The only two kinds of talker that I find tiresome are the talker of paradoxes and the egotist. A few paradoxes are all very well; they are stimulating and gently provocative. But one gets tired of a string of them; they become little more than a sort of fence erected round a man's mind; one despairs of ever knowing what a paradoxical talker really thinks. Half the charm of good talk consists in the glimpses and peeps one gets into the stuff of a man's thoughts; and it is wearisome to feel that a talker is for ever tossing subjects on his horns, perpetually trying 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 valley; one sees a long green vista, all bathed in shimmering sunshine, with the dark head of a mountain at the top. So in the best talk one has a sudden sight of something high, sweet, serious, austere.

The other kind of talk that I find very disagreeable is the talk of a full-fledged egotist, who converses 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 view, and that there is probably much to be said on the other side. The unhappiest feature of drifting 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 off. I know of a family conclave 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 amendment. He sate glum and tongue-tied for several weeks in the midst of cheerful gatherings. Very gradually the old habit prevailed. Within six months he was as tedious as ever; but what is the saddest part of the whole business is that he has never quite forgiven the teller of the unwelcome news, while 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 oneself into a brilliant talker, because the qualities needed—humour, quickness, the power of seeing unexpected connections, picturesque phrasing, natural charm, sympathy, readiness, and so forth—are things hardly attainable by effort. But much can be done by perseverance; and it is possible to form a deliberate habit of conversation by determining that however much one may be indisposed to talk, however unpromising one's companions 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 acquaintance confesses that a device she has occasionally employed is to think of subjects in alphabetical 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 successfully 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-sickness, 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 when they can think of nothing 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 acquaintance, who was an admirable talker, told me that on a certain occasion, an evening party, his hostess led up a young girl to him, like Iphigenia 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 the 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 wrong, came, like Artemis, and led Iphigenia away, without the philosopher having had the opportunity of indulging 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 this 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 affairs, a perfect mine of political secrets. He is a ready talker, and has the art, both in a tete-a-tete as well as in a mixed company, of mentioning things which are extremely interesting, and appear to be hopelessly indiscreet. He generally accompanies his relation of these incidents with a request that the subject may not be mentioned outside. The result 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 importance, 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 betraying 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 intense 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 granulate 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 conversational art.

Dr. Johnson used to say that he loved to stretch his legs and have his talk out; and the fact remains 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 of pre-eminent interest are long leisurely tete-a-tete talks, oftenest perhaps of all in the course of 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 penetrate into the inmost labyrinths of a subject, to indulge 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 breezy uplands or in pleasant country lanes, make the moments, indeed, to which the mind, in the sad mood which remembers the days that are gone, turns with that sorrowful desolation of which Dante speaks, as to a treasure lightly spent and ungratefully regarded. How such hours rise up before the mind! Even now as I write I think of such a scene, when I walked with a friend, long dead, on the broad yellow sands beside a western sea. I can recall the sharp hiss of the shoreward wind, the wholesome savours of the brine, the soft clap of small waves, the sand-dunes behind the shore, pricked with green tufts of grass, the ships moving slowly on the sea's rim, and the shadowy headland to which we hardly seemed to draw more near, while we spoke of all that was in our hearts, and all that we meant to do and be. That day was a great gift from God; and yet, as I received it, I did not know how fair a jewel of memory it would be. I like to think that there are many such jewels of recollection clasped close in the heart's casket, even in the minds of men and women that I meet, that seem so commonplace to me, so interesting to themselves!

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 emotions 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, I 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 tete-a-tete with a man of similar tastes, who is just and yet sympathetic, critical yet appreciative, whose point of view just differs enough to make it possible for him to throw sidelights on a subject, and to illumine aspects of it that were unperceived and neglected—this is a high intellectual pleasure, a potion to be delicately sipped at leisure.

But after all it is impossible to say what 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 unsympathetic. But 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 University, men whom it is a pleasure to meet occasionally, men with whom one tries, so to speak, a variety of conversational flies, and who will give one fine sport when they are fairly hooked. But though a University is a place where one ought to expect to find abundance of the best talk, the want of 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 work most of the day, and they look upon the sociable evening hours as a time to be given up to what the Scotch call "daffing"; that is to say, a sort of nimble interchange of humorous or interesting gossip; a man who pursues a subject intently is apt to be thought a bore. I think that the middle-aged Don is apt to be less interesting than either the elderly or the youthful Don. The middle-aged Don is, like all successful professional 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 accessible. 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 wholesomely 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 conversation 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 difficulty 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 recognized 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.

For the fact remains that conversation is a real art, and depends like all other arts upon congenial circumstances and suitable surroundings. People are too apt to believe that, because they have interests in their minds and can put those interests into words, they are equipped for the pretty and delicate game of talk. But a rare admixture of qualities is needed, and a subtle conversational effect, 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 of the nature of instinctive art. I have heard well-informed and sensible people talk of a subject in a way that made me feel that I desired never to hear it mentioned again; 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 feel that I had never thought adequately on the topic before. One should be careful, I think, to express to such persons one's appreciation and admiration of their gifts, for the art is so rare that we ought to welcome it when we find it; and, like all arts, it depends to a great extent for its sustenance on the avowed gratitude of those who enjoy it. It is on these subtle half-toned glimpses of personality and difference that most of our happy impressions of life depend; and no one can afford wilfully to neglect sources of innocent joy, or to lose opportunities of pleasure through a stupid or brutal contempt for the slender resources out of which these gentle effects are produced.



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 delicate 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 or sorrow. There are times in our lives when we seem to go singing on our way, and when the beauty of the world sits 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 life 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 of the day; when music has no inner voice, and poetry seems a mere cheerful 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 with care and trouble, perhaps in pain or weakness of body, there flashes 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, fills us with a strange yearning, a delightful pain; in such a mood a few chords of music, the haunting melody of 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. Perhaps some of those who read these words will say that it is all an unreal, a fantastic experience of which I speak. Of course there are many tranquil, wholesome, equable natures to whom such an experience is unknown; but it is to me one of the truest and commonest things of my life to be visited by this strange perception and appreciation of beauty, which gives the days in which I am conscious of it a memorable quality, that seems to make them the momentous days of my 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 determination 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 rapturous 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.

Neither does it seem to be an intellectual process; because it comes in the same self-willed way, alike when one's mind is deeply engrossed in congenial work, as well as when one is busy and distracted; 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 apparently 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 what, for the sake of the associations, I call my holiday. I walked with a cheerful companion among 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 cared 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 itself over a pair of broken lock-gates into a deserted lock, where the stonecrop grows among the masonry, and the alders root themselves among the mouldering brickwork, the mood came upon me, and I felt like a thirsty soul that has found a bubbling spring coming out cool from its 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 perceptions, 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 rapturous a thing that they ran the risk of making the pursuit of such sensations the one object and business of their existence; of sweeping the waters of life with busy nets, in the hope of entangling some creature "of bright hue and sharp fin"; of considering the days and hours that were unvisited by such perceptions barren and dreary. This is, I cannot help feeling, a dangerous business; it is to make of the soul nothing but a delicate instrument 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 whimsical 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, exercise, 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 life without reference to it, to be thankful when it comes, and to be contented when it is withdrawn.

I sometimes think that a great deal of stuff is both written and talked about the beauties of nature. By this I 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 of 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 demands a certain poetical force, which is rare; and a great many people who have a considerable power of expression, but little originality, feel bound to expend a portion of this upon expressing an admiration for nature which they do not so much actually feel as think themselves bound to feel, because they believe that people in general expect it of them.

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 transfiguring 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 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 feeling; but not to expatiate on the emotions which they mistake for the real emotion in the other departments, 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 conversation, 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 observation of nature can be, if not acquired, immensely increased by practice. 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 case with all artistic pleasures, is the perception of quality, of small effects. Many of the people Who believe themselves to have an appreciation of natural scenery cannot appreciate it except on a sensational scale. They can derive a certain pleasure from wide prospects of startling 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 colleges, 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 buildings have weathered like crags and precipices. They rise out of dark ancient embowered gardens. They are like bright birds of the forest dwelling contentedly in gilded cages. These great palaces of learning, 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 stately loveliness and fair association; this city of palaces, thick-set with spires and towers, as rich and dim as Camelot, 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. Yet these again 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 pastures, fringed with rushes, the long blue line of the distant downs, the cloud-perspective, the still sunset glow—these will give him ever new delights, and delights that grow with observation and intuition.

I have spoken hitherto of nature as she appears; to the unruffled, the perceptive mind; but let us further consider what relation nature can bear to the burdened heart and the overshadowed mood. Is there indeed a vis medicatrix 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? I am here inclined to part company with wise men and poets who have spoken and sung of the consoling power of nature. I think it is not so. It is true that anything which we love very deeply has a certain power of distracting the mind. But I think there is no greater agony than to be confronted with tranquil passionate beauty, when the heart and spirit are out 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 mystery, that ministers to our luxurious sadness. But when one bears about the heavy burden of a harassing anxiety of sorrow, then the smile on the face of nature has something poisonous, almost maddening 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 irreplaceableness 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, for nothing but the truth can give us ultimate repose. 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 establish 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 preoccupied; to value excitement, above tranquillity, and interest above peace. It is good for us all to be much alone, not to fly 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 paying the price perhaps of a little melancholy, they 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 solitary places, where the hazel-hidden stream makes music, and the bird sings out of the heart of the 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 clustering town "smouldering and glittering" in the distance; 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. "Consider 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 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 proprietorship; 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 by prospects that are inimical to life and comfort, lashing storms, inaccessible peaks, desolate moors, wild sunsets, foaming 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 I have spoken all tend to concentrate the mind upon itself, to strengthen it for a selfish part; but the beauty of nature seems to be a call to the spirit to come forth, like the voice which summoned Lazarus 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 these words I look out upon a strange transfiguration of a familiar scene. The sky is full of black and inky clouds, but from the low 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 mysterious 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 awakened 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 evidently written in good faith. But I have since reflected 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 defined in precise terms; but the spell is there, real, insistent, undeniable; it seems to make a bridge for the spirit to pass into a far-off, dimly apprehended region; it gives 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 trusting 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 myself 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 experience, 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 that the whole instinct for admiring beauty is one of the most mysterious experiences of the mind. There are certain things, like the curves and colours of flowers, the movements of young animals, that seem to have a perennial attraction for the human spirit. But the enjoyment 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 cultivated a delight in the sight of those "monstrous creatures of God," as he calls mountains. Till his time, the emotions that "nodding rocks" and "cascades" 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, unsatisfied, critical nature seems to have had of almost everything. His letters are full of beautiful vignettes, 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 architecture, 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 displeasing; but one craves for a certain sense of personality, 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-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 half-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 presence 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 life and being on a different plane. But the moment passes, and the secret delays. Yet we are right to regard such emotions as direct messages from God; because they bring with them no desire of possession, which is the sign of mortality, but rather 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 glow of sunset, rises the hope that the grave, far from being the gate of death, may be indeed the gate of life.



VII

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 intend 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 unreality and scheming.

What I mean by art, in its deepest and truest sense, is a certain perceptiveness, a power of seeing 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 accompanied by certain fragile signs of its existence, such as water-colour drawing, or a tendency to strum on a piano. But, as a matter of fact, the possession 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 appreciated at their true worth? To such people, sensitive, ineffective, proud, every circumstance of life gives food for discontent. They have vague perceptions which they cannot translate into words or symbols. They find their work humdrum and unexciting, 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 unhappiness 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 perceptiveness; and this produces a species of dull soulless art, and the role of the professional artist. Very rarely one sees the outward and the inward 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 realized; 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 temperaments 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 triumphs 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, mysterious 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 sympathy, they get the best out of other people; they pierce through the conventional fence that so many of us erect as a protection against intrusion. Such people bring the same perception to bear on technical art. They enjoy books, art, music, without any envious desire to produce; 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; because 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 exacting vagaries of the artist with a gentle and tender compassion, and evoke what is sincere and generous and lovable, without any conscious effort.

It is not, I think, often enough realized that the basis of the successful artistic temperament is a certain hardness combined with great superficial sensitiveness. Those who see the artistic nature swiftly and emotionally affected by a beautiful or a pathetic thing, who see that a thought, a line of poetry, a bar of music, a sketch, will evoke a thrill of feeling to which they cannot themselves aspire, are apt to think that such a spirit is necessarily fair and tender, and that it possesses unfathomable reserves of noble feeling. This is often a great mistake; far below the rapid current of changing and glittering emotion there often lies, in the artistic 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 intellectual force, a power of appraising quality, a Rhadamanthine 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 probability the reason why women, with all their power of swift impression, of subtle intuition, have so seldom 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 what 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 interpreter. 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, when all is said and done, before the idol of self. With women, though, it is different. The deepest quality in their hearts is, one may gratefully say, an intense devotion to others, an unselfishness which is unconscious of itself; and thus their aim is to help, to encourage, to sympathize; and their artistic gifts 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 surface 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 quality, which is characteristic of the best art, can only be produced, in a mood of blind and unquestioning 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, beautiful as is the dream of the artist, true and pure as his aspiration is, there is yet a deeper mystery of life still, of which art is nothing but a symbol and an evidence. Perhaps that very belief may of itself weaken a man's possibilities in art. But, for myself, I know that I regard the absorption in art as a terrible and strong temptation 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 power 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 desire 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, before the doors of the Presence itself can be flung wide.

But whether 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 life in an artistic spirit. I do not at all mean by that that one should learn to overvalue the artistic side of life, to hold personal emotion to be a finer thing than unselfish usefulness. I mean rather that one should aim at the perception of quality, 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 consider 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 originality, in however humble a sphere these qualities may be displayed. That one should fight hard against conventionality, that one should welcome beauty, both the beauty of natural things, as well as the beauty displayed in sincere and simple lives in every rank of life. I have heard conventional professional people, who thought they were giving utterance to manly and independent sentiments, speak slightingly of dukes and duchesses, as if the possession of high rank necessarily forfeited all claims to simplicity and true-heartedness. Such an attitude is as inartistic and offensive as for a duchess to think that fine courtesy and consideration could not be found among washerwomen. The truth is that beauty of character is just as common and just as uncommon among people of high rank as it is among bagmen; and the only just attitude to adopt is 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 bagmen, he will find bagmen of sincerity, directness, and delicacy, while he will also find pompous, complacent, 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 instances, I will only say that one of the most unaffected 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 affect 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 deliberately 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 simplicity and sincerity can effect something.

All persons engaged in education, whether formally 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 resolutely to avoid malicious gossip, but not the interested 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 attempting 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 and rectitude, and heavily enforce it; we neglect the interest, the zest, the beauty of life. In my own career as an educator, I 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 was a mistake to coerce, to correct, to enforce; of course such things have to be done occasionally with wilful and perverse natures; but I realized, after I 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 were plenty of failures on my own part, failures of irritability, stupidity, and indolence; but I soon realized that these were 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 educational 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 attitude of mind which we can apply to all experiences. 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 prejudices, 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 presence of the life of Christ, that it is yet possible to make out of such a situation a noble and a beautiful thing? 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 described in its absolute perfection. He met all humanity face to face, with perfect directness, perfect sympathy, perfect perception. He never ceased to protest, with shame and indignation, against the unhappinesses which men bring upon themselves, by the yielding to lower desires, by prejudice, by complacency; but He made allowance for weakness, and despaired of none; and in the presence of those darker and sadder afflictions of body and spirit, which it seems that God permits, if He does not authorize, He bore Himself with dignity, patience, and confidence; 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

I had an experience the other day, very disagreeable 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 stairway, 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 argument 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 perhaps 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 oneself. 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 without anger, he would no doubt have so gilded the pill that it would have seemed rather a precious ornament than a bitter 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 regards 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. Egotism is the natural temptation of all those whose individuality is strong; the man of intense desires, of acute perceptions, of vigorous preferences, of eager temperament, is in danger of trying to construct his life too sedulously on his own lines; and yet 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 are, who tread in beaten paths, who are easily persuaded, who are cautious, prudent, and submissive, leave things very much as they find them. I need make no attempt at indicating the line that such people ought to follow, because it is, unhappily, certain that they will follow the line of least resistance, and that they have no more power of initiative than the bricks of a wall or the waters of a stream. The following considerations will be addressed to people of a certain vividness of nature, who have strong impulses, fervent convictions, vigorous desires. I shall try to suggest a species of discipline that can be practised 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 evidence. There are many kinds of certainties. There is the absolute scientific certainty of such propositions 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, but that they ARE four, and that 2 + 2 and 4 are only different ways of describing the same phenomenon. Then there come the lesser certainties, 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 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 towards 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 realize that other people's regions of what may be called practical certainties—that is to say, the assurances which justify practical 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 impatience. He must realize that some people may regard as a certainty what is to him a questionable opinion, and that his business is not the destruction 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 convictions 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 of various points of view, and that we ought 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 I think that the duty of every thoughtful person, who desires to avoid egotism in the intellectual region, is to cultivate what may be called the scientific, or even the sceptical spirit, to weigh evidence, and 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 conclusions, 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 outset 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. The Early Victorian upholsterers derided the stiffness 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 connoisseurs 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 acutest 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 with those who admire, rather than with those who deride, and the power of appreciating is worth any amount of the power of despising.

And now we pass to the third and most intangible region of the spirit, the region that I will call the mystical region. This is in a sense akin to the aesthetic region, because it partly consists in the appreciation of beauty in ethical things. Here the danger of the vivid personality is to let his 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 characters 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 attempt 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 intellectual 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 affinities and hostilities of temperament, the inexplicable and undeniable thing called charm, the attraction and repulsion of character—all this is in the mystical region of the spirit, the region of intuition and instinct, which is a far stronger, more vital, and more general region than the intellectual or the artistic. And further, there comes the deepest intuition of all, the relation of the human spirit to its Maker, its originating cause. Whether this relation can be 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 inextricably rooted in the human spirit, namely, the instinct to distinguish between the impulses which we believe emanate from God, and the impulses which we believe emanate from ourselves. It is incontestable that the greater part of the human race have the instinct that in following beneficent, unselfish, noble impulses they are following the will of their Maker; but that in yielding to cruel, sensual, low impulses they are acting contrary to the will of the Creator. And this intuition is one which many of us do not doubt, though it is a principle, which cannot be scientifically proved. Indeed, it is incontestable that, though we believe the will of God to be on the side of what is good, yet He puts many obstacles, or permits them to be put, in the way of the man who desires to act rightly.

The only way, I believe, in this last region, in which we can hope to improve, to win victories, is the way of a quiet and sincere submission. It is easy to submit to the Will of God when it sends us joy and peace, when it makes us courageous, high-hearted, and just. The difficulty is to acquiesce when He sends us adversity, ill-health, suffering; when He 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-knowledge 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 tranquillity.

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. I 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 message 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, but 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 own vexed spirit.

But after 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 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 manifestations 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 standard 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 increase. After all, egotism has little to do with the forming or holding of strong opinions, or even with the intentness with which we pursue our aims. The dog is the intentest of 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 of others. It is not, as a rule, the most successful men who are the most egotistical. The most uncompromisingly egotist I know is a would-be literary man, who has the most pathetic belief 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 of mental disease, because he is an acute critic of all work 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 and a little courtesy will soon suppress the manifestations of the tendency, if a man can only realize that the forming of decided opinions is the cheapest luxury in the world, while a licence to express them uncompromisingly is one of the most expensive. Perhaps the hardest kind of egotism to cure, is the egotism that is combined with a deferential courtesy, and the power of displaying a superficial sympathy, because an egotist of this type so seldom encounters any checks which would convince him of his fault. Such people, if they have natural ability, often achieve great success, because they pursue their own ambitions with relentless perseverance, and have the tact to do it without appearing to interfere with the designs of others. They bide their time; they are all consideration 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 calculated 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.