DIARY.

January 1, 1838.—Three days ago she died. Henceforth there is no living

creature to whom my existence is of any real importance. Crippled as she

was, she could never have married. I might have held her as long as she

lived. She could have expected no love but mine. God forgive me!

Perhaps I did unconsciously rejoice in that disabled limb because it kept

her closer to me. Now He has taken her from me. I may have been wicked,

but has He no mercy? “I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to

reason with God.” An answer in anger could better be borne than this

impregnable silence.

* * * * *

January 3rd.—A day of snow and bitter wind. There were very few at the

grave, and I should have been better pleased if there had been none.

What claim had they to be there? I have come home alone, and they no

doubt are comforting themselves with the reflection that it is all over

except the half-mourning. Her death makes me hate them. Mr. Maxwell,

our rector, told me when my child was ill to remember that I had no right

to her. “Right!” what did he mean by that stupid word? How trouble

tries words! All I can say is that from her birth I had owned her, and

that now, when I want her most, I am dispossessed. “Self, self”—I know

the reply, but it is unjust, for I would have stood up cheerfully to be

shot if I could have saved her pain. Doubly unjust, for my passion for

her was a blessing to her as well as to me.

* * * * *

January 6th.—Henceforth I suppose I shall have to play with people, to

pretend to take an interest in their clothes and their parties, or, with

the superior sort, to discuss politics or books. I care nothing for

their rags or their gossip, for Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, or Mr.

James Montgomery. I must learn how to take the tip of a finger instead

of a hand, and to accept with gratitude comfits when I hunger for

bread—I, who have known—but I dare say nothing even to myself of my hours

with him—I, who have heard Sophy cry out in the night for me; I, who have

held her hand and have prayed by her bedside.

* * * * *

January 10th.—I must be still. I have learned this lesson before—that

speech even to myself does harm. If I admit no conversation nor debate

with myself, I certainly will not admit the chatter of outsiders. Mr.

Maxwell called again to-day. “Not a syllable on that subject,” said I

when he began in the usual strain. He then suggested that as this house

was too large for me, and must have what he called “melancholy

associations,” I should move. He had suggested this before, when my

husband died. How can I leave the home to which I was brought as a

bride? how can I endure the thought that strangers are in our room, or in

that other room where Sophy lay? Mr. Maxwell would think it sacrilege to

turn his church into an inn, and it is a worse sacrilege to me to permit

the profanation of the sanctuary which has been consecrated by Love and

Death. I do not know what might happen to me if I were to leave. I have

been what I am through shadowy nothings which other people despise. To

me they are realities and a law. I shall stay where I am. “A villa,”

forsooth, on the outskirts of the town! My existence would be fractured:

it will at least preserve its continuity here. Across the square I can

see the house in which I was born, and I can watch the shadow of the

church in the afternoon slowly crossing the churchyard. The townsfolk

stand in the street and go up and down it just as they did forty years

ago—not the same persons, but in a sense the same people. My brother

will call me extravagant if I remain here. He buys a horse and does not

consider it extravagant, and my money is not wasted if I spend it in the

only way in which it is of any value to me.

* * * * *

January 12th.—I had thought I could be dumb, but I cannot. My sorrow

comes in rushes. I lift up my head above the waves for an instant, and

immediately I am overwhelmed—“all Thy waves and Thy billows have gone

over me.” My nights are a terror to me, and I fear for my reason. That

last grip of Sophy’s hand is distinctly on mine now, palpable as the

pressure of a fleshly hand could be. It is strange that without any

external circumstances to account for it, she and I often thought the

same things at the same moment. She seemed to know instinctively what

was passing in my mind, so that I was afraid to harbour any unworthy

thought, feeling sure that she would detect it. Blood of my blood was

she. She said “goodbye” to me with perfect clearness, and in a quarter

of an hour she had gone. In that quarter of an hour there could not be

the extinction of so much. Such a creature as Sophy could not

instantaneously _not be_. I cannot believe it, but still the volume of

my life here is closed, the story is at an end; what remains will be

nothing but a few notes on what has gone before.

* * * * *

January 21st.—I went to church to-day for the first time since the

funeral. Mr. Maxwell preached a dull, doctrinal sermon. Whilst my

husband and Sophy lived, I was a regular attendant at church, and never

thought of disputing anything I heard. It did not make much impression

on me, but I accepted it, and if I had been asked whether I believed it,

I should have said, “Certainly.” But now a new standard of belief has

been set up in me, and the word “belief” has a different meaning.

* * * * *

February 3rd.—Whenever I saw anything beautiful I always asked Tom or

Sophy to look. Now I ask nobody. Early this morning, after the storm in

the night, the sky cleared, and I went out about dawn through the garden

up to the top of the orchard and watched the disappearance of the night

in the west. The loveliness of that silent conquest was unsurpassable.

Eighteen months ago I should have run indoors and have dragged Tom and

Sophy back with me. I saw it alone now, and although the promise in the

slow transformation of darkness to azure moved me to tears, I felt it was

no promise for me.

* * * * *

March 1st.—Nothing that is _prescribed_ does me any good. I cannot leave

off going to church, but the support I want I must find out for myself.

Perhaps if I had been born two hundred years ago, I might have been

caught by some strong enthusiastic organisation and have been a private

in a great army. A miserable time is this when each man has to grope his

way unassisted, and all the incalculable toil of founders of churches

goes for little or nothing. . . . I do not pray for any more pleasure: I

ask only for strength to endure, till I can lie down and rest. I have

had more rapture in a day than my neighbours and relations have had in

all their lives. Tom once said to me that he would sooner have had

twenty-four hours with me as his wife than youth and manhood with any

other woman he ever knew. He said that, not when we were first married,

but a score of years afterwards. I remember the place and the hour. It

was in the garden one morning in July, just before breakfast. It was a

burning day, and massive white clouds were forming themselves on the

horizon. The storm on that day was the heaviest I recollect, and the

lightning struck one of our chimneys and dashed it through the roof. His

passion was informed with intellect, and his intellect glowed with

passion. There was nothing in him merely animal or merely rational. . . .

To endure, to endure! Can there be any endurance without a motive? I

have no motive.

* * * * *

March 10th.—My sister and my brother-in-law came to-day and I wished them

away. Now that my husband is dead I discover that the frequent visitors

to our house came to see him and not me. There must be something in me

which prevents people, especially women, from being really intimate with

me. To be able to make friends is a talent which I do not possess, and

if those who call on me are prompted by kindness only, I would rather be

without them. The only attraction towards me which I value is that which

is irresistible. Perhaps I am wrong, and ought to accept with

thankfulness whatever is left to me if it has any savour of goodness in

it. I have no right to compare and to reject. . . I provide myself with

little maxims, and a breath comes and sweeps them away. What is

permanent behind these little flickerings is black night: that is the

real background of my life.

* * * * *

April 24th.—I have been to London, and on Easter Sunday I went to High

Mass at a Roman Catholic Church. I was obliged to leave, for I was

overpowered and hysterical. Were I to go often my reason might be

drowned, and I might become a devotee. And yet I do not think I should.

If I could prostrate myself at a shrine I should want an answer. When I

came out into the open air I saw again the _plainness_ of the world: the

skies, the sea, the fields are not in accord with incense or gorgeous

ceremonies. Incense and ceremonies are beyond the facts, and to the

facts we must cleave, no matter how poor and thin they may be.

* * * * *

May 5th.—If I am ill, I shall depend entirely on paid service. God grant

I may die suddenly and not linger in imbecility. So much of me is dead

that what is left is not worth preserving. Nearly everything I have done

all my life has been done for love. I shall now have to act for duty’s

sake. It is an entire reconstruction of myself, the insertion of a new

motive. I do not much believe in duty, nor, if I read my New Testament

aright, did the Apostle Paul. For Jesus he would do anything. That

sacred face would have drawn me whither the Law would never have driven

me.

* * * * *

May 7th.—It is painful to me to be so completely set aside. When Tom was

alive I was in the midst of the current of affairs. Few men, except

Maxwell, come to the house now. My property is in the hands of trustees.

Tom continually consulted me in business matters. I have nothing to look

after except my house, and I sit at my window and see the stream of life

pass without touching me. I cannot take up work merely for the sake of

taking it up. Nobody would value it, nor would it content me. How I

used to pity my husband’s uncle, Captain Charteris! He had been a

sailor; he had fought the French; he had been in imminent danger of

shipwreck, and from his youth upwards perpetual demands had been made

upon his resources and courage. At fifty he retired, a strong, active

man; and having a religious turn, he helped the curate with school-treats

and visiting. He pined away and died in five years. The bank goes on.

I have my dividends, but not a word reaches me about it.

* * * * *

October 10th.—Five months, I see, have passed since I made an entry in my

diary. What a day this is! The turf is once more soft, the trees and

hedges are washed, the leaves are turning yellow and are ready to fall.

I have been sitting in the garden alone, reading the forty-ninth chapter

of Genesis. I must copy the closing verses. It does me good to write

them.

“And Jacob charged them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my

people: bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of

Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which

is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the

field of Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a burying-place. There

they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and

Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah. The purchase of the field and

of the cave that is therein was from the children of Heth. And when

Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet

into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his

people.” There is no distress here: he gathers up his feet and departs.

Perhaps our wild longings are unnatural, and yet it seems but nature

_not_ to be content with what contented the patriarch. Anyhow, wherever

and whatever my husband and Sophy are I shall be. This at least is

beyond dispute.

* * * * *

October 12th.—I do not wish to forget past joys, but I must simply

remember them and not try to paint them. I must cut short any yearning

for them.

* * * * *

October 20th.—We do not say the same things to ourselves with sufficient

frequency. In these days of book-reading fifty fine thoughts come into

our heads in a day, and the next morning are forgotten. Not one of them

becomes a religion. In the Bible how few the thoughts are, and how

incessantly they are repeated! If my life could be controlled by two or

three divine ideas, I would burn my library. I often feel that I would

sooner be a Levitical priest, supposing I believed in my office, than be

familiar with all these great men whose works are stacked around me.

* * * * *

October 22nd.—Sometimes, especially at night, the thought not only that I

personally have lost Tom and Sophy, but that the exquisite fabric of

these relationships, so intricate, so delicate, so highly organised,

could be cast aside, to all appearance so wastefully, is almost

unendurable. . . . I went up to the moor on the top of the hill this

morning, where I could see, far away, the river broaden and lose itself

in the Atlantic. I lay on the heather looking through it and listening

to it.

* * * * *

October 23rd.—The 131st Psalm came into my mind when I was on the moor

again. “Neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too

high for me. Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that

is weaned of its mother: my soul is even as a weaned child.”

* * * * *

October 28th—Tom once said to me that reasoning is often a bad guide for

us, and that loyalty to the silent Leader is true wisdom. Wesley, when

he was in trouble, asked himself “whether he should fight against it by

thinking, or by not thinking of it,” and a wise man told him “to be still

and go on.” A certain blind instinct seems to carry me forward. What is

it? an indication of a purpose I do not comprehend? an order given by the

Commander-in-Chief which is to be obeyed although the strategy is not

understood?

* * * * *

November 3rd.—Palmer, my maid, who has been with me ever since I began to

keep house, was very good-looking at one-and-twenty. When she had been

engaged to be married about a twelvemonth, she burned her face and the

burn left a bad scar. Her lover found excuses for breaking off the

engagement. He must have been a scoundrel, and I should like to have had

him whipped with wire. She was very fond of him. She had an offer of

marriage ten years afterwards, but she refused. I believe she feared

lest the scar, seen every day, would make her husband loathe her. Her

case is worse than mine, for she never knew such delights as mine. She

has subsisted on mere friendliness and civility. “Oh,” it is suggested

at once to me, “you are more sensitive than she is.” How dare I say

that? How hateful is the assumption of superior sensitiveness as an

excuse for want of endurance!

* * * * *

November 4th.—Ellen Charteris, my husband’s cousin, belongs to a Roman

Catholic branch of the family, and is an abbess. I remember saying to

her that I wondered that she and her nuns could spend such useless lives.

She replied that although she and all good Catholics believe in the

atonement of Christ, they also believe that works of piety in excess of

what may be demanded of us, even if they are done in secret, are a

set-off against the sins of the world. In this form the doctrine has not

much to commend itself to me, and it is assumed that the nuns’ works are

pious. But in a sense it is true. “The very hairs of your head are all

numbered.” The fall of a grain of dust is recorded.

* * * * *

November 7th—A kind of peace occasionally visits me. It is not the

indifference begotten of time, for my husband and my child are nearer and

dearer than ever to me. I care not to analyse it. I return to my

patriarch. With Joseph before him, the father, who had refused to be

comforted when he thought his son was dead, gathered up his feet into the

bed and slept.

CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN GEORGE LUCY M.A., AND HIS GODCHILD, HERMIONE

RUSSELL, B.A.

MY DEAR HERMIONE,—I have sent you my little volume of verse translations

into English, and you will find appended a few attempts at Latin and

Greek renderings of favourite English poems. You must tell me what you

think of them, and you must not spare a single blunder or inelegance. I

do not expect any reviews, and if there should be none it will not

matter, for I proposed to myself nothing more than my own amusement and

that of my friends. I would rather have thoroughly good criticism from

you than a notice, even if it were laudatory, from a magazine or a

newspaper. You have worked hard at your Latin and Greek since we read

Homer and Virgil, and you have had better instruction than I had at

Winchester. These trifles were published about three months ago, but I

purposely did not send you a copy then. You are enjoying your holiday

deep in the country, and may be inclined to pardon that incurable old

idler, your godfather and former tutor, for a waste of time which perhaps

you would not forgive when you are teaching in London. Verse-making is

out of fashion now. Goodbye. I should like to spend a week with you

wandering through those Devonshire lanes if I could carry my two rooms

with me and stick them in a field.

Affectionately,

G. L.

MY DEAR GODFATHER,—The little _Musæ_ came safely. My love to you for

them, and for the pretty inscription. I positively refuse to say a

single syllable on your scholarship. I have deserted my Latin and Greek,

and they were never good enough to justify me in criticising yours. I

have latterly turned my attention to Logic, History, and Moral

Philosophy, and with the help of my degree I have obtained a situation as

teacher of these sciences. I confess I do not regret the change. They

are certainly of supreme importance. There is something to be learned

about them from Latin and Greek authors, but this can be obtained more

easily from modern writers or translations than by the laborious study of

the originals. Do not suppose I am no longer sensible to the charm of

classical art. It is wonderful, but I have come to the conclusion that

the time spent on the classics, both here and in Germany, is mostly

thrown away. Take even Homer. I admit the greatness of the Iliad and

the Odyssey, but do tell me, my dear godfather, whether in this

nineteenth century, when scores of urgent social problems are pressing

for solution, our young people ought to give themselves up to a study of

ancient legends? What, however, are Horace, Catullus, and Ovid compared

with Homer? Much in them is pernicious, and there is hardly anything in

them which helps us to live. Besides, we have surely enough in Chaucer,

Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton, to say nothing of the poets of this

century, to satisfy the imagination of anybody. Boys spend years over

the _Metamorphoses_ or the story of the wars of Æneas, and enter life

with no knowledge of the simplest facts of psychology. I look forward to

a time not far distant, I hope, when our whole pædagogic system will be

remodelled. Greek and Latin will then occupy the place which Assyrian or

Egyptian hieroglyphic occupies now, and children will be directly

prepared for the duties which await them.

I have in preparation a book which I expect soon to publish, entitled

_Positive Education_. It will appear anonymously, for society being

constituted as it is, I am afraid that my name on the title-page would

prevent me from finding employment. My object is to show how the moral

fabric can be built up without the aid of theology or metaphysics. I

profess no hostility to either, but as educational instruments I believe

them to be useless. I begin with Logic as the foundation of all science,

and then advance by easy steps (_a_) to the laws of external nature

commencing with number, and (_b_) to the rules of conduct, reasons being

given for them, with History and Biography as illustrations. One modern

foreign language, to be learned as thoroughly as it is possible to learn

it in this country, will be included. I desire to banish all magic in

school training. Everything taught shall be understood. It is easier,

and in some respects more advantageous, not to explain, but the mischief

of habituating children to bow to the unmeaning is so great that I would

face any inconvenience in order to get rid of it. All kinds of

objections, some of them of great weight, may be urged against me, but

the question is on which side do they preponderate? Is it no objection

to our present system that the simple laws most necessary to society

should be grounded on something which is unintelligible, that we should

be brought up in ignorance of any valid obligation to obey moral

precepts, that we should be unable to give any account of the commonest

physical phenomena, that we should never even notice them, that we should

be unaware, for example, of the nightly change in the position of planets

and stars, and that we should nevertheless busy ourselves with niceties

of expression in a dead tongue, and with tales about Jupiter and Juno?

For what glorious results may we not look when children from their

earliest years learn that which is essential, but which now, alas! is

picked up unmethodically and by chance? I cannot help saying all this to

you, for your _Musæ_ arrived just as my youngest brother came home from

Winchester. He was delighted with it, for he is able to write very fair

Latin and Greek. That boy is nearly eighteen. He does not know why the

tides rise and fall, and has never heard that there has been any

controversy as to the basis of ethics.

Your affectionate godchild,

HERMIONE.

MY DEAR HERMIONE,—Your letter was something like a knock-down blow. I am

sorry you have abandoned your old friends, and I felt that you intended

to rebuke me for trifling. A great deal of what you say I am sure is

true, but I cannot write about it. Whether Greek and Latin ought to be

generally taught I am unable to decide. I am glad I learned them. My

apology for my little _Musæ_ must be that it is too late to attempt to

alter the habits in which I was brought up. Remember, my dear child,

that I am an old bachelor with seventy years behind me last Christmas,

and remember also my natural limits. I am not so old, nevertheless, that

I cannot wish you God-speed in all your undertakings.

Your affectionate godfather,

G. L.

MY DEAR GODFATHER,—What a blunderer I am! What deplorable want of tact!

If I wanted your opinion on classical education or my scheme I surely

might have found a better opportunity for requesting it. It is always

the way with me. I get a thing into my head, and out it comes at the

most unseasonable moment. It is almost as important that what is said

should be relevant as that it should be true. Well, the mistake is made,

and I cannot unmake it. I will not trouble you with another

syllable—directly at any rate—about Latin and Greek, but I do want to

know what you think about the exclusion of theology and metaphysics from

the education of the young. I must have _debate_, so that before

publication my ideas may become clear and objections may be anticipated.

I cannot discuss the matter with my father. You were at college with

him, and you will remember his love for Aristotle, who, as I think, has

enslaved him. If I may say so without offence, you are not a

philosopher. You are more likely, therefore, to give a sound,

unprofessional opinion. You have never had much to do with children, but

this does not matter; in fact, it is rather an advantage, for actual

children would have distorted your judgment. What has theology done? It

is only half-believed, and its rewards and punishments are too remote to

be of practical service. They are not seen when they are most required.

As to metaphysics, its propositions are too loose. They may with equal

ease be affirmed or denied. Conduct cannot be controlled by what is

shadowy and uncertain. We have been brought up on theology and

metaphysics for centuries, and we are still at daggers drawn upon matters

of life and death. We are as warlike as ever, and not a single social

problem has been settled by bishops or professors. I wish to try a more

direct and, as I believe, a more efficient method. I wish to see what

the effect will be of teaching children from their infancy the lesson

that morality and the enjoyment of life are identical; that if, for

example, they lie, they lose. I should urge this on them perpetually,

until at last, by association, lying would become impossible. Restraint

which is exercised in accordance with rational principles, inasmuch as it

proceeds from Nature, must be more efficacious than an external

prohibition. So with other virtues. I should deduce most of them in the

same way. If I could not, I should let them go, assured that we could do

without them. Now, my dear godfather, do open out to me, and don’t put

me off.

Your affectionate godchild,

HERMIONE.

MY DEAR HERMIONE,—You terrify me. These matters are really not in my

way. I have never been able to tackle big questions. Unhappily for me,

all questions nowadays are big. I do not see many people, as you know,

and potter about in my garden from morning to night, but Mrs. Lindsay

occasionally brings down her friends from London, and the subjects of

conversation are so immense that I am bewildered. I admit that some

people are too rich and others are too poor, and that if I could give you

a vote you should have one, and that boys and girls might be better

taught, but upon Socialism, Enfranchisement of Women, and Educational

Reform, I have not a word to say. Is not this very unsatisfactory?

Nobody is more willing to admit it than I am. It is so disappointing in

talking to myself or to others to stop short of generalisation and to be

obliged to confess that _sometimes it is and sometimes it is not_. I

bless my stars that I am not a politician or a newspaper writer. When I

was young these great matters, at least in our village, were not such

common property as they are now. A man, even if he was a scholar,

thought he had done his duty by living an honest and peaceable life. He

was justified if he was kind to his neighbours and amused himself with

his bees and flowers. He had no desire to be remembered for any

achievement, and was content to be buried with a few tears and then to be

forgotten. All Mrs. Lindsay’s folk want to do something outside their

own houses or parishes which shall make their names immortal. . . . I

was interrupted by a tremendous thunderstorm and hail. That wonderful

rose-bush which, you will recollect, stood on the left-hand side of the

garden door, has been stripped just as if it had been scourged with

whips. If you have done, quite done with the Orelli you borrowed about

two years ago, please let me have it. Why could you not bring it? Mrs.

Lindsay was saying only the other day how glad she should be if you would

stay with her for a fortnight before you return to town.

Your affectionate godfather,

G. L.

MY DEAR GODFATHER,—I have sent back the Orelli. How I should love to

come and to wander about the meadows with you by the river or sit in the

boat with you under the willows. But I cannot, for I have promised to

speak at a Woman’s Temperance Meeting next week, and in the week

following I am going to read a paper called “An Educational Experiment,”

before our Ethical Society. This, I think, will be interesting. I have

placed my pupils in difficult historical positions, and have made them

tell me what they would have done, giving the reasons. I am thus enabled

to detect any weakness and to strengthen character on that side. Most of

the girls are embarrassed by the conflict of motives, and I have to

impress upon them the necessity in life of disregarding those which are

of less importance and of prompt action on the stronger. I have

classified my results in tables, so that it may be seen at a glance what

impulses are most generally operative.

But to go back to your letter. I will not have you shuffle. You can say

so much if you like. Talk to me just as you did when we last sat under

the cedar-tree. I _must_ know your mind about theology and metaphysics.

Your affectionate godchild,

HERMIONE.

MY DEAR HERMIONE,—I am sorry you could not come. I am sorry that what

people call a “cause” should have kept you away. If any of your friends

had been ill; if it had been a dog or a cat, I should not have cared so

much. You are dreadful! Theology and metaphysics! I do not understand

what they are as formal sciences. Everything seems to me theological and

metaphysical. What Shakespeare says now and then carries me further than

anything I have read in the system-books into which I have looked. I

cannot take up a few propositions, bind them into faggots, and say, “This

is theology, and that is metaphysics.” There is much “discourse of God”

in a May blossom, and my admiration of it is “beyond nature,” but I am

not sure upon this latter point, for I do not know in the least what

φυσις or Nature is. We love justice and generosity, and hate injustice

and meanness, but the origin of virtue, the life of the soul, is as much

beyond me as the origin of life in a plant or animal, and I do not bother

myself with trying to find it out. I do feel, however, that justice and

generosity have somehow a higher authority than I or any human being can

give them, and if I had children of my own this is what I should try, not

exactly to teach them, but to breathe into them. I really, my dear

child, dare not attempt an essay on the influence which priests and

professors have had upon the world, nor am I quite clear that “shadowy”

and “uncertain” mean the same thing. All ultimate facts in a sense are

shadowy, but they are not uncertain. When you try to pinch them between

your fingers they seem unsubstantial, but they are very real. Are you

sure that you yourself stand on solid granite?

Your affectionate godfather,

G. L.

MY DEAR GODFATHER,—You are most disappointing and evasive. I gave up the

discussion on Latin and Greek, but I did and do want your reply to a most

simple question. If you had to teach children—you surely can imagine

yourself in such a position—would you teach them _what are generally

known as theology and metaphysics_?—excuse the emphasis. You have an

answer, I am certain, and you may just as well give it me. I know that

you had rather, or affect you had rather, talk about Catullus, but I also

know that you think upon serious subjects sometimes. These matters

cannot now be put aside. We live in a world in which certain problems

are forced upon us and we are compelled to come to some conclusion upon

them. I cannot shut myself up and determine that I will have no opinion

upon Education or Socialism or Women’s Rights. The fact that these

questions are here is plain proof that it is my duty not to ignore them.

You hate large generalisations, but how can we exist without them? They

may never be entirely true, but they are indispensable, and, if you never

commit yourself to any, you are much more likely to be practically wrong

than if you use them.

Take, for example, the Local Veto. I admitted in my speech that there is

much to be urged against it. It might act harshly, and it is quite true

that poor men in large towns cannot spend their evenings in their filthy

homes; but I _must_ be for it or against it, and I am enthusiastically

for it, because on the whole it will do good. So with Socialism. The

evils of Capitalism are so monstrous that any remedy is better than none.

Socialism may not be the direct course: it may be a tremendously awkward

tack, but it is only by tacking that we get along. So with positive

education, but I have enlarged upon this already. What a sermon to my

dear godfather! Forgive me, but you will have to take sides, and do,

please, be a little more definite about my book.

Your affectionate godchild,

HERMIONE.

MY DEAR HERMIONE,—I haven’t written for some time, for I was unwell for

nearly a month. The doctor has given me physic, but my age is really the

mischief, and it is incurable. I caught cold through sitting out of

doors after dinner with the rector, a good fellow if he would not smoke

on my port. To smoke on good port is a sin. He knows my infirmity, that

I cannot sit still long, and he excuses my attendance at church. Would

you believe it? When I was very bad, and thought I might die, I read

Horace again, whom you detest. I often wonder what he really thought

upon many things when he looked out on the

“taciturna noctis

signa.”

Justice is not often done to him. He saw a long way, but he did not make

believe he saw beyond his limit, and was content with it. A rare virtue

is intellectual content!

“Tu ne quæsieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi

Finem dî dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios

Tentaris numeros.”

The rector was telling me about Tom Pavenham’s wedding. He has married

Margaret Loxley, as you may perhaps have seen in the paper I sent you.

Mrs. Loxley, her mother, was a Barfield, and old Pavenham, when he was a

youth, fell in love with her. She was also in love with him. He was

well-to-do, and farmed about seven hundred acres, but he was not thought

good enough by the elder Barfields, who lived in what was called a park.

They would not hear of the match. She was sent to France, and he went to

Buenos Ayres. After some years had passed he married out there, and she

married. His wife died when her first child, a boy, was born. Loxley

also died, leaving his wife with an only daughter. Pavenham retired from

business in South America, and came back with his son to his native

village, where he meant to spend the rest of his days. Tom and Margaret

were at once desperately smitten with one another. The father and mother

have kept their own flame alive, and I believe it is as bright as it ever

was. It is delightful to see them together. They called on me with the

children after the betrothal. He was so courteous and attentive to her,

and she seemed to bask in his obvious affection. I noticed how they

looked at one another and smiled happily as the boy and girl wandered off

together towards the filbert walk. The rector told me that he was

talking to old Pavenham one evening, and said to him: “Jem, aren’t you

sometimes sad when you think of what ought to have happened?” His voice

shook a bit as he replied gently: “God be thanked for what we have!

Besides, it has all come to pass in Tom and Margaret.”

You must not be angry with me if I say nothing more about Positive

Education. It is a great strain on me to talk upon such matters, and

when I do I always feel afterwards that I have said much which is mere

words. That is a sure test; I must obey my dæmon. I wish I could give

you what you want for what you have given me; but when do we get what we

want in exchange for what we give? Our trafficking is a clumsy barter.

A man sells me a sheep, and I pay him in return with my grandfather’s old

sextant. This is not quite true for you and me. Love is given and love

is returned. À Dieu—not adieu. Remember that the world is very big, and

that there may be room in it for a few creatures like

Your affectionate godfather,

G. L.