that heartsome blaze, how different the whole day
would be! Have I not lost many and many a day of my life for lack of the
material comfort which was necessary to put my mind in tune? Money is
time. With money I buy for cheerful use the hours which otherwise would
not in any sense be mine; nay, which would make me their miserable
bondsman. Money is time, and, heaven be thanked, there needs so little
of it for this sort of purchase. He who has overmuch is wont to be as
badly off in regard to the true use of money, as he who has not enough.
What are we doing all our lives but purchasing, or trying to purchase,
time? And most of us, having grasped it with one hand, throw it away
with the other.

XXV.

The dark days are drawing to an end. Soon it will be spring once more; I
shall go out into the fields, and shake away these thoughts of
discouragement and fear which have lately too much haunted my fireside.
For me, it is a virtue to be self-centred; I am much better employed,
from every point of view, when I live solely for my own satisfaction,
than when I begin to worry about the world. The world frightens me, and
a frightened man is no good for anything. I know only one way in which I
could have played a meritorious part as an active citizen--by becoming a
schoolmaster in some little country town, and teaching half a dozen
teachable boys to love study for its own sake. That I could have done, I
daresay. Yet, no; for I must have had as a young man the same mind that
I have in age, devoid of idle ambitions, undisturbed by unattainable
ideals. Living as I do now, I deserve better of my country than at any
time in my working life; better, I suspect, than most of those who are
praised for busy patriotism.

Not that I regard my life as an example for any one else; all I say is,
that it is good for me, and in so far an advantage to the world. To live
in quiet content is surely a piece of good citizenship. If you can do
more, do it, and God-speed! I know myself for an exception. And I ever
find it a good antidote to gloomy thoughts to bring before my imagination
the lives of men, utterly unlike me in their minds and circumstances, who
give themselves with glad and hopeful energy to the plain duties that lie
before them. However one's heart may fail in thinking of the folly and
baseness which make so great a part of to-day's world, remember how many
bright souls are living courageously, seeing the good wher