.
The only course for such natures is to endeavour
to see where their true life lies, and to follow the
dictates of reason and conscience as far as possible.
They must resolve not to be tempted by the glamour
of possible success, but to take the true measure of
their powers. They nnist not yield to the temp-
tation to trust to the flattering judgment that others
may form of their capacities, nor liphf-herirtedly to
AMBITION. 191
shoulder a burden which they may be able to lift
but not to carry. Such natures will sometimes
attempt a great task with a certain glow and en-
thusiasm ; but they must ask themselves humbly
how they will continue to discharge it when the
novelty nas worn olT, and when the prospect that
lies before them is one of patient and unpraised
labour. It leads to worse disasters to over-estimate
one's powers than to under-estimate them. A man
who over-estimates his capacities is apt to grow im-
patient, and even tyrannical, in the presence of
difficulties.
And after all it may be said that humility is a
rarer virtue than confidence ; and though it is not
so popular, though it does not appeal so much to
the imagination, it is a quality that may well be
exercised, if it is done without self-consciousness,
in these busy days and in these active western climes.
The best work of the world is done, as I have said,
not by those who organize on a large scale, but by
those who work faithfully on individual lines, in
corners and byways. Indeed, the success of those
who organize and rule is due in part no doubt to
the power that they may possess of inspiring silent
effort, but is still more largely due to the faithful
workers whose labours are unnoted, who carry out
great designs in a simple and quiet spirit. There is
strong warrant in the teaching of Christ for the
work of those who are faithful in a few things.
There is no warrant for the action of those who
stride into the front, and clamour to be entrusted
with the destinies of others. There can be no
question that Christ does not admit the value of
ambition in anv form as a motive for character.
i 9 2 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
The lives that lie praises are the lives of quiet,
affectionate persons, more concerned with the things
of the spirit than with the things of the intellect.
The Christian must concern himself, not with
grasping at influence, not even with setting his
mark upon the world, but with the quality of his
decisions, his work, his words, his thoughts. The
only thing possible tor him is to go forward step by
step, trusting more to the guidance of (Jod than
to his own designs, to what are called intuitions
more than to reasoned conclusions. In that spirit,
if he can attain to it, he begins to be able to esti-
mate things at their true value. Instead of being
da/xled with the bright glare which the world
throws upon the objects of his desire, he sees all
things in a pale, clear li^ht of dawn, and true aims
begin to glow with an inner radiance. He may
tremble and hesitate before a decision, but once
taken there is no looking back ; he knows that he
has been guided, and that (Jod has told him, by
silent and eloquent motions of the spirit, what it is
that He would have him to do ; he has but to inter-
pret and to trust.
But even supposing that one has learnt one's
own lesson in the >chool of ambition, the question
comes in as to how far it should be used as a motive
for the young, by those who are entrusted with
educational responsibilities. It is one of the most
difficult things to dedi'.r as to what extent it is
permissible to use motives that are lower than the
highest, because they mav pos.-,css a greater effect-
iveness in the case of immature mini!--. It is easy
enoii'jh to sav sincerely lh.it one outfit always to
appeal to the highest possible motive; but \\hen
AMBITION. 193
one is conscious that the highest motive is quite
out of the horizon of the person concerned, and
practically is no motive at all, is it not merely ped-
antry to insist upon appealing to the highest motive
for one's own satisfaction ? It is not perhaps so
difficult where the lower reason for a course of
action is still a sound reason in itself, as, for instance,
if one is trying to help a man out of drunken habits.
The highest motive to appeal to is the truth that
in yielding to sensual impulses, in such a matter, a
man is falling short of his best ideal ; but a more
practical motive is to point out the loss of health
and respectability that results from the practice.
Yet when one appeals to a boy's ambition, and en-
courages him to be ambitious, one cannot be quite
certain whether one is not appealing to a false motive
altogether. The excuse for using it is the hope
that, when for the sake of ambition he has learnt
diligence and perseverance, he may grow to per-
ceive that the competitive instinct, which in its
barest form is the desire to obtain desirable things
at the expense of others, is not in reality a good
motive at all. With immature characters part of
the joy of success is that others have been beaten,
the pride of having carried off a prize which others
are disappointed of obtaining. And if one talks to
an ambitious boy, and tries to inculcate the prin-
ciple that one should do one's best without caring
about results, one is generally conscious that he
believes it to be only a tiresome professional plati-
tude, the kind of sentiment in which older people
think fit to indulge for the purpose, if possible, of
throwing cold water on innocent enjoyment.
Yet, after all, how very few people there are
i 9 4 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
who do learn the further lesson ! The successful
man generally continues to show to the end of his
life a contempt for unsuccessful persons, which is
only good-humoured because of the consciousness
of his own triumph ; how rare, again, it is to find
an unsuccessful person who' does not attempt, if
he can, to belittle the attainments of his successful
rival, or who at least, if he overcomes that tempta-
tion from a sense of propriety, feels entitled to
nourish a secret satisfaction at any indication of
failure on the part of the man who has obtained
the prize that lie himself coveted in vain. Yet if
one has ever seen, as I have, the astonishing change
ot both work and even character which may come
over a boy or a young man who is perhaps diffident
and indolent, if one can get him to do a successful
piece ot work, or push an opportunity in his way
and help him to sei/c it, one hesitates before ruling
out the use of ambition as an incentive. Perhaps
it is uneasy and casuistical morality to shrink from
usuv.: this incentive, so long as one faithfully puts
the higher side of the question before a boy as well.
But when one is quite sure that the larger aspect
of the case will tall on cleat ears, and that only the
lower stimulus will be absorbed, one is apt to hesi-
tate. I am inclined, however, to think that such
hesitation is on the \\hole misplaced, and that in
dealing with immature minds one must be content
to us i- immature moti\es. There is a temptation to
try and keep the education of people too much in
one's own hands, and to teel oneselt to be too re-
sponsible in the matter. I have a friend who errs
in thi- respect, anil \s!io is apt to assume too wide
a responsibility in de.ilii".: with others, who was
AMBITION. 195
gently rebuked by a wise-hearted teacher of wide
and deep experience, who said on one occasion,
when over-anxiety had spoilt the effect of my
friend's attempts, that he ought to be content to
leave something for God to do.
But for oneself, one must try to learn the large
lesson in the course of time, to learn that the sense
of ambition is often, in reality, only a sense of per-
sonal vanity and self-confidence disguised ; and
that the one possible attitude of mind is to go
humbly and patiently forward, desiring the best,
labouring faithfully and abundantly, neither seek-
ing nor avoiding great opportunities, not failing in
courage nor giving way to rash impulses, and realiz-
ing the truth of the wise old Greek proverb that
the greatest of all disasters for a man is to be opened
and found to be empty ; the wise application of
which to life is not to avoid the occasions of open-
ing, but to make sure that if the opening comes
inevitably, we shall be found not to have devoted
ourselves to the adorning of the casket, but to have
piled with careful hands the treasure high within.
XIV
THE SIMPLE LIFE
THERE is a good deal of talk just now about
" the simple life," and though I would not go
so far as to say that there is a movement in the
direction of it, yet the talk that one hears on many
sides proves, at all events, that people take a certain
interest in the question.
Part of it is a pose no doubt ; there is a distin-
guished, and I would add very charming, lady of
my acquaintance, \sho has the subject constantly
on her lips. Her method of practising simplicity
is a delightful one, as all her methods are. In addi-
tion to the three magnificent residences which she
already possesses, she lias bought a cottage in a
secluded part of the country ; she has spent a large
sum of money in adding to it ; it is furnished with
that stately austerity \\hkii can only be achieved at
great expense. She inntois down there, perhaps
three times in the year, and spends three days there,
on each visit, with tv\o or three friends who are
cquallv in love \\ith simplicity; I was fortunate
enough, the other dav , to he included in one of
these parties ; the onh us of simplicity to the
complex mind uere th.it i ! . re were only live courses
at dinner, that we dranh eharnjvu'iic out of rather
THE SIMPLE LIFE. 197
old-fashioned long glasses, and that two goats were
tethered in a corner of the lawn. The goats 1 un-
derstood were the seal and symbol of the simple life.
No use was made of them, and they were decidedly
in the way, but without them life would have been
complicated at once.
When we went off again in the motor, my
charming hostess waved her hand at the little cot-
tage, as we turned the corner, with a sigh, as of
one condemned by a stern fate to abjure the rural
felicity which she loved, and then settled down
with delighted zest to discuss her programme of
social engagements for the next few weeks.
It had certainly been very delightful ; we had
talked all day long ; we had wandered, adoring
simplicity, on the village green ; we had attended
an evening service in the church ; we had con-
sumed exquisitely cooked meals about an hour before
the usual time, because to breakfast at eight and to
dine at seven was all part of the pretty game. I
ventured to ask my hostess how she would like to
spend six months in her cottage comparatively
alone, and she replied with deep conviction, " I
should adore it ; I would give all I possess to be
able to do it." L Then it is nothing," I said, " but
a sense of duty that tears you away ? " To which
she made no answer except to shake her head
mournfully, and to give me a penetrating smile.
I cannot help wondering whether the people
who talk about the simple life have any idea what
it means ; I do not think that my fair hostess's
desire for it is altogether a pose. One who lives,
as she does, in the centre of the fashionable world,
must inevitably tire of it from time to time. She
198 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
meets the same people over and over again, she
hears the same stories, the same jokes ; she is not
exactly an intellectual woman, though she has a
taste for books and music ; the interest for her, in
the world in which she lives, is the changing rela-
tions of people, their affinities, their aversions, their
loves and hates, their warmth and their coldness.
What underlies the shifting scene, the endless enter-
tainments, the country-house visits, the ebb and flow
of society, is really the mystery of sex. People with
not very much to do but to amuse themselves, with
no prescribed duties, with few intellectual interests,
become preoccupied in what is the great underly-
ing force in the world, the passion of love ; the talk
that goes on, dull and tiresome as it appears to an
outsider, is all charged with the secret influence ;
it is not what is said that matters ; it is what is
implied by manner and glance and inflection of
tone. This atmosphere of electrical emotion is, for
a good many years of their lives, the native air of
these fair and unoccupied women. Men drift into
it and out of it, and it provides for them often no
more than a beautiful and thrilling episode ; they
become interested in sport, in agriculture, in poli-
tics, in business ; but with women it is different ;
lovers and husbands, emotional friendships with
other women these constitute the business of life
for a time ; and then perhaps the tranquillizing and
purer love of children, the troubles and joys of grow-
ing boys and girls, come in to fill the mind \\ith a
serener and kindlier, though not less passionate an
emotion ; and so hit- passes, and age draws near.
It is thus easier lor men to lead the simple life
than \sonicn, because they tuul it natural to grow
THE SIMPLE LIFE. i 99
absorbed in some definite and tangible occupa-
tion ; and, after all, the essence of the simple life
is that it can be lived in any milieu and under any
circumstances. It does not require a cottage orne
and a motor, though these are not inconsistent with
it, if only they are natural.
I would try to trace what I believe the essence
of the simple life to be ; it lies very far down in
the spirit, among the roots of life. The first re-
quisite is a perfect sincerity of character. This
implies many things : it means a joyful temper-
ance of soul, a certain clearness and strength of
temperament. The truly simple person must not
be vague and indeterminate, swayed by desire or
shifting emotion ; he must meet others with a
candid frankness, he must have no petty ambi-
tions, he must have wide and genial interests, he
must be quick to discern what is beautiful and
wise ; he must have a clear and straightforward
point of view ; he must act on his own intuitions
and beliefs, not simply try to find out what other
people are thinking and try to think it too ; he
must in short be free from conventionality. The
essence of the really simple character is that a man
should accept his environment and circle ; if he
is born in the so-called world, he need not seek to
fly from it. Such a character as I have described
has a marvellous power of evoking what is sincere
and simple in other natures ; such a one will tend
to believe that other people are as straightforward
and genuine as himself ; and he will not be wholly
mistaken, because when they are with him, they will
be simple too. The simple person will have a
strong, but not a Pharisaic?!, ^cnse of duty ; he
200 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
will probably credit other people with the same
sense of duty, and he will not often feel himself
bound to disapprove of others, reserving his indig-
nation for any instances of cruelty, meanness, false-
ness, and selfishness that he may encounter. He
will not be suspicious or envious. Yet he will not
necessarily be what is called a religious man, because
his religion will be rather vital than technical. To
be religious in the technical sense of the word to
care, that is, for religious services and solemnities,
for priestly influences, for intricate doctrinal emo-
tions-implies a strong artistic sense, and is often
very far removed from any simplicity of conduct.
But on the other hand the simple man will have a
strong sense of responsibility, a deep confidence in
the Will of God and His high purposes.
And thus the simple man will scarcely be a man
of leisure, because there is so much that he will
desire to do, and which he will feel called upon to
do. Whatever he considers to be his work, he will
do with a cheerful energy, which will sustain him
far beyond the threshold of fatigue. His personal
wants will be few ; he will not care for spending
money for the sake of spending it, but he will be
liberal and generous win-never there is need. He
will be uneasy in luxury. lie will be a lover of
the open air and of the country, but his aim will
be exercise, and the sense of health and vigour,
rather than amusement. He will never be reduced
to asking himself how he is going to spend the day,
for the present day, and a long perspective of days
ahead, will already he full by anticipation. He will
take work, amusement, people, as they come, and
he will not be apt to make plans or to arrange
TIIK SIMPLH LIH-. 201
parties, because he will expect to find in ordinary
life the amusement and the interest that he desires.
Me will be above all things tender-hearted, kind, and
fearless. lie will not take fancies to people, or
easily discard a friend ; but he will be courteous,
kind to all weakness, compassionate to awkwardness,
fond of children, good-natured, loving laughter and
peacefulness ; he will not be easily disappointed,
and he will have no time to be fretful, if things do
not turn out exactly as he desires.
I have known such persons in ever}' rank of
life. They are the people who can be depended
upon to do what they undertake, to understand the
difficulties of others, to sympathize, to help. The
essence of it all is a great absence of self-conscious-
ness, and such people as I have described would
be genuinely surprised, as a rule, if they were told
that they were living a different life from the lives
of others.
This simplicity of nature is not often found in
conjunction with very great artistic or intellectual
gifts ; but when it is so found, it is one of the
most perfect combinations in the world.
The one thing that is entirely fatal to simplicity
is the desire to stimulate the curiosity of others in
the matter. The most conspicuous instance of
this, in literature, is the case of Thoreau, who is
by many regarded as the apostle of the simple life.
Thoreau was a man of extremely simple tastes, it
is true. He ate pulse, whatever that may be, and
drank water ; he was decnlv interested in the con-
templation of nature, and he loved to disembarrass
himself of all the apparatus of lil'e. It was really
that he hated trouble more than anthin in the
202 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
world ; he found that by working six weeks in the
vear, he could earn enough to enable him to live
m a hut in a wood for the rest of the twelvemonth ;
he did his household work himself, and his little
stock of money sufficed to buy him food and clothes,
and to meet his small expenses. But Thoreau was
indolent rather than simple ; and what spoilt his
simplicity was that he was for ever hoping that he
would be observed and admired ; he was for ever
peeping out of the corner of his eye, to see if in-
quisitive strangers were hovering about to observe
the hermit at his contemplation. If he had really
loved simplicity best, he would have lived his life
and not troubled himself about what other people
thought of him ; but instead of that he found his
own simplicity a deeply interesting and refreshing
subject of contemplation. He was for ever looking
at himself in the glass, and describing to others the
rugged, sunbrowned, slovenly, solemn person that
he saw there.
And then, too, it was easier for Thoreau to
make money than it would be for the ordinary arti-
san. When Thoreau wrote his famous maxim, " To
maintain oneself on this earth is not a hardship but
a pastime," he did not add that he was himself a
man of remarkable mechanical gifts ; he made,
when he was disposed, admirable pencils, he was
an excellent land-surveyor, and an author as well ;
moreover, he was a celibate by nature. He would
no doubt have found, it he hail had a wife and
children, and no aptitude for skilled labour, that
he would have had to \vurk as hard as any one else.
Thoreau had, too, a quality \slm'li is in itselt an
econoiuic.il thing. He did not care in the least for
THE SIMPLE LIFE. 203
society. He said that he would rather ' keep
bachelor's hall in hell than go to board in heaven."
He was not a sociable man, and sociability is in
itself expensive. lie had, it is true, some devoted
friends, but it seems that he would have done
anything for them except see them. He was a
man of many virtues and no vices, but he was
most at his ease with faddists. Not that he avoided
his fellow-men ; he was always ready to see people,
to talk, to play with children, but on the other
hand society was not essential to him. Yet, just
and virtuous as he was, there was something radi-
cally unamiable about him : ' I love Henry," one
of his friends said of him, " but I cannot like him ;
and as for taking his arm I should as soon think of
taking the arm of an elm-tree." He was in fact an
egotist with strong fancies and preferences ; and,
though he was an ascetic by preference, he cannot
be called a simple-minded man, because the essence
of simplicity is not to ride a hobby hard. He
thought and talked too much about simplicity ; and
the fact is that simplicity, like humility, cannot
exist side by side with self-consciousness. The
moment that a man is conscious that he is simple
and humble, he is simple and humble no longer.
You cannot become humble by reminding people
constantly, like Uriah Heep, of your humility; simi-
larly you cannot become simple, by doing elabor-
ately, and making a parade of doini:, the things that
the simple man would do without thinking about
them.
It is almost true to say that the people who are
most in love with simplicity are often the most
complicated natures. They become weary of their
204 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
own complexity, and they fancy that by acting on
a certain regimen they can arrive at tranquillity of
soul. It is in reality just the other way. One must
become simple in soul first, and the simple setting
follows as a matter of course. If a man can purge
himself of ambition, and social pride, and ostenta-
tion, and the desire of praise, his life falls at once
into a simple mould, because keeping up appear-
ances is the most expensive thing in the world ; to
begin with eating pulse and drinking water, is as
if a man were to wear his hair like Tennyson, and
expect to become a poet thereby. Asceticism is
the sign and not the cause of simplicity. The simple
life will become easy and common enough when
people have simple minds and hearts, when they
do the duties that lie ready to their hand, and do
not crave for recognition.
Neither can simplicity be brought about by a
movement. There is nothing which is more fatal
to it than that people should meet to discuss the
subject ; it can only be done by individuals, and
in comparative isolation. A friend of mine dreamed
the other day that she \v;is discussing the subject of
mission services with a stranger ; she defended
them in her dream with great warmth and rhetoric :
when she had done, her companion said, " \\ell, to
tell you the truth, I don't believe in people being
inspired /'// rows." Tins oracular saving has a pro-
found truth in it- that salvation is not to be loum!
in public meetings ; and that to assemble a number
of persons, and to address them on the subject of
simplicitv, is the surest v.ay to miss thc charm of
that secluded \ irtue.
The wor;.; of it is that the real, practical, noral
THE SIMPLE LIFE. 205
simplicity of which I have been speaking is not an
attractive thing to a generation fond of movement
and excitement ; what they desire is a picturesque
mise-en-scene, a simplicity which comes as a little
pretty interlude to busy life ; they do not desire it
in its entirety and continuously. They would find
it dull, triste, enmiyant.
Thus it must fall into the hands of individuals
to practise it, who are sincerely enamoured of
quietness and peace. The simple man must have
a deep fund of natural joy and zest ; he must bring
his own seasoning to the plain fare of life ; but if
he loves the face of nature, and books, and his
fellow-men, and above all, work, there is no need
for him to go out into the wilderness in pursuit of
a transcendental ideal. But those whose spirits flag
and droop in solitude ; who open their eyes upon
the world, and wonder what they will find to do ;
who love talk and laughter and amusement ; who
crave for alcoholic mirth, and the song of them
that feast, had better make no pretence of pursuing
a spirit which haunts the country lane and the
village street, the rough pasture beside the brim-
ming stream, the forest glade, with the fragrant
breeze blowing cool out of the wood. Simplicity,
to be successfully attained, must be the result of
a passionate instinct, not of a picturesque curiosity ;
and it is useless to lament that one has no time to
possess one's soul, if, when one visits the inner-
most chamber, there is nothing there but cobwebs
and ugly dust.
XV
GAMES
IT requires almost more courage to write about
panics nowadays than it docs to write about the
Decalogue, because the higher criticism is tend-
ing to make a belief in the Decalogue a matter
of taste, while to the ordinary Englishman a belief
in games is a matter of faith and morals.
I will begin by saying frankly that 1 do not like
games ; but I say it, not because any particular
interest attaches to my own dislikes and likes, but
to raise a little flag of revolt against a species of
social tyranny. 1 believe that there are a good
many people who do not like games, but who do
not dare to say so. Perhaps it may be thought that
I am speaking from the point of view of a person
who has never been able to play them. A vision
rises in the mind ot a spectacled owlish man, trot-
ting feebly about a football field, and making des-
perate attempts to avoid the proximity of the ball ;
or joining in a game ot cricket, and fielding a drive
with the air of a man trsing to catch an insect on
the ground, or sitting in a boat with the oar fixed
under his chin, being forced backwards \\ith an air
of smiling and virtuous eontiiMnii. 1 hasten to say
that this is not a true picture. 1 arrived at a rea-
GAMES. 207
sonable degree of proficiency in several games : I
was a competent, though not a zealous, oar ; I
captained a college football team, and I do not
hesitate to say that I have derived more pleasure
from football than from any other form of exercise.
I have climbed some mountains, and am even a
member of the Alpine Club ; I may add that I am
a keen, though not a skilful, sportsman, and am
indeed rather a martyr to exercise and open air.
I make these confessions simply to show that I do
not approach the subject from the point of view of
a sedentary person but indeed rather the reverse.
No weather appears to me to be too bad to go out
in, and I do not suppose there are a dozen days in
the year in which I do not contrive to get exercise.
But exercise in the open air is one thing, and
games are quite another. It seems to me that
when a man has reached an age of discretion,
he ought no longer to need the stimulus of com-
petition, the desire to hit or kick balls about, the
wish to do such things better than other people.
It seems to me that the elaborate organization of
athletics is a really rather serious thing, because it
makes people unable to get on without some species
of excitement. I was staying the other day at a
quiet house in the country, where there was noth-
ing particular to do ; there was not, strange to say,
even a golf course within reach. There came to
stay there for a few days an eminent golfer, who
fell into a condition of really pitiable dejection.
The idea of taking a walk or riding a bicycle was in-
supportable to him ; and I think he never left the
house except for a rueful stroll in the garden. When
I was a schoolmaster it used to distress me to iind
2o8 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
how invariably the parents of boys discoursed with
earnestness and solemnity about a boy's games ;
one was told that a boy was a good field, and really
had the makings of an excellent bat ; eager in-
quiries were made as to whether it was possible for
the boy to get some professional coaching ; in the
case of more philosophically inclined parents it gen-
erally led on to a statement of the social advantages
of being a good cricketer, and often to the expres-
sion of a belief that virtue was in some way indis-
solubly connected with keenness in games. Eor
one parent who said anything about a boy's intel-
lectual interests, there were ten whose preoccupa-
tion in the boy's athletics was deep and vital.
It is no wonder that, with all this parental ear-
nestness, boys tended to consider success in games
the one paramount object of their lives ; it was all
knit up with social ambitions, and it was viewed,
I do not hesitate to say, as of infinitely more im-
portance than anything else. I do not mean to say
that many of the boys did not consider it important
to be good, and did not desire to be conscientious
about their work. But as a practical matter games
were what they thought about and talked about,
and what aroused genuine enthusiasm. They were
disposed to despise boys who could not play games,
however virtuous, kindly, and sensible they might
be ; an entire lack of conscientiousness, and even
grave moral obliquity, were apt to be condoned in
the case of a successful athlete. We masters, I must
frankly confess, clul not make any serious attempt
to right the tendency. \Vc spent our spare time
in walking about the cricket and football tic-Ids, in
looking on, in discussing the line nuances in the
GAMES. 209
style of individual players. It was very natural to
take an interest in the thing which was to the boys
a matter of profound concern ; hut what I should
be inclined to censure was that it was really a
matter of profound concern with ourselves ; and
we did not take a kindly and paternal interest in
the matter, so much as the interest of enthusiasts
and partisans.
It is very difficult to see how to alter this. Prob-
ably, like other deep-seated national tendencies, it
will have to cure itself. It would be impossible to
insist that the educators of youth should suppress the
interest which they instinctively and genuinely feel
in games, and profess an interest in intellectual
matters which they do not really feel. No good
would come out of practising hypocrisy in the mat-
ter, from however high a motive. While school-
masters rush off to golf whenever they get a chance,
and fill their holidays to the brim with games of
various kinds, it would be simply hypocritical to
attempt to conceal the truth ; and the difficulty is
increased by the fact that, while parents and boys
alike feel as they do about the essential importance
of games, head-masters are more or less bound to
select men for masterships who are proficient in
them ; because whatever else has to be attended
to at school, games have to be attended to ; and,
moreover, a man whom the boys respect as an
athlete is likely to be more effective both as a dis-
ciplinarian and a teacher. If a man is a first-rate
slow bowler, the boys will consider his views on
Thucydides and Euclid more worthy of considera-
tion than the views of a man who has only a high
university degree.
zio FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
The other day I was told of the case of a head-
master of a small proprietary private school, who
was treated with open insolence and contempt by
one of his assistants, who neglected his work,
smoked in his class-room, and even absented him-
self on occasions without leave. It may be asked
why the head-master did not dismiss his recalci-
trant assistant. It was because he had secured a
man who was a 'Varsity cricket-blue, and whose
presence on the staiF pave the parents confidence,
and provided an excellent advertisement. The
assistant, on the other hand, knew that he could
get a similar post for the asking, and on the whole
preferred a school where he might consult his own
convenience. This is, of course, an extreme case ;
but would to God, as Dr. Johnson said, that it
were an impossible one ! I do not wish to tilt
against athletics, nor do I at all undervalue the
benefits of open air and exercise for growing boys.
But surely there is a lamentable want of propor-
tion about the whole view ! The truth is that we
English are in many respects barbarians still, and
as we happen at the present time to be wealthy
barbarians, we devote our time and our energies
to the things for which we really care. 1 do not
at all want to see games diminished, or played
with less keenness. 1 only desire to see them
duly subordinated. 1 do not think it ought to
be considered slightly ci centric for a boy to care
verv much about his work, or to take an interest
J
in books. I should h!.e it to be recognized at
schools that the one (ju.ility that was admirable
was keenness, and th.it it v,.is admirable in \\liat-
ever department it was displayed ; but nowadays
GAMES. 211
keenness about games is considered admirable and
heroic, while keenness about work or books is con-
sidered slightly grovelling and priggish.
The same spirit has affected what is called sport.
People no longer look upon it as an agreeable inter-
lude, but as a business in itself ; they will not accept
invitations to shoot, unless the sport is likely to be
good ; a moderate performer with the gun is
treated as if it was a crime for him to want to shoot
at all ; then the motoring craxe has come in upon
the top of the golfing craze ; and all the spare time
of people of leisure tends to be tilled up with bridge.
The difficulty in dealing with the situation is that
the thing itself is not only not wrong, but really
beneficial ; it is better to be occupied than to be
idle, and it is hard to preach against a thing which
is excellent in moderation and only mischievous in
excess.
Personally I am afraid that I only look upon
games as a pis-allcr. I would always rather take
a walk than play golf, and read a book than play
bridge. Bridge, indeed, I should regard as only
one degree better than absolutely vacuous conver-
sation, which is certainly the most fatiguing thing
in the world. But the odd thing is that while it
is regarded as rather vicious to do nothing, it is
regarded as positively virtuous to play a game. Per-
sonally I think competition always a more or less
disagreeable thing. I dislike it in real life, and I
do not see why it should be introduced into one's
amusements. If it amuses me to do a thing, I do
not very much care whether I do it better than
another person. I have no desire to be always
comparing my skill with the skill of others.
212 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
Then, too, I am afraid that I must confess to a
lamentably feeble pleasure in mere country sights
and sounds. I love to watch the curious and beau-
tiful things that go on in every hedgerow and every
field ; it is a ceaseless delight to see the tender un-
cnimpling leaves of the copse in spring, and no less
a pleasure to see the woodland streaked and stained
with the flaming glories of autumn. It is a joy in
high midsummer to see the clear dwindled stream
run under the thick ha/els, among the lush water-
plants ; it is no less a joy to see the same stream
running full and turbid in winter, when the banks
are bare, and the trees are leailess, and the pasture
is wrinkled with frost. Half the joy, for instance,
of shooting, in which I trankly confess I take a
childish delight, is the <juiet tramping over the clean-
cut stubble, the distant view of field and wood, the
long, quiet wait at the covert-end, where the spindle-
wood hangs out her quaint rosy berries, and the
rabbits come scampering up the copse, as the far-
oif tapping of the beaters draws near in the frosty
air. The delights of the country-side grow upon
ir>e even' month and every year. 1 love to stroll
in the lanes in spring, with white clouds floating in
the blue above, and to see the glade carpeted with
steel-blue hyacinths. I love to \\alk on country
roads or by woodland paths, on a rain-drenched
day of summer, when the sky is full of heavy inky
clouds, and the earth smells iresh and sweet; I
love to go briskly homeward on a \\mter evening,
when the sunset smoulders low in the west, when
the pheasants leap trumpeting to their roosts, and
the lights begin to peep in cottage windows.
Such joys as these are \\ithin the reach of every
GAMES. 213
one ; and to call the country dull because one has
not the opportunity of hitting and pursuing a little
white ball round and round among the same fields,
with elaborately contrived obstacles to test the skill
and the temper, seems to me to be grotesque, if it
were not also so distressing.
I cannot help feeling that games are things that
are appropriate to the restless days of boyhood,
when one will take infinite trouble and toil over any-
thing of the nature of a make-believe, so long as it
is understood not to be work ; but as one gets older
and perhaps wiser, a simpler and quieter range of
interests ought to take their place. I can humbly
answer for it that it need imply no loss of zest ; my
own power of enjoyment is far deeper and stronger
than it was in early years ; the pleasures I have
described, of sight and sound, mean infinitely more
to me than the definite occupations of boyhood
ever did. But the danger is that if we are brought
up ourselves to depend upon games, and if we
bring up all our boys to depend on them, we are
not able to do without them as we grow older ; and
thus we so often have the melancholy spectacle of
the elderly man, who is hopelessly bored with ex-
istence, and who is the terror of the smoking-room
and the dinner-table, because he is only capable
of indulging in lengthy reminiscences of his own
astonishing athletic performances, and in lamenta-
tions over the degeneracy of the human race.
Another remarkable fact about the convention-
ality that attends games is that certain games are
dismissed as childish and contemptible while others
are crowned with glory 7 and worship. One knows
of eminent clergymen who play golf; a TV.! that they
2i 4 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
should do so seems to constitute so high a title to
the respect and regard with which normal persons
view them, that one sometimes wonders whether
they do not take up the practice with the wisdom
of the serpent that is recommended in the Gospels,
or hecause of the Pauline doctrine of adaptability,
that by all means they may save some.
But as far as mere air and exercise goes, the
childish game of playing at horses is admirably
calculated to increase health and vigour and needs
no expensive resources. Yet what would be said and
thought if a prelate and his suffragan ran nimbly out
of a palace gate in a cathedral close, with little bells
tinkling, whips cracking, and reins of red ribbon
drawn in to repress the curvetting of the gaitered
steed ? There is nothing in reality more undig-
nified about that than in hitting a little ball about
over sandy bunkers. If the Prime Minister and the
Lord Chief Justice trundled hoops round and round
after breakfast in the gravelled space behind the
Horse Guards, who could allege that they would
not be the better for the exercise ? Yet thcv would
be held for some mysterious reason to have forfeited
respect. To the mind ot the philosopher all games
arc either silly or reasonable ; and nothing so reveals
the stupid conventionality of the ordinary mind as
the fact that men consider a series of handbooks on
Great Howlers to be a serious and important addi-
tion to literature, while they would hold that a little
manual on Blind-man's l.ulf was a tit subject for
dcriMon. St. Paul said that when he became a man
he put away childish tilings, lie could hanllv
afford to say that now, it he hoped to be regarded
as a man of sense and weight.
GAMES. 215
I do not wish to be a mere Jeremiah in the
region of prophecy, and to deplore, sarcastically
and incisively, what I cannot amend. What I
rather wish to do is to make a plea for greater
simplicity in the matter, and to try and destroy
some of the terrible priggishness in the matter of
athletics, which appears to me to prevail. After all,
athletics are only one form of leisurely amusement ;
and I maintain that it is of the essence of priggish-
ness to import solemnity into a matter which does
not need it, and which would be better without it.
Because the tyranny is a real one ; the man of many
games is not content with simply enjoying them ;
he has a sense of complacent superiority, and a
hardly disguised contempt for the people who do
not play them.
I was staying in a house the other day where a
distinguished philosopher had driven over to pay
an afternoon call. The call concluded, he wished
to make a start, so I went down to the stable with
him to see about putting his pony in. The stables
were deserted. I was forced to confess that I knew
nothing about the harnessing of steeds, however
humble. We discovered portions of what appeared
to be the equipment of a pony, and I held them for
him, while he gingerly tried them on, applying
them cautiously to various portions of the innocent
animal's person. Eventually we had to give it up
as a bad job, and seek for professional assistance.
I described the scene for the benefit of a lively lady
of my acquaintance, who is a devotee of anything
connected with horses, and she laughed unmercifully
at the description, and expressed the contempt,
which she sincerely i'elt, in no measured term::-
216 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
But, after all, it is no part of my business to har-
ness horses ; it is a convenience that there should
he persons who possess the requisite knowledge ;
tor me horses only represent a convenient form of
locomotion. I did not mind her being amused
indeed, that was the object of my narrative but
her contempt was just as much misplaced as if I
had despised her for not being able to tell the
dilference between sapphics ana alcaics, which it
was my business to know.
It is the complacency, the self-satisfaction, that
results from the worship of games, which is one
of its most serious features. I wish with all my
heart that I could surest a remedy for it ; but
the only thing that ! can do is to pursue my own
inclinations, with a fervent conviction that they are
at least as innocent as the pursuit of athletic exer-
cises ; and I can also, as I have said, wave a little
flag of revolt, and rally to my standard the quieter
and more simple-minded persons, who love their
liberty, and decline to part with it unless they can
find a better reason than the merely comfortable
desire to do what every one else is doing.
XVI
SPIRITUALISM
I WAS sitting the other day in a vicarage garden
with my friend the vicar. It was a pretty, well-
kept place, with old shrubberies and umbrageous
trees ; to the right, the tower of the church rose
among its elms. We sate out of the wind, looking
over a rough pasture field, apparently a common,
divided from the garden by a little ha-ha of brick.
The surface of the field was very irregular, as
though there had been excavations made in it for
gravel at some time or other ; in certain parts of
the field there appeared fragments of a stone wall,
just showing above the ground.
The vicar pointed to the field. ' Do you see
that wall ? " he said ; "I will tell you a very curi-
ous story about that. When I came here, forty
years ago, I asked the old gardener what the field
was, as I never saw any one in it, or any beasts
grazing there ; and yet it was unfenced, and ap-
peared to be common land- it was full of little
thickets and thorn-bushes then. He was not ven
willing to tell me, I thought, but by dint of ques-
tions I discovered that it was a common, and that
it was known locally by the curious name of Heareri's
Walls. He went on to say that it was considered
2i8 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
unlucky to set foot in it ; and that, as a matter of
fact, no villager would ever dream ot going there ;
he would not say why, but at last it came out that
it was supposed to be haunted by a spirit. No one,
it seemed, had ever seen anything there, but it was
an unlucky place.
' Well, I thought no more of it at the time,
though I often went into the field. It was a quiet
and pretty place enough ; full of thickets, as I have
said, where the birds built unmolested there was
generally a goldfinch's nest there.
"It became necessary to lay a drain across it,
and a big trench was dug. One day they came and
told me that the workmen had found something-
would I go and look at it ? I went out and found
that they had unearthed a large Roman cinerary
urn, containing some calcined bones. I told the
lord of the manor, who is a squire in the next parish,
and he and I after that kept a look-out over the
workmen. We found another urn, and another, both
full of bones. Then we found a big glass vessel,
also containing bones. The squire got interested
in the thing, and eventually had the whole place
dug out. We found a large enclosure, once sur-
rounded by a stone wall, of which you see the
remains ; in two ot the corners there \\as an enor-
mous deposit of wood ashes, in deep pits, which
looked as it great fires had burnt there ; and the
walls in those two corners weie all calcined and
smoke-stained. We tomul iilty or sixty urns, all
full of bones ; and in another corner there was a
deep shall, like a \\cll, du^ in the chalk, \Mth hand-
holds do\vn the sides, al.Mi lull ot calcined bones.
We fo'.Hi i 'i fe'.v coni'v an>l in one- pi ice a congloniera-
SPIRITUALISM. 219
tion of rust that looked as if it might ha\e hern a
heap of tools or weapons. We set the antiquaries
to work, and they pronounced it to he \\hat is
called a Roman Ustrinum that is to say, a puhlic
crematorium, where people who could not afford
a separate funeral might bring a corpse to he burnt.
If they had no place to deposit the urn, in which
the bones were enclosed, they were allowed, it
seems, to bury the urn there, until such time as
they cared to remove it. There was a big Roman
settlement here, you know. There was a fort on
the hill there, and the sites of several large Roman
villas have been discovered in the neighbourhood.
This place must have stood rather lonely, away
from the town, probably in the wood which then
covered the whole of this county ; but it is curi-
ous, is it not ? " said the vicar, " that the tradition
should have been handed down through all these
centuries of its being an ill-omened place, long
after any tradition of what the uses of the spot
were ! "
It was curious indeed ! The vicar was pre-
sently called away, and 1 sate musing over the
strange old story. I could fancy the place as it
must have been, standing with its high blank walls
in a clearing of the forest, with perhaps a great
column of evil-smelling smoke drifting in oily waves
over the corner of the wall, telling ot the sad rites
that were going on within. I could fancy heavy-
eyed mourners dragging a bier up to the gates, with
a silent form lying upon it, waiting in pale dismay
until the great doors were flung open hy the sombre
rough attendants of the place ; until they could see
the ugly enclosure, with the wood piled high in the
220 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
pit for the last sad service. Then would follow the
burning and the drenching of the ashes, the gather-
ing of the bones all that was left of one so dear,
father or mother, boy or maiden the enclosing of
them in the urn, and the final burial. What agonies
of simple grief the place must have witnessed! Then,
I suppose, the place was deserted by the Romans,
the walls crumbled down into ruin, grass and bushes
grew over the place. Then perhaps the forest was
gradually felled and stubbed up, as the area of cul-
tivation widened ; but still the sad tradition of the
spot left it desolate, until all recollection of its pur-
pose was gone. No doubt, in Saxon days, it was
thought to be haunted by the old wailing, restless
spirits of those who had suffered the last rites there ;
so that still the place was condemned to a sinister
solitude.
I went on to reflect over the strange and obsti-
nate tradition that lingers still with such vitality
among the human race, that certain places are
haunted by the spirits of the dead. It is hard to
believe that such tradition, so widespread, so uni-
versal, should have no kind of justification in fact.
And yet there appears to be no justification for the
idea, unless the spiritual conditions of the world
have altered, unless there \\cre real phenomena
which have for some cause ceased to manifest them-
selves, which originated the tradition. Hut there
is certainly no scientific evidence of the fact. The
Psychical Society, which has faced some ridicule
for its serious attempt to find out the truth about
these matters, have announced that investigations
of so-called haunted houses have produced no
evidence whatever. Thrv seem to !< a wholly
SPIRITUALISM. 221
unreliable type of stories, which always break
down under careful inquiry. I am inclined myself
to believe that such stories arose in a perfectly nat-
ural way. It is perfectly natural to simple people
to believe that the spirit which animated a mortal
body would, on leaving it, tend to linger about the
scene of suffering and death. Indeed, it is im-
possible not to feel that, if the spirit has any con-
scious identity, it would be sure to desire to remain
in the neighbourhood of those whom it loved so
well. But the unsatisfactory element in these stories
is that it generally appears to be the victim of some
heinous deed, and not the perpetrator, who is con-
demned to make its sad presence known, by wailing
and by sorrowful gestures, on the scene of its pas-
sion. But once given the belief that a spirit might
tend to remain for a time in the place where its
earthly life was lived, the terrors of man, his swift
imagination, his power of self-delusion, would do
the rest.
The only class of stories, say the investigators,
which appear to be proved beyond the possibility
of reasonable doubt, is the class of stories dealing
with apparitions at the time of death ; and this
they explain by supposing a species of telepathy,
which is indeed an obscure force, but obviously an
existing one, though its conditions and limitations
are not clearly understood. Telepathy is the power
of communication between mind and mind without
the medium of speech, and indeed in certain cases
exercised at an immense distance. The theory i c
that the thought of the dying person is so potently
exercised on some particular living person, as t<
cause the recipient to project a figure of the other
222 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
upon the air. That power of visualization is nut a
very uncommon one ; indeed, we all possess it
more or less ; we can all remember what we believe
we have seen in our dreams, and we remember the
figures of our dreams as optical images, though they
have been purely mental conceptions, translated
into the terms of actual sight. The impression of
a dream-figure, indeed, appears to us to be as much
the impression of an image received upon the retina
of the eye, as our impressions of images actually so
received. The whole thing is strange, of course,
but not stranger than wireless telegraphy. It may
be that the conditions of telepathy may some day
be scientifically defined ; and in that case it will
probably make a clear and coherent connection be-
tween a number of phenomena which we do not
connect together, just as the discover}' of electricity
connected together phenomena which all had ob-
served, like the adhering of substances to charged
amber, as well as the lightning-flash which breaks
from the thunder-cloud. No one in former days
traced any connection between these two phenomena,
but we now know that they are only two manifes-
tations of the same force. In the same way we
may find that phenomena of which we are all con-
scious, but (t which v.e do not know the reason,
may prove to be manifestations of some central tele-
pathic force such phenomena, I mean, as the
imivery of armies in action, or the excitement which
may seize upon a large leathering of men.
We ought, I think, to admire and praise the
patient work of the Psychical Society, though it
is common enough to hear quite sensible people
deride it, because it is an attempt to treat a sub-
SPIRITUALISM. 223
ject scientifically. What \ve have every right to
deride is the dabbling in spiritualistic things by-
credulous and feeble-minded persons. These prac-
tices open to our view one of the most lamentable
and deplorable provinces of the human mind, its
power of convincing itself of anything which it de-
sires to believe, its debility, its childishness. If the
professions of so-called mediums were true, why
cannot they exhibit their powers in some open and
incontestable way, not surround ing themselves with
all the conditions of darkness and excitability, in
which the human power of self-delusion finds its
richest field ?
A friend of mine told me the other day what
he evidently felt to be an extremely impressive
story about a dignitary of the Church. This clergy-
man was overcome one day by an intense mental
conviction that he was wanted at Bristol. lie ac-
cordingly went there by train, wandered about aim-
lessly, and finally put up at a hotel for the nii^ht.
In the morning he found a friend in the coffee-
room, to whom he confided the cause of his pres-
ence in Bristol, and announced his intention of
going away by the next train. The friend then told
him that an Australian was dying in the hotel, and
that his wife was very anxious to find a clergyman
The dignitary- went to see the lady, with the inten-
tion of offering her his services, when he discovered
that he had met her when travelling in Australia,
and that her husband had been deeply impressed
by a sermon which he had then delivered, and had
been entreating for some days that he might be
summoned to administer the last consolations of
religion. The clergyman went in to ?ee the patient,
224 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
administered the last rites, comforted and encouraged
him, and was with him when lie died. He after-
wards told the widow the story of his mysterious
summons to Bristol, and she replied that she had
been praying night and day that he might come,
and that he had no doubt come in answer to her
prayers.
But the unsatisfactory part of the story is that
one is asked to condone the extremely unbusiness-
like, sloppy, and troublesome methods employed
by this spiritual agency. The lady knew the name
and position of the clergyman perfectly well, and
might have written or wired to him. He could thus
have been spared his aimless and mysterious jour-
ney, the expense of spending a night at the hotel ;
and moreover it was only the fortuitous meeting
with a third person, not closely connected with the
story, which prevented the clergyman from leaving
the place, his mission unfulfilled. One cannot help
feeling that, if a spiritual agency was at work, it was
working cither in a very clumsy way, or with a relish
for mystery which reminds one of the adventures
of Sherlock Holmes; it one is expected to accept
the story as a manifestation of supernatural power,
one can only conceive of it as the work of a very
tricksy spirit, like Ariel in the "Tempest "; it seems
like a very elaborate and melodramatic attempt to
bring about a result, that could have been far more
satisfactorily achieved bv a little common sense.
It instead of inspiring the l::dy to earnest prayer
which appears too to have been very slow in its
action -why could not the supernatu r al power at
work have inspired her with the much simpler ul< i :i
of looking at the Clcrgv List ? And vet the storv
SPIRITUALISM. 225
no doubt produces on the ordinary mind an impres-
sive effect, when as a matter of fact, if it is fairly
considered, it can only be regarded, if true, as the
work of an amiable and rather dilettante power,
with a strong relish for the elaborately marvellous.
The truth is that what the ordinary human being
desires, in matters of this kind, is not scientific
knowledge but picturesqueness. As long as people
frankly confess that it is the latter element of which
they are in search, that, like the fat boy in Pick-trick,
they merely want to make their flesh creep, no harm
is done. The harm is done by people who are
really in search of sensation, who yet profess to be
approaching the question in a scientific spirit of
inquiry. I enjoy a good ghost story as much as
any one ; and I am interested, too, in hearing the
philosophical conclusions of earnest-minded people ;
but to hear the question discussed, as one so often
hears it, with a pretentious attempt to treat it scien-
tifically, by people who, like the White Queen in
Through the Looking-glass, find it pleasant to train
themselves to believe a dozen impossible things
before breakfast, afflicts me with a deep mental and
moral nausea.
One, at least, of the patient investigators of this
accumulated mass of human delusion, took up the
quest in the hope that he might receive scientific
evidence of the continued existence of identity.
He was forced to confess that the evidence went all
the other way, and that all the tales which appeared
to substantiate the fact, were hopelessly discredited.
The only thing, as I have said, that the investiga-
tions seem to have substantiated . is evidence which
none but a determinedly sceptic, il mind would Jis-
8
226 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
allow, that there does exist, in certain abnormal
cases, a possibility of direct communication be-
tween two or more living minds.
But, as I pondered thus, the day began to
darken over the rough pasture with its ruined wall,
and I felt creeping upon me that old inheritance of
humanity, that terror in the presence of the un-
seen, which sets the mind at work, distorting and
exaggerating the impressions of eye and ear. How-
easy, in such a mood, to grow tense and expectant
' Till sight and hearing ache
For something that may keep
The awful inner sense
l.'nroused, Ir-t it should mark
The life that haunts the emptiness
And horror of the dark."
Face to face with the impenetrable mystery,
with the thought of those whom we have loved,
who have slipt without a word or a sign over the
dark threshold, what wonder if we beat with un-
availing hands against the closed door ? It would
be strange if we did not, for we too must some
day enter in ; well, the souls of all those who have
died, alike those whom we have loved, and the
spirits of those old Romans whose mortal bodies
melted into smoke year after year in the little en-
closure into which I look, know whatever there is
to know. That is a stern and dreadful truth ; the
secret is impenetrably ^ralt-d from us ; but, " though
the heart ache to contemplate it, it is there."
XVII
HABITS
WALTER PATER says, in his most oracular
mood, in that fine manifesto of a lofty Epi-
cureanism which is known as the Conclusion to the
Renaissance essays, that to form habits is failure in
life. The difficulty in uttering oracles is that one
is obliged for the sake of being forcible to reduce
a statement to its simplest terms ; and when one
does that, there are generally a whole group ot
cases which appear to be covered by the statement,
which contradict it. It is nearly impossible to
make any general statement both simple enough
and large enough. In the case of Pater's pro-
nouncement, he had fixed his mental gaze so firmly
on a particular phenomenon, that he forgot that
his words might prove misleading when applied to
the facts of life. What he meant, no doubt, was
that one of the commonest of mental clangers is to
form intellectual and moral prejudices early in life,
and so to stereotype them that we are unable to look
round them, or to give anything that we instinctively
dislike a fair trial. Most people in fact, in matters
of opinion, tend to get infected with a species ot
Ton ism by the time that they reach middle age,
until they get into the frame of mind which Mon-
228 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
taigne describes, of thinking so highly of their own
conjectures as to be prepared to burn other people
tor not regarding them as certainties. This frame
of mind is much to be reprobated, but it is un-
happily common. How often does one meet sen-
sible, shrewd, and intelligent men, who say frankly
that they are not prepared to listen to any evidence
which tells against their beliefs. I low rare it is to
meet a man who in the course of an argument will
say, " Well, I had never thought of that before ;
it must be taken into account, and it modifies my
view." Such an attitude is looked upon by active-
minded and energetic men as having something
weak and even sentimental about it. How com-
mon it is to hear people say that a man ought to
have the courage of his opinions ; how rare it is to
find a man who will say that one ought to have the
courage to change one's opinions. Indeed, in public
life it is generally considered a kind of treachery to
change, because people value what they call loyalty
above truth. Pater no doubt meant that the duty
and privilege of the philosopher is to keep his
inner eye open to new impressions, to be ready
to see beauty in new forms, not to love com-
fortable and settled ways, but to bring the same
fresh apprehension that youth brings, to art and
to life.
He is merely speaking of a mental process in
these words ; what he is condemning is the dull-
ing and encrusting of the mind with prejudices and
habits, th- tendency, as Charles Lamb \\ittilv said,
\\henevcr a new bonk comes out, to read an old
one, to get into the liresule-and-slippers frame of
nund, to grumble at noveltv, to complain that the
HABITS. 229
younci; men arc violating all the sacred canons of
faith and art.
This is not at all the same thing as knowing
one's own limitations ; every one, whether he he
artist or writer, critic or practitioner, ought to take
the measure of his forces, and to determine in what
regions he can be elfective ; indeed it is often
necessary for a man of artistic impulses to confine
his energies to one specific department, although he
may be attracted by several. Pater was himself an
instance of this. He knew, for instance, that his
dramatic sense was weak, and he wisely let drama
alone ; he found that certain vigorous writers ex-
ercised a contagious influence over his own style,
and therefore he gave up reading them. But within
his own region he endeavoured to be catholic and
sympathetic ; he never tied up the contents of his
mind into packets and labelled them, a task which
most men between thirty and forty find highly
congenial.
But I desire here to go into the larger question
of forming habits ; and as a general rule it may
be said that Pater's dictum is entirely untrue, and
that success in life depends more upon forming
habits than upon anything else, except good health.
Indeed, Pater himself is an excellent instance in
point. He achieved his large output of beautiful
literary work, the amazing amount of perfectly fin-
ished and exquisitely expressed writing that he gave
to the world, by an extreme and patient regularity
of labour. He did not, as some writers do, have
periods of energetic creation, interrupted by period*
of fallow idleness. Perhaps his work might have
been more spontaneous if lie couki. like Milton's
230 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
friend, have been wise enough " of such delights to
judge, and interpose them ott." But the achieve-
ment of Pater was to realize and to carry out his
own individual method, and it is upon doing this
that successful productivity depends.
I could name, if 1 chose, two or three friends
of my own, men of high and subtle intelligence,
admirable humour, undiminished zest, who have
failed, and will fail, to realize their possibilities,
simply by a lack of method. Who does not know
the men whom Mr. Mullock so wittily describes, of
whom, up to the age of forty, their friends say that
they could do anything if they only chose, and after
the age of forty that they could have done anything
if they had chosen ? I have one particular friend
in my eye at this moment, the possessor of wealth
and leisure, who is a born writer if any man ever
was. He has no particular duties, except the duties
of a small landowner and the father of a family ; he
is a wide reader, and a critic of delicate and sym-
pathetic acutcness. lie is bent on writing ; and
he has written a single book crammed from end to
end with good and beautiful things, the stutF of
which would have sulliced, in the hands of a facile
writer, for half-a-dozen excellent books. He is,
moreover, sincerely anxious to write, but he does
nothing. It you ask him and I conceive it to be
my duty at intervals to chide him for not produ-
cing more -what he does with his time, he says with
a melancholy smile : ' Oh, 1 hardly know : it
goes ! " 1 trace his failure to produce, simply to
the fact that he has never set apart any particular
portion of the day for writing ; he allows himself
to be interrupted ; he entertains many gucsLs \\hoin
HABITS. 231
he has no particular wish to see ; he " sets around
and looks ornery," like the frog ; lie talks delight-
fully ; an industrious Boswell could, by asking him
questions and taking careful notes of his talk, fill
a charming volume in a month out of his shrewd
and suggestive conversation ; of course it is possible
to say that he practises the art of living, to talk
of " gems of purest ray serene " and flowers " born
to blush unseen " and all the rest of it. But his
talk streams to waste among guests who do not as
a rule appreciate it ; and if there is any duty or
responsibility in the world at all, it is a duty for
men of great endowments, admirable humour, and
poetical suggcstiveness, to sow the seed of the
mind freely and lavishly. We English are of course
the chosen race ; but we should be none the worse
for a little more intellectual apprehension, a little
more amiable charm. If my friend had been a
professional man, obliged to earn a living by his
pen, he would, I do not doubt, have given to the
world a series of great books, which would have
done something to spread the influence of the king-
dom of heaven.
Of course there is a sense in which it is a mis-
take to let habits become too tyrannical ; one ought
not to find oneself hopelessly distracted and irritated
if one's daily programme is interfered with at any
point ; one ought to be able to enjoy leisure, to pay
visits, to converse volubly. Like Dr. Johnson, one
ought to be ready for a frolic. But, on the other
hand, if a man takes himself seriously and I am
here not speaking of people with definite engage-
ments, but of people, like writers and artists, who
may choose their own times to do their work he
232 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
ought to have a regular though not an invariable
programme. If he is possessed of such super-
abundant energy as Walter Scott possessed, he may
rise at five, and write ten immortal octavo pages
before he appears at breakfast. But as a rule the
vitality of ordinary people is more limited, and
they are bound to husband it, if they mean to do
anything that is worth the name ; an artist then
ought to have his sacred hours, secure from inter-
ruption ; and then let him fill the rest of the day
with any amusement that lie finds to be congenial.
Of course the thing is easy enough if one's work
is really the thing in which one is most interested.
There is very little danger, in the case of a man
who likes and relishes the work he is doing more
than he relishes any form of amusement ; but we
many of us have the unhappy feeling that we enjoy
our work very much, if we can once sit down to
it ; only we do not care about beginning it. We
read the paper, we write a few letters, we look out
an address in Who's H 'ho, and we become absorbed
in the biographies of our fellow-men ; very soon it
is time for luncheon, and then we think that we
shall feel fresher if we take a little exercise ; after
tea, the weather is so beautiful that we think it
would be a pity not to en|oy the long sunset lights ;
we come in ; the piano 4ands invitingly open, and
we must strike a tew chords ; then the bell rings
for dressing, and the day is gene, because we mis-
trust the work that we do late at night, and so we
go to bed in good tune. Not so does a big book
get written !
We ought rather to lincl out all about ourselves ;
when ve van work our best, how lon< r we cyn work
HABITS. 233
continuously with full vigour ; and then round
these fixed points we should group our sociability, our
leisure, our amusement. If we are altruistically in-
clined, we probably say that it is a duty to see
something of our fellow-creatures, that we ought not
to grow morose and solitary ; there is an abundance
of excuses that can be made ; but the artist and
the writer ought to reali/e that their duty to the
\vorld is to perceive what is beautiful and to express
it as resolutely, as attractively as they can ; if a
writer can write a good book, he can talk in its
pages to a numerous audience ; and he is right to
save up his best thoughts for his readers, rather
than to let them flow away in diffuse conversation.
Of course a writer of fiction is bound to make the
observation of varieties of temperament a duty ; it
is his material ; if he becomes isolated and self-
absorbed, his work becomes narrow and manner-
ized ; and it is true, too, that, with most writers,
the collision of mind with mind is what produces
the brightest sparks.
And then to step into a still wider field, there
is no sort of doubt that the formation of reason-
able habits, of method, of punctuality, is a duty,
not from an exalted point of view, but because it
makes enormously for the happiness and convenience
of every one about us. In the old-fashioned story-
books a prodigious value, perhaps an exaggerated
value, was set upon time ; one was told to redeem
the time, whatever that might mean. The ideal
mother of the family, in the little books which I
used to read in my childhood, was a lady \\h<> ap-
peared punctually at breakfast, and had a bunch of
keys hanging at her girdle. Breakfast o\er, she paid
234 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
a scries of visits, looked into the larder, weighed out
stores, and then settled down to some solid reading
or embroidered a fire-screen ; the afternoon would
be spent in visits of benevolence, carrying portions
of the midday dinner to her poorer neighbours ;
the evening would be given to working at the fire-
screen again, while some one read aloud. Some-
how it is not an attractive picture, though it need
not have been so dull as it appears. The point is
whether the solid reading had a useful effect or not.
In the books I have in view, it generally led the
materfamilias into having an undue respect for
correct information, and a pharisaical contempt for
people who indulged their fancy. In Harrv and
Lucy, for instance, Lucy, who is the only human
figure in the book, is perpetually being snubbed by
the terrible hard-headed Harry, with his desperate
interest in machinery, by the repellent father who
delights to explain the laws of gravity and the
parabola described by the stone which Harry throws.
What was undervalued in those old, dry, high-prin-
cipled books was the charm of vivid apprehension,
of fanciful imagination, of simple, neighbourly kind-
liness. The aim was too much to improve every-
body and everything, to impart and retain correct
information. Nowadays the pendulum has swung
a little too far the other way, and children arc too
much encouraged, if anything, to be childish ; but
there is a certain austere charm in the old simple
high-minded household liie for all that.
The point is that habit should be there, like
the hem of a handkerchief, to keep the fabric to-
gether ; but that it should not be relentlessly and
oppressivclv paraded ; the triumph is to have habit?
HABITS. 235
and to conceal them, just as in Ruskin's celebrated
dictum, that the artist's aim should be to be fit for
the best society, and then that he should renounce
it. One ought to be reliable, to perform the work
that one undertakes without ceaseless reminders, to
discharge duties easily and satisfactorily ; and then,
if to this one can add the grace of apparent leisure-
liness, the power of never appearing to be inter-
rupted, the good-humoured readiness to amuse and
to be amused, one is high upon the ladder of per-
fection. It is absolutely necessary, if one is to
play a satisfactory part in the world, to be in earnest,
to be serious ; and it is no less necessary to abstain
from ostentatiously parading that seriousness. One
has to take for granted that others are serious too ;
and far more is effected by example than by pre-
cept, in this, as in most matters. But if one cannot
do both, it is better to be serious and to show it,
than to make a show of despising seriousness and
decrying it. It is better to have habits and to let
others know it, than to lose one's soul by endeav-
ouring to escape the reproach of priegishness, a
quality which in these easy-going days incurs an
excessive degree of odium.
XV1I1
RELIGION
THERE i a motto which I should like to
sec written over the door of even" place of
worship, both as an invitation and a warning :
THOU SHALT MARK ME TO UNDERSTAND WISDOM
SECRETLY. It is an invitation to those who enter, to
come and participate in a great and holy mystery ;
and it is a warning to those who believe that in the
formalities of religion alone is the secret of religion
to be found. I will not here speak of worship, of
the value of the symbol, the winged prayer, the
uttered word ; ! wish rather to speak for a little
of religion itself, a tiling, as I believe, greatly mis-
understood. How much it is misunderstood may
be seen from the fact that, though the word itself,
religion, stands for one of the most beautiful and
simple things in the world, there yet hangs about
it an aroma which is not wholly pleasing. What
dillicult service that great and humble name has
seen ! With what strange and evil meanings it has
been charged ! How dinted and battered it is with
hard usau r c ! how dimmed its radiance, how stained
its puritv ! It is the best word, perhaps the only
word, for the thing that I im-an ; and yet something
dusty and technical hangs about it, which makes it
RELIGION. 237
wearisome instead of delightful, dreary rather than
joyful. The same is the case with mam of the
words which stand for great tilings. They have
been weapons in the hands of dry, bigoted, offen-
sive persons, until their brightness is clouded, their
keen edge hacked and broken.
By religion I mean the power, whatever it be,
which makes a man choose what is hard rather than
what is easy, what is lofty and noble rather than
what is mean and selfish ; that puts courage into
timorous hearts, and gladness into clouded spirits ;
that consoles men in grief, misfortune, and dis-
appointment ; that makes them joyfully accept a
heavy burden ; that, in a word, uplifts men out of
the dominion of material things, and sets their feet
in a purer and simpler region.
Yet this great thing, which lies so near us that
we can take it into our grasp by merely reaching
out a hand ; which is as close to us as the air and
the sunlight, has been by the sad, misguided efforts,
very often of the best and noblest-minded men, who
knew how precious a thing it was, so guarded, so
wrapped up, made so remote from, so alien to, life
and thought, that many people who live by its light,
and draw it in as simply as the air they breathe,
never even know that they have come within hail
of it. ' Is he a good man ? " said a simple Meth-
odist once, in reply to a question about a frien I.
' Yes, he is good, but not religious-good." l*y
which he meant that he lived kindly, purely, and
unselfishly as a Christian should, but did not
attend any particular place of worship, and there-
fore could not be held to have any religious
motive for his actions, but was guided by a
238 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
mere worthless instinct, a preference for unworldly
living.
Now, if ever there was a Divine attempt made
in the world to shake religion free of its wrappings,
it was the preaching of Christ. So far as we can
gather from records of obscure and mysterious
origin, transcriptions, it would seem, of something
oral and traditional, Christ aimed at bringing reli-
gion within the reach of the humblest and simplest
souls. Whatever doubt men may feel as to the
literal accuracy of these records in matters of fact,
however much it may be held that the relation oi
incidents was coloured by the popular belief of the
time in the possibility of miraculous manifestations,
yet the words and sayings of Christ emerge from
the narrative, though in places it seems as though
they had been imperfectly apprehended, as con-
taining and expressing thoughts quite outside the
range of the minds that recorded them ; and thus
possess an authenticity, which is confirmed and
proved by the immature mental grasp of those who
compiled the records, in a way in which it would
not have been proved, if the compilers had been
obviously men of mental acuteness and far-reaching
philosophical grasp.
To express the religion of Christ in precise
words would be a mighty task ; but it may be said
that it was not merely a system, nor primarily a
creed ; it was a message to individual hearts, be-
wildered by the complexity of the world and the
intricacy of religious observances. Christ bade men
believe that their Creator was also a Father ; that
the only wav to escape from the overwhelming
difficulties presented by the world was the way of
RELIGION. 239
simplicity, sincerity, and love ; that a man should
keep out of his life all that insults ami hurts the
soul, and that he should hold the interests of others
as dear as he holds his own. It was a protest against
all ambition, and cruelty, and luxury, and self-
conceit. It showed that a man should accept his
temperament and his place in life, as gifts from the
hands of his Father ; and that he should then he
peaceful, pure, humble, and loving. Christ brought
into the world an entirely new standard ; He
showed that many respected and reverenced per-
sons were very far indeed from the Father ; while
many obscure, sinful, miserable outcasts found the
secret which the respectable and contemptuous
missed. Never was there a message which cast so
much hope abroad in rich handfuls to the world.
The astonishing part of the revelation was that it
was so absolutely simple ; neither wealth, nor in-
tellect, nor position, nor even moral perfection,
were needed. The simplest child, the most aban-
doned sinner, could take the great gift as easily as
the most honoured statesman, the wisest sage
indeed more easily ; for it was the very complexity
of affairs, of motives, of wealth, that entangled the
soul and prevented it from realizing its freedom.
Christ lived His human life on these principles ;
and sank from danger to danger, from disaster to
disaster, and having touched the whole gamut of
human suffering, and disappointment, and shame,
died a death in which no element of disgust, and
terror, and pain was wanting.
And from that moment the deterioration began.
At first the great secret ran silently through the world
from soul to soul, till the world was leavened. But
2 4 o FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
even so the process of capturing and transforming
the faith in accordance with human weakness began.
The intellectual spirit laid hold on it first. Meta-
physicians scrutinized the humble and sweet myS-
tery, overlaid it with definitions, harmonized it with
ancient systems, dogmatized it, made it hard, and
subtle, and uninspiring. Vivid metaphors and illus-
trations were seized upon and converted into
precise statements of principles. The very mis-
apprehensions of the original hearers were invested
with the same sanctity that belonged to the Master
Himself. But even so the bright and beautiful spirit
made its way, like a stream ot clear water, refresh-
ing thirsty places and making the desert bloom like
the rose, till at last the world itself, in the middle
of its luxuries and pomp, became aware that here
was a mighty force abroad which must be reckoned
with ; and then the world itself determined upon
the capture of Christianity ; and how sadly it suc-
ceeded can be read in the pages of history ; until at
last the pure creature, like a barbarian captive,
bright with youth and beauty, was bound with
golden chains, and hidden, bewildered and amazed,
to grace the triumph and ride in the very chariot
of its conqueror.
Let me lake one salient instance. Could there,
to any impartial observer, be anything in the world
more incredible than that the Pope, surrounded by
ritual and pomp, and hierarchies, and policies,
should be held to be the representative on earth
of the peasant-teacher of (lalilee? And yet the
melancholy process of development is plain enough.
As th'- world became Clm.-tiani/ed, it could not be
expected to give up u- -ocial order, its ambitions,
RELIGION. 241
its love of power and influence. Christianity un-
curbed is an inconvenient, a dangerous, a subversive
iorce ; it must be tamed and muz/led ; it must be
robed and crowned ; it must be given a high and
honoured place among institutions. And so it has
fallen a victim to bribery and intrigue and worldly
power.
I do not for a moment say that it docs not even
thus inspire thousands of hearts to simple, loving,
and heroic conduct. The secret is far too vital to
lose its power. It is a vast force in the world, and
indeed survives its capture in virtue of its truth
and beauty. But instead of being the most free,
the most independent, the most individualistic
force in the world, it has become the most autho-
ritarian, the most traditional, the most rigid of
systems. As in the tale of Gulliver, it is a giant
indeed, and can yet perform gigantic services ; but
it is bound and fettered by a puny race.
Further, there are some who would divide reli-
gion sharply into two aspects, the objective and the
subjective. Those who emphasize the objective
aspect, would maintain that the theory that under-
lies all religion is the idea of sacrifice. This view
is held strongly by Roman Catholics and by a large
section of Anglicans as well. They would hold that
the duty of the priest is the offering of this sacrifice,
and that the essential truth of the Christian revela-
tion was the sacrifice of God Himself upon God's
own altar. This sacrifice, this atonement, they
would say, can be and must be made, over and over,
upon the altar of God. They would hold that this
offering had its objective value, even though it were
offered without the mental concurrence ot those lor
242 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
whom it was offered. They would urge that the
primal necessity for the faithful is that by an act
of the will, not necessarily an emotional act, but an
act of pure and definite volition, they should asso-
ciate themselves with the true and perfect sacrifice ;
that souls that do this sincerely are caught up, so
to speak, into the heavenly chariot of God, and
move upward thus ; while the merely subjective
and emotional religion is, to continue the meta-
phor, as if a man should gird up his loins to run
in company with the heavenly impulse. They
would say that the objective act of worship may
have a subjective emotional effect, but that it has
a true value quite independent of any subjective
effect. Thev would say that the idea of sacrifice
is a primal instinct of human nature, implanted in
hearts by God Himself, and borne witness to by
the whole history of man.
Those who, like myself, believe rather in the
subjective side, the emotional effect of religion,
would hold that the idea of sacrifice is certainly a
primal human instinct, but that the true inter-
pretation has been put upon it by the teaching of
Christ. I should myself feel that the idea of sacri-
fice belonged wholly to the old dispensation. That
man, when he began to form some mental picture
of the mysterious nature of the world of which he-
found himself a part, saw that there was, in the
background of life, a vast and awful power, whose
laws were mysterious and not, apparently, wholly
benevolent ; that this power sometimes sent hap-
piness and prosperity, soimtinu-s sorrow and ad-
versity ; and that thoii'^h to a crMam rxtcnt calami-
ties were brought about by uuhvidual misconduct
RELIGION. 243
yet that there were innumerable instances in the
world where innocence and even conscientious con-
duct were just as heavily penalized as guilt and sin.
The apparently fortuitous distribution of happiness
would alarm and bewilder him. The natural in-
stinct of man, thus face to face with a Deitv which
he could not hope to overcome or struggle with,
would be to conciliate and propitiate him by all
the means in his power, as he would offer gifts to
a prince or chief. He would hope thus to win
his favour and not to incur his wrath.
But the teaching of the Saviour that God was
indeed a Father of men seems to me to have changed
all this instantaneously. Man would learn that mis-
fortune was sent him, not wantonly nor cruelly,
but that it was an educative process. If even so
he saw cases, such as a child tortured by agoni/ing
pain, where there seemed to be no personal edu-
cative motive that could account for it, no sense
of punishment which could be meant to improve the
sufferer, he would fall back on the thought that
each man is not isolated or solitary, but that there
is some essential unity that binds humanity together,
and that suffering at one point must, in some
mysterious way that he cannot understand, mean
amelioration at another. To feel this would require
the exercise of faith, because no human ingenuity
could grasp the method by which such a system
could be applied. Hut there would be no choice
between believing this, or deciding that whatever the
essential nature of the Mind of God was, it was not
based on human ideas of justice and benevolence.
The theory of religion would then be that the
crude idea of propitiatory and conciliatory sacri-
244 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
fice would fall to the ground ; that to use the in
spired \vurds of the old Roman poet
" Aptissima quzcque dabunt Dl.
Carior cst illis homo quam sibi ; "
and that the only sacrifices required of man would
be, on the one hand, the sacrifice of selfish desires,
evil tendencies, sinful appetites ; and, on the other
hand, the voluntary- abnegation of comfortable and
desirable things, in the presence of a noble aim, a
great idea, a generous purpose.
Religion would then become a purely sub-
jective thing ; an intense desire to put the human
will in harmony with the Divine will, a hopeful,
generous, and trustful attitude of soul, a determina-
tion to receive sullering and pain as a gift from the
Father, as bravely and sincerely as the gifts of hap-
piness and joy, with a fervent faith that God did
indeed, by implanting in men so ardent a longing
for strength and joy, and so deeply rooted a terror of
pain and weakness, imply that He intended joy, of
a purified and elevated kind, to be the ultimate in-
heritance of His creatures ; and the sacrifice of man
would then be the willing resignation of everything
which could in any degree thwart the ultimate pur-
pose <>! ( iod.
That I believe from the depths of my heart to be
the meaning ot the Christian revelation ; and I should
look upon the thought of objective sacrifice as being
an unworthy survival Irom a time when men had
little true knowledge of tin- Fatherly Heart of God.
And thus, to mv mind, the only possible theory
of worship is that it is a deliberate act, an opening
of the door that leads to the Heavenly presence.
RELIGION. 245
Any influence is religious which fills the mind with
gratitude and peace, which makes a man humble
and patient and wise, which teaches him that the
only happiness possible is to attune and harmonize
his mind with the gracious purpose of God.
And so religion and worship grow to have a
larger and wider significance ; for though the solem-
nities of religion are one of the doors through which
the soul can approach God, yet what is known as
religious worship is only as it were a postern by the
side of the great portals of beauty and nobility and
truth. One whose heart is filled with a yearning
mystery at the sight of the starry heavens, who can
adore the splendour of noble actions, courageous
deeds, patient affections, who can see and love the
beauty so abundantly shed abroad in the world, who
can be thrilled with ecstasy and joy by art and music,
he can at all these moments draw near to God, and
open his soul to the influx of the Divine Spirit.
Religion can only be of avail so long as it takes
account of all the avenues by which the soul can
reach the central presence ; and the error into
which professional ecclesiastics fall is the error of
the scribes and Pharisees, who said that thus and
thus only, by these rites and sacrifices and cere-
monies, shall the soul have access to the Father of
all living. It is as false a doctrine as would be the
claim of scientific men or artists, if they maintained
that only through science or only through art should
men draw near to God. For all the intuitions by
which men can perceive the Father are sacred, are
religious. And no one may perversely bind that
which is free, or make unclean that which is pure,
without suffering the doom of those who would
246 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
delude humanity into worshipping an idol of man's
devising, rather than the Spirit of (lod Himself.
Now the question must he asked, how are those
who are Christians indeed, who adore in the inmost
shrine of their spirit the true Christ, who believe
that the Star of the East still shines in unveiled
splendour over the place where the young child is,
how are they to be true to their Lord ? Are they
to protest against the tyranny of intellect, of auth-
ority, of worldliness, over the (lospel ? I would say
that they have no need thus to protest. I would
say that, if they are true to the spirit of Christ, they
have no concern with revolutionary ideals at all ;
Christ's own example teaches us to leave all that
on one side, to conform to worldly institutions, to
accept the framework of society. The tyranny of
which I have spoken is not to be directly attacked.
The true concern of the believer is to be his own
attitude to life, his relations with the circle, small or
great, in which he finds himself. He knows that
if indeed the spirit of Christ could truly leaven the
world, the pomps, the glories, the splendours which
veil it, would melt like unsubstantial wreaths ot
smoke. He need not trouble himself about tradi-
tional ordinances, elaborate ceremonials, subtle doc-
trines, metaphysical definitions, lie must concern
himself with far different things. Let him be sure
that no sin is allowed to lurk unresisted in the depths
of his spirit ; let him be sure that he is patient, and
just, and tender-hearted, and sincere ; let him try
to remedy true allliction, not the affliction which
falls upon men through tlieir desire to conform to
the elaborate u ;a</e of soviet v, but the affliction
which seems to be bound up \\ith Clod's own world.
RELIGION. 247
Let him be quiet and peaceable ; let him take freely
the comfort of the holy influences which Churches,
for all their complex fabric of traditions and cere-
mony, still hold out to the spirit ; let him drink
largely from all sources of beauty, both natural and
human ; the Churches themselves have gained, by
age, and gentle associations, and artistic perception,
a large treasure of things that are full of beauty ar-
chitecture and music and ceremony that are only
hurtful when held to be special and peculiar chan-
nels of holiness and sweetness, when they are sup-
posed to have a definite sanctification which is op-
posed to the sanctification of the beauty exterior to
them. Let the Christian be grateful for the beauty
they hold, and use it freely and simply. Only let
him beware of thinking that what is the open in-
heritance of the world is in the possession of any
one smaller circle. Let him not even seek to go
outside of the persuasion, as it is so strangely called,
in which he was born. Christ spoke little of sects,
and the fusion of sects, because He contemplated
no Church, in the sense in which it is now too often
used, but a unity of feeling which should over-
spread the earth. The true Christian will recog-
nize his brethren not necessarily in the Church or
sect to which he belongs, but in all who live humbly,
purely, and lovingly, in dependence on the Great
Father of all living.
For after all, disguise it from ourselves as we
will, we are all girt about with dark mysteries, into
which we have to look whether we dare or not.
We fill our life as full as we can of occupation and
amusements, ot warmth and comfort ; yet some-
times, as we sit in our peaceful room, the gust pipes
248 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
thin and shrill round the corners of the court, the
rain rustles in the tree ; we drop the hook which
we hold, and wonder what manner of things we
indeed are, and what we shall be. Perhaps one of
our companions is struck down, and goes without
a word or sign on his last journey ; or some heavy
calamity, some loss, some bereavement hangs over
our lives, and we enter into the shadow ; or some
inexplicable or hopeless suffering involves one whom
we love, from which the only deliverance is death ;
and we realize that there is no explanation, no con-
solation possible. In such moments we tend to
think that the world is a very terrible place, and
that we pay a heavy price for our share in it. I low-
unsubstantial then appear our hopes and dreams,
our little ambitions, our paltry joys ! In such a
mood we feel that the most definite creed illumines,
as it were, but a tiny streak of the shadowy orb ;
and we are visited, too, by the fear that the more
definite the creed, the more certain it is that it is
only a desperate human attempt to state a mystery
which cannot be stated, in a world where all is dark.
In such a despairing mood, we can but resign
ourselves to the awful Will of God, who sets us
here, we know not why, and hurries us hence, we
know not whither. Yet the very sternness and in-
exorability of that dread purpose h;is something that
sustains and invigorates. \Ve look back upon our
life, and feel that it has all followed a plan and a
design, and that the worst evils we have had to
bear have been our faithless terrors about what
should be ; and then we led the strength that ebbed
from us drawing back to sustain us ; we recognize
that our present sufferings have never been un-
RELIGION. 249
bearable, that there has always been some residue
of hope ; we read of how brave men have borne
intolerable calamities, and have smiled in the midst
of them, at the reflection that they have never been
so hard as was anticipated ; and then we are happy
if we can determine that, whatever comes, we will
try to do our best, in our small sphere, to live as truly
and purely as we can, to practise courage and sin-
cerity, to help our fellow-sulTerers along, to guard
innocence, to guide faltering feet, to encourage all
the sweet and wholesome joys of life, to be loving,
tender-hearted, generous, to lift up our hearts ; not
to be downcast and resentful because we do not
understand everything at once, but humbly and
gratefully to read the scroll as it is unrolled.
The night grows late. I rise to close my outer
door to shut myself out from the world ; I shall
have no more visitors now. The moonlight lies
cold and clear on the little court ; the shadow of
the cloister pillars falls black on the pavement.
Outside, the town lies hushed in sleep ; I see the
gables and chimneys of the clustered houses stand-
ing in a quiet dream over the old ivy-covered wall.
The college is absolutely still, though one or two
lights still burn in studious rooms, and peep through
curtained chinks. What a beautiful place to live
one's life in, a place which greets one with delicate
associations, with venerable beauty, at every turn !
The moonlight falls through the tall oriel of the
Hall, and the armorial shields burn and glow with
rich points of colour I pace to and Iro, \Nondeiing,
musing. All here seems so permnnent, so still, so
secure, and yet we are spinning and whirling through
250 FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW.
space to some unknown goal. What arc the thoughts
of the mighty unresting Heart, to whose vast ness and
agelessness the whole mass of these flying and glow-
ing suns are but as a handful of dust that a hoy
flings upon the air ? How has He set me here, a tiny
moving atom, yet more sure of my own minute
identity than I am of all the vast panorama of things
which lie outside of me ? Has He indcrd a tender
and a patient thought of me, the frail creature whom
He has moulded and made ? 1 do not doubt it ;
I look up among the star-sown spaces, and the old
aspiration rises in my heart, " Oh, that 1 knew where
I might find Him ! that I might come even into
His presence ! " How would 1 go, like a tired and
sorrowful child to his lather's knee, to be com-
forted and encouraged, in perfect trust and love,
to be raised in His arms, to be held to His heart !
He would but look in my lace, and I should under-
stand without a question, \\iiliotit a word.
Now in its mouldering turret the old clock wakes
and stirs, moves its jarring wires, and the soft bell
strikes midnight. Another oi my few short days
gone, another step nearer to the unseen. Slowly
but not sadly 1 return, for I have been for a moment
nearer (jod ; the very thought that rises in my
mind, and turns my heart to His, comes from Him.
He would make all plain, if He could ; He gi\es us
what we need ; ~nd \shen we at la.-l auake \\e shall
be satisfied.
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FIB 3 67