and he thought of his time there, his
small bare rooms, the punctual vivid life, so repressed, yet so full
of human movement. Herbert had won friends very easily there, and the
good fathers had loved him; but all this love, looking back, seemed to
him to have been called out not by the lovingness of his own heart,
but by a certain unconscious charm, a sweet humility of manner, a
readiness to please and be pleased, a desire to do what should win his
companion, whoever it might chance to be.

Then he went for a time as a young priest to the cathedral, as a
vicar, and there again life had been easy for him; he had gained fame
for a sort of easy and pathetic eloquence, that allowed him to make
what he spoke of seem beautiful to those who heard it, but now Herbert
thought sadly that he had not done this for love of the thoughts of
which he spoke, but for the pleasure of arraying them so that they
moved and pleased others; and yet he had won some power over souls
too, he had himself been so courteous, so gentle, so seeming tender,
that others spoke easily to him of their troubles and seemed to find
help in his words; then had come the day when the Bishop had sent him
to St. Mary's, and there too everything had been as easy to him as
before. Yes, that had been the fault all through! he had won by a
certain grace what ought to have been won by deep purity and eager
desire and great striving.

And this too had at last begun to come home to him; and then he had
half despaired of changing himself. He had been like a shallow
rippling brook, yet seemed to others like a swift and patient river;
and he had prayed very earnestly to God to change his heart; to deepen
and widen it, to make it strong and sincere and faithful. And was
this, thought Herbert, the terrible answer? was he who had loved ease
and beauty on all sides, had loved the surface and the seeming of
things, to be thrust violently into the deep places of the human
heart, to be shown by a dreadful clearness of vision the stain, the
horror, the shadow of the world?

But what was to him the most despairing thought of all was this--and
thinking quietly over it, it seemed to him that if this clearness of
vision had quickened his zeal to serve, if it had shown him how true
and fierce was the battle to be waged in life, and how few men walked
in the peace that was so near them that they could have taken it by
stretching out their hand--if it had taught him this, had nerved h