what
a happy man was he," he cries once, "that man that had a naked sword
hanging over his head from a single thread; so as to me it always did!"
"Desirest thou power?" he asks at another time. "But thou shalt never
obtain it without sorrows--sorrows from strange folk, and yet keener
sorrows from thine own kindred." "Hardship and sorrow!" he breaks out
again, "not a king but would wish to be without these if he could. But I
know that he cannot!" The loneliness which breathes in words like these
has often begotten in great rulers a cynical contempt of men and the
judgements of men. But cynicism found no echo in the large and
sympathetic temper of AElfred. He not only longed for the love of his
subjects, but for the remembrance of "generations" to come. Nor did his
inner gloom or anxiety check for an instant his vivid and versatile
activity. To the scholars he gathered round him he seemed the very type
of a scholar, snatching every hour he could find to read or listen to
books read to him. The singers of his court found in him a brother
singer, gathering the old songs of his people to teach them to his
children, breaking his renderings from the Latin with simple verse,
solacing himself in hours of depression with the music of the Psalms. He
passed from court and study to plan buildings and instruct craftsmen in
gold-work, to teach even falconers and dog-keepers their business. But
all this versatility and ingenuity was controlled by a cool good sense.
AElfred was a thorough man of business. He was careful of detail,
laborious, methodical. He carried in his bosom a little handbook in which
he noted things as they struck him--now a bit of family genealogy, now a
prayer, now such a story as that of Ealdhelm playing minstrel on the
bridge. Each hour of the day had its appointed task, there was the same
order in the division of his revenue and in the arrangement of his court.

Wide however and various as was the King's temper, its range was less
wonderful than its harmony. Of the narrowness, of the want of proportion,
of the predominance of one quality over another which goes commonly with
an intensity of moral purpose AElfred showed not a trace. Scholar and
soldier, artist and man of business, poet and saint, his character kept
that perfect balance which charms us in no other Englishman save
Shakspere. But full and harmonious as his temper was, it was the temper
of a king. Every power was bent to the work of rule. His practica