ybe years, meditating on everything, in order to supply his
soul with plenty of suitable thoughts--like a tailor importing fine
woolens to accumulate stock. And even with the shelves full, one ought
not to work till just the right hour.

His theories called for a conscientious inspection of each inspiration.
They also obliged this good gentleman to exercise self-control. Many a
time when he wanted to work he held back. Although "the intention to
write was never out of his mind" (Mr. Gosse says), Mr. Patmore had "the
power of will to refuse himself the satisfaction of writing, except on
those rare occasions when he felt capable of doing his best."

There once was a man I knew, who wooed his fiancee on those terms. He
used to sit thinking away in his library, evenings, debating whether he
had better go see her, and whether he was at his best. And after
fiddling about in a worried way between yes and no, he would sometimes
go around only to find that she would not see _him_. I think that she
loved the man, too, or was ready to love him. "His honesty has a
horrible fascination for me," I remember her saying, "but when he has an
impulse to kiss me--and I see him stop--and look as though he were
taking his temperature with a thermometer first, trying to see if his
blood is up--I want to hit him and scream!"

Mr. Patmore, however, was very firm about this being necessary. He had
many a severe inner struggle because of his creed. He would repulse the
most enticing inspiration, if his thermometer wasn't at just the right
figure. Neither he nor his inspirations were robust, but they were
evenly matched, and they must have wrestled obstinately and often in the
course of his life, and pushed each other about and exchanged slaps and
tense bloodless pinches. But whenever Mr. Patmore felt it his duty to
wrestle, he won.

[Illustration: He took his temperature first]

Consequently, looking backward he felt able to say when he was old: "I
have written little, but it is all my best; I have never spoken when I
had nothing to say, nor spared time nor labor to make my words true. I
have respected posterity, and should there be a posterity which cares
for letters, I dare to hope that it will respect me."

That last phrase has a manly ring. Imagine him, alone late at night,
trying to sum up his life, and placing before us what bits he had
managed to do before dying. We may live through some evening of that
sort ourselves, by and by. We