alth must have its lords, go to!), lying down to
rest, as did his fathers, in the Chamber of the Tree. This, one fancies,
were a somewhat more fitting nuptial chamber than the chance bedroom of a
hotel. Odysseus building his home is man performing a supreme act of
piety; through all the ages that picture must retain its profound
significance. Note the tree he chose, the olive, sacred to Athena,
emblem of peace. When he and the wise goddess meet together to scheme
destruction of the princes, they sit [Greek text]. Their talk is of
bloodshed, true; but in punishment of those who have outraged the
sanctity of the hearth, and to re-establish, after purification, domestic
calm and security. It is one of the dreary aspects of modern life that
natural symbolism has all but perished. We have no consecrated tree. The
oak once held a place in English hearts, but who now reveres it?--our
trust is in gods of iron. Money is made at Christmas out of holly and
mistletoe, but who save the vendors would greatly care if no green branch
were procurable? One symbol, indeed, has obscured all others--the minted
round of metal. And one may safely say that, of all the ages since a
coin first became the symbol of power, ours is that in which it yields to
the majority of its possessors the poorest return in heart's contentment.

XVI.

I have been dull to-day, haunted by the thought of how much there is that
I would fain know, and how little I can hope to learn. The scope of
knowledge has become so vast. I put aside nearly all physical
investigation; to me it is naught, or only, at moments, a matter of idle
curiosity. This would seem to be a considerable clearing of the field;
but it leaves what is practically the infinite. To run over a list of
only my favourite subjects, those to which, all my life long, I have more
or less applied myself, studies which hold in my mind the place of
hobbies, is to open vistas of intellectual despair. In an old note-book
I jotted down such a list--"things I hope to know, and to know well." I
was then four and twenty. Reading it with the eyes of fifty-four, I must
needs laugh. There appear such modest items as "The history of the
Christian Church up to the Reformation"--"all Greek poetry"--"The field
of Mediaeval Romance"--"German literature from Lessing to Heine"--"Dante!"
Not one of these shall I ever "know, and know well"; not any one of them.
Yet here I am buying books which lead me in