llen from
his eyes since that talk; he had regained his true bearings; he began to
see the verities of life. How he had wasted his time! Why _had_ he
been so sour? why _had_ he indulged his spleen? why _had_ he taken such
a jaundiced view of life? He would put aside all jealousies; he would
have no enmities; he would be broader-minded--oh, so much
broader-minded; he would embrace all mankind--yes, even Canon Parkyn.
Above all, he would recognise that he was well advanced in life; he
would be more sober-thinking, would leave childish things, would
resolutely renounce his absurd infatuation for Anastasia. What a
ridiculous idea--a crabbed old sexagenarian harbouring affection for a
young girl! Henceforth she should be nothing to him--absolutely
nothing. No, that would be foolish; it would not be fair to her to cut
her off from all friendship; he could feel for her a fatherly
affection--it should be paternal and nothing more. He would bid adieu
to all that folly, and his life should not be a whit the emptier for the
loss. He would fill it with interests--all kinds of interests, and his
music should be the first. He would take up again, and carry out to the
end, that oratorio which he had turned over in his mind for years--the
"Absalom." He had several numbers at his fingers' ends; he would work
out the bass solo, "Oh, Absalom, my son, my son!" and the double chorus
that followed it, "Make ready, ye mighty; up and bare your swords!"

So he discoursed joyfully with his own heart, and felt above measure
elated at the great and sudden change that was wrought in him, not
recognising that the clouds return after the rain, and that the leopard
may change his spots as easily as man may change his habits. To change
a habit at fifty-five or forty-five or thirty-five; to ordain that
rivers shall flow uphill; to divert the relentless sequence of cause and
effect--how often dare we say this happens? _Nemo repente_--no man ever
suddenly became good. A moment's spiritual agony may blunt our
instincts and paralyse the evil in us--for a while, even as chloroform
may dull our bodily sense; but for permanence there is no sudden turning
of the mind; sudden repentances in life or death are equally impossible.

Three halcyon days were followed by one of those dark and lowering
mornings when the blank life seems blanker, and when the gloom of nature
is too accurately reflected in the nervous temperament of man. On
healthy youth cl