ings, however plausible, with which in-tellectual subtlety has overlaid it. Solong as these unverifiable glosses arepronounced essential, so long as theyare not swept aside, we shall neverrestore the study and the religion of theBible.

What is essential is the vivid percep-tion of the Eternal not-ourselves whichmakes for righteousness and the methodand secret of Jesus. In spite of all ob-scuring glosses, these never have beenand never can be entirely obscured tostudents of the Bible; but it is time tosweep the glosses aside altogether, be-cause now, until they are swept aside, thepeople refuse to be students of the Bibleat all; whereas it is only through study-ing the Bible that those essentials arerevealed to us, while the test of theirvalidity is universal experience. Try, and

you will find, as men always have found,that it is so. The Hebrews elevated con-duct above all else; they fell because theymisconceived right conduct. For peoplesas for individuals, to elevate somethingelse, whether it be science or art, aboveconduct, must be ultimately fatal, no lessthan to misconceive right conduct. Whatthe Bible does is to make conduct con-vincingly supreme, and show us how to berighteous, if we will but understand it.To peoples as to individuals righteousnessis the way of salvation; and in the Bibleis its inspiration.

Finally, and above all. As for the rightinculcation of righteousness we need theBible, so for the right inculcation of themethod and secret of Jesus, we need theepieikeia, the sweet reasonableness ofJesus; and it is only in the Bible recordsthat we can get at his epieikeia.

Fragments of an Intimate JournalHENRI FREDERIC AMIEL

PARTS of the Journal Intime of Henri Frederic Amiel were published in 1882-84 withan introduction by Amiel's friend Edmond Scherer, and an English translation by Mrs.

Humphrey Ward appeared in 1885. The book has the interest which attaches to allgenuine personal confessions of the interior life; it is also the signal expression of the spiritof its time. The work renders perfectly the disillusion, languor and sentimentality of aself-centred scepticism. It is the record of a morbid mind, but of a mind of extraordinary

acuteness and the utmost delicacy of perception.

THOUGHTS ON LIFE AND CONDUCT

ONLY one thing is needful—to pos-sess God. The senses, the powersof the soul and all outward re-

sources are so many vistas opening uponDivinity, so many ways of tasting andadoring God. To be detached from allthat is fugitive, and to seize only on theeternal and the absolute, using the rest asno more than a loan, a tenancy! To wor-ship, understand, receive, feel, give, act—this is your law, your duty, your heaven!

After all, there is only one object whichwe can study, and that is the modes andthe metamorphoses of the human spirit.All other studies lead us back to this one.

I have never felt the inward assuranceof genius, nor the foretaste of celebrity,nor of happiness, nor even the prospect ofbeing husband, father, or respected citi-zen. This indifference to the future isitself a sign; my dreams are vague, in-

definite; I must not now live, because Iam now hardly capable of living. Let mecontrol myself; let me leave life to theliving, and betake myself to my ideas;let me write the testament of my thoughtsand of my heart.

Heroism is the splendid and wonderfultriumph of the soul over the flesh; thatis to say, over fear—the fear of poverty,suffering, calumny, disease, isolation anddeath. There is no true piety without thisdazzling concentration of courage.

Duty has this great value—it makes usfeel the reality of the positive world,while yet it detaches us from it.

How vulnerable am I! If I were afather, what a host of sorrows a childcould bring on me! As a husband, Ishould suffer in a thousand ways, becausea thousand conditions are necessary to myhappiness. My heart is too sensitive, my

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imagination anxious, and despair is easy.The 'might be' spoils for me what is, the'should be' devours me with melancholy;and this reality, present, irreparable, in-evitable, disgusts or frightens me. So itis that I put away the happy images offamily life. Every hope is an egg whichmay hatch a serpent instead of a dove;every joy that fails is a knife-wound;every seed-time entrusted to destiny hasits harvest of pain.

What is duty? Is it to obey one's na-ture at its best and most spiritual; or isit to vanquish one's nature? That is thedeepest question. Is life essentially theeducation of the spirit and of the intelli-gence, or is it the education of the will?And does will lie in power or in resigna-tion?

Therefore are there two worlds—Chris-tianity affords and teaches salvation bythe conversion of the will; but humanismbrings salvation by the emancipation ofthe spirit. The first seizes upon the heart,and the other upon the brain. The firstaims at illumining by healing, the otherat healing by illumining.

Now, moral love, the first of these twoprinciples, places the centre of the indi-vidual in the centre of his being. For tolove is virtually to know; but to know isnot virtually to love. Redemption byknowledge or by intellectual love is in-ferior to redemption by the will or bymoral love. The former is criticaland negative; the latter is life-giving,positive. Moral force is the vitalpoint.

THE ERA OF MEDIOCRITY

THE era of mediocrity in all things isbeginning, and mediocrity freezes

desire. Equality engenders uniformity;and evil is got rid of by sacrificing allthat is excellent, remarkable, extraordi-nary. Everything becomes less coarse butmore vulgar. The epoch of great men ispassing away; the epoch of the ant-hillis upon us. The age of individualism isin danger of having no real individuals.Things are certainly progressing, but soulsdecline.

The point of view of Schleiermacher'sMonologues, which is also that of Emer-son, is great indeed, but proud and egois-tical, since the Self is made the centre ofthe universe. It is man rejoicing in him-self, taking refuge in the inaccessiblesanctuary of self-consciousness, and be-coming almost a god. It is a triumphwhich is not far removed from impiety;it is a superhuman point of view whichdoes away with humility; it is preciselythe temptation to which man first suc-cumbed when he desired to becomehis own master by becoming like thegods.

We are too much encumbered with af-

fairs, too busy, too active; we even readtoo much. We must throw overboard allour cargo of anxieties, preoccupations andpedantry to recover youth, simplicity,childhood, and the present moment withits happy mood of gratitude. By thatleisure which is far from idleness, by anattentive and recollected inaction, the soulloses her creases, expands, unfolds, re-pairs her injuries like a bruised leaf, andbecomes once more new, spontaneous,true, original. Reverie, like showers atnight, refreshes the thoughts which havebecome worn and discoloured by the heatof day.

I have been walking in the garden in afine autumnal rain. All the innumerable,wonderful symbols which the forms andcolours of nature afford charm me andcatch at my heart. There is no countryscene that is not a state of the soul, andwhoever will read the two together willbe astonished by their detailed similarity.Far truer is true poetry than science; poe-try seizes at first glance in her syntheticway that essential thing which all thesciences put together can only hope toreach at the very end.

LESSONS FROM THE GREEKS

How much we have to learn from ourimmortal forefathers, the Greeks;

and how far better than we did they solvetheir problem! Their type was not ours,but how much better did they revere, cul-tivate and ennoble the man they knew!

Beside them we are barbarians in athousand ways, as in education, eloquence,public life, poetry.

If the number of its accomplished menbe the measure of a civilization, ours isfar below theirs. We have not slaves be-

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neath us, but we have them among us.Barbarism is not at our frontiers, but atour doors. We bear within us greaterthings, but we ourselves are how muchsmaller!

Strange paradox: that their objective

civilization should have created great menas it were by accident, while our sub-jective civilization, contrary to its expressmission, turns out paltry halflings. Thingsare becoming majestic, but man is dimin-ishing.

THE GLORY OF MOTHERHOOD

AMOTHER should be to her child as thesun in the heavens, a changeless and

ever radiant star, whither the inconstantlittle creature, so ready with its tearsand its laughter, so light, so passionate, sostormy, may come to calm and to fortifyitself with heat and light. A motherrepresents goodness, providence, law, nay,divinity itself, under the only form inwhich childhood can meet with these highthings. If, therefore, she is passionate,she teaches that God is capricious ordespotic, or even that there are severalgods in conflict.

The child's religion depends on the wayin which its mother and its father havelived, and not on the way in which theyhave spoken. The inmost tone of theirlife is precisely what reaches their child,who finds no more than comedy or emptythunder in their maxims, remonstrancesand punishments. Their actual and cen-tral worship—that is what his instinct in-fallibly perceives. A child sees what weare, through all the fictions of what wewould be.

It is curious to see, in discussions onspeculative matters, how abstract minds,

who move from ideas to facts, always dobattle for concrete reality; while concreteminds, on the other hand, who movefrom facts to ideas, are usually the cham-pions of abstract notions. The more in-tellectual nature trusts to an ethicaltheory; the more moral nature has anintellectualist morality.

The centre of life is neither in thought,nor in feeling, nor in will; nor even inconsciousness in so far as it thinks, feels,or wills; for a moral truth may have beenpenetrated and possessed in all theseways, and yet escape us still.

Far below our consciousness is ourbeing, our substance, our nature. Thosetruths alone which have entered this pro-found region, and have become ourselves,and are spontaneous, involuntary, instinc-tive and unconscious—only these arereally our life and more than our externalpossessions.

Now, it is certain that we can find ourpeace only in life, and, indeed, only ineternal life; and eternal life is God. Onlywhen the creature is one, by a unity oflove with his Creator—only then is hewhat he is meant to be.

THE SECRET OF PERPETUAL YOUTH

THERE are two degrees of pride—one,wherein a man is self-complacent;

the other, wherein he is unable to accepthimself. Of these two degrees, the secondis probably the more subtle.

The whole secret of remaining young isto keep an enthusiasm burning within, bykeeping a harmony in the soul. Wheneverything is rightly ordered within us,we may rest in equilibrium with the workof God. A certain grave enthusiasm forthe eternal beauty and order; a glow-ing mind and cloudless goodwill: theseare, perhaps, the foundation of wis-dom.

How inexhaustible is the theme of wis-dom! A peaceful aureole surrounds this

rich conception. Wisdom includes alltreasures of moral experience, and is theripest fruit of a well-spent life. She neverages, for she is the very expression oforder, and order is eternal. Only the wiseman tastes all the savour of life and ofevery age, because only he can recognizetheir beauty, dignity and worth.

To see all things in God, to make ofone's own life a voyage to the ideal, tolive with gratitude, recollection, kindnessand courage—this was the admirablespirit of Marcus Aurelius. Add to thesea kneeling humility and a devoted char-ity, and you have the wisdom of God'schildren, the undying joy of true Chris-tians.

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THE FASCINATION OF LOVE

WOMAN would be loved without rea-son, without analysis; not because

she is beautiful or good, or cultivated, orgracious, or spiritual, but because she ex-ists. Every analysis seems to her anattenuation and a subordination of herpersonality to something which dominatesand measures it. She rejects it therefore,and rightly rejects it.

If the empire of woman is to continue,love must remain a fascination, an en-chantment; once her mystery is gone, herpower is gone also. So love must appearindivisible, irreducible, superior to allanalysis, if it is to retain those aspects

of infinitude, of the supernatural andthe miraculous, which constitute itsbeauty.

Most people hold cheaply whateverthey understand, and bow down only be-fore the inexplicable. Woman's triumphis to demonstrate the obscurity of thatmale intelligence which thinks itself soenlightened; and when women inspirelove, they are not without the proud joyof this triumph. Their vanity is not al-together baseless; but a profound love isa light and a calm, a religion and a reve-lation, which in its turn despises theselesser triumphs of vanity.

MAN'S USELESS YEARNING

ETERNAL effort is the note of modernmorality. This painful, restless 'be-

coming' has taken the place of harmony,equilibrium and joy.

We are all fauns and satyrs aspiring tobecome angels, ugly creatures labouring atour embellishment, monstrous chrysalidstrying to become butterflies. Our ideal isno longer the tranquil beauty of the soul,it is the anguish of Laocoon fighting withthe hydra of evil. No longer are therehappy and accomplished men; we are can-didates, indeed, for heaven, but on earthgalley slaves, and we row away our lifein the expectation of harbour. It seemspossible that this perfecting is nothingelse but a pretentious imperfection.

The 'becoming' seems rather negative

than positive; it is the lessening of evil,but is not itself the good; it is a noblediscontent, but is by no means felicity.This ceaseless pursuit of an endless endis a generous madness, but is not reason;it is the yearning for what can neverbe, a touching malady, but it is notwisdom.

Yet there is none who may not achieveharmony; and when he has it, he iswithin the eternal order, and representsthe divine thought at least as clearly as aflower does, or a solar system. Harmonyseeks nothing that is outside herself. Sheis exactly that which she should be; sheexpresses goodness, order, law, truth,honour; she transcends time and revealsthe eternal.

MEMORIES OF THE GOLDEN AGE

IN the world of society one must seemto live on ambrosia and to know none

but noble thoughts. Anxiety, want, pas-sion, simply do not exist. All realism issuppressed as brutal. It is a world whichamuses itself with the flattering illusionthat it lives above the clouds and breathesmythological air.

That is why all vehemence, the cry ofnature, all suffering, thoughtless familiar-ity and every frank sign of love shock this

delicate medium like a bombshell; theyshatter this collective fabric, this palaceof clouds, this enchanted architecture,just as shrill cockcrow scatters the fairiesinto hiding. These fine deceptions areunconsciously a work of art, a kind ofpoetry, by which cultivated society recon-structs an idyll that is age-long dead.They are confused memories of thegolden age, or aspirations after a harmonywhich mundane reality has not in it to give.

GOETHE UNDER THE LASH

I CANNOT like Goethe: he has little soul.His understanding of love, religion,

duty, patriotism, is paltry and even shock-ing. He lacks an ardent generosity. Acentral dryness, an ill-cloaked egoism,

show through his supple and richtalent.

True, this selfishness of his at least re-spects everyone's liberty and applauds alloriginality; but it helps no one, troubles

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itself for no one, bears no one's burden;in a word, it lacks charity, the great Chris-tian virtue.

To his mind perfection lies in personalnobility, and not in love. His keynote isaesthetic and not moral. He ignores sanc-tity, and has never so much as reflectedon the terrible problem of evil. He be-lieves in the opportunity of the individual,but neither in liberty nor in responsibility.He is a stranger to the social and politicalaspirations of the multitude; he has nomore thought for the disinherited, thefeeble, the oppressed, than nature has.

The profound disquiet of our era never

touches Goethe; the discords do not affectthe deaf. Whoso has never heard thevoice of conscience, regret and remorse,cannot even guess at the anxiety of thosewho have two masters, two laws, andbelong to two worlds, the world of natureand the world of liberty. His choice isalready made; his only world is nature.

But it is far otherwise with humanity.For men hear indeed the prophets of na-ture, but they hear also the voice ofreligion; the joy of life attracts them,yet devotion moves them; they knownot whether they hate or adore thecrucifix.

NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN

JEALOUSY is a terrible thing; it resem-bles love, but is in every way its con-

trary; the jealous man desires, not thegood of the loved one, but her dependenceon him and his triumph over her. Loveis the forgetfulness of self; but jealousyis the most passionate form of egoism,the exaltation of the despotic, vain andgreedy self, which cannot forget and sub-ordinate itself. The contrast is complete.

The man of fifty years, contemplatingthe world, finds in it certainly some newthings; but a thousand times more doeshe find old things furbished up, and pla-giarisms and modifications rather thanimprovements. Almost everything in theworld is a copy of a copy, a reflection ofa reflection; and any real success or prog-ress is as rare to-day as it has everbeen.

Let us not complain of it, for only socan the world last. Humanity advancesat a very slow pace; that is why history

continues. It may be that progress fansthe torch to burn away; perhaps progressaccelerates death. A society which shouldchange rapidly would only arrive thesooner at its catastrophe. Yes, progressmust be the aroma of life, and not itsvery substance.

To renounce happiness and think onlyof duty; to enthrone conscience wherethe heart has been: this willing immola-tion is a noble thing. Our nature jibs atit, but the better self will submit to it.To hope for justice is the proof of asickly sensibility; we ought to be able todo without justice.

A virile character consists in just thatindependence. Let the world think of uswhat it will; that is its affair, not ours.Our business is to act as if our countrywere grateful, as if the world judged inequity, as if public opinion could see thetruth, as if life were just, and as if menwere good.

THE ONLY ART OF PEACE AND REST

FEW people know of our physical suf-ferings ; our nearest and dearest have

no idea of our interviews with the king ofterrors. There are sorrows which maynot be shared. Kindness itself leads usto hide them. One suffers alone; one diesalone; alone one hides away in the littleapartment of six boards. But we arenot forbidden to open this solitude to ourGod. Thus the soliloquy of anguish be-comes a dialogue of peace, reluctance be-comes docility, suffocation becomes lib-erty.

Willing what God wills is the only artof peace and rest. It is strange to go to

bed knowing that one may not see to-morrow. I knew it well last night; yethere I am. When one counts the futureby hours, and to-night is already the un-known, one gives up everything and justtalks with oneself. I return to my mindand my journal, as the hare returns to itsform to die. As long as I can hold mypen and have a moment of solitude I willrecollect myself before this my echo, andconverse with my God. Not an exami-nation of conscience, not an act of con-trition, not a cry of appeal. Only anAmen of submission. . . . 'My child, giveMe your heart.'

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A Dream of John BallWILLIAM MORRIS

E give below a critical appreciation of Morris's career, together with an epitome ofA Dream of John Ball. This departure from precedent is dictated by the fact that

A Dream of John Ball contains in small compass Morris's gospel of life and work.w

IN some respects, all William Morris'slife and work was a preparation forwriting the little prose masterpiece,

A Dream of John Ball. A hater of allthings machine-made, and of machinery,he worked in varied fields of literatureand craftsmanship with the ceaseless en-ergy of a dynamo. A Dream of John Ballis an authentic declaration of faith, andan exquisite work of art in which shinesthe waning England of his dreams. To befully appreciated, it should be seen in thelight of what went before its creation.

The fairies who presided at Morris'sbirth at Walthamstow on March 24, 1834,were benign. His father was a prosperousbill broker, and the struggle for subsis-tence happily never meant more to himthan a phrase in current economics. Thatsocial portent, the Chartist movement,was beginning to show the class to whichhe belonged, that life was becoming unen-durable to multitudes of Englishmen, whohad no use for the new marvels of sciencethat were making the educated classesvery proud of themselves. What did itprofit that the world rolled down the ring-ing grooves of change, if it did not enablethem to live decently, the poor asked, andthe time came when Morris vehementlyreiterated the question.

Nearly the whole of his youth—a youthcoloured with the dreams of knight erran-try—passed in the glades of Epping For-est and the lowlands of Essex, sceneryafterwards to be transmuted into colour-ful backgrounds. In these early influencesone sees how it was that Morris broughtmedievalism out of Wardour Street intothe meadows, where it belongs.

Morris went to school at Marlborough,and delighted his school-fellows with end-less stories of knights and fairies. Soexuberant was his energy, that he had toemploy his fingers in net making, thoughperhaps this was the urge of the borncraftsman. By this time he had devel-oped, not only a love of medieval archi-

tecture, but of the retired life of theMiddle Ages. The church seemed to behis natural vocation.

The years of residence at Exeter Col-lege, 1853-1856—a period of intellectualferment that saw the publication ofTennyson's Maud—moulded his futuredestiny. The romantic renaissance iden-tified with the pre-Raphaelite Brother-hood was now on the way. Tennyson wasthe predominant star in the firmamentof poetical literature. It was Ruskin,however, who most powerfully influencedWilliam Morris. 'It was through him,'Morris has explained, 'that I first learntto give form to my discontent, which Imust say was not by any means vague.'As great, in a different way, was the in-fluence of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales,and Malory's Morte D'Arthur. Through-out his life Chaucer and Malory remainedhis acknowledged masters in song andprose.

Then began a life-long friendship withBurne-Jones, and a shorter friendshipwith Rossetti. On attaining his majority,Morris inherited a sufficient fortune togive him complete freedom of choice asto a career. In 1856 he articled himselfto Street, the architect, but later, theinfluence of Rossetti determined him tobecome a painter. Queen Guinevre is theonly completed painting of his which isknown to exist.

No trumpets of acclamation soundedwhen William Morris's first volume ofpoems, The Defence of Guinevre, ap-peared in 1858. Tennyson was supreme,and Morris's debt to Tennyson was con-siderable. At its best, the authentic Mor-ris sang a new faery music, and what wasmost typical was seen in Rapuntzal,which, moreover, has an elaborate metri-cal scheme. The finest lyric in the vol-ume is The Eve of Crec.y. As to tech-nique, one notices his variations of thenormal iambic pentameter. At the timeof the publication of The Defence of

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