ange 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 judgments of men. But
cynicism found no echo in the large and sympathetic temper of Alfred. 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. Alfred 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 go
commonly with an intensity of moral purpose Alfred 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 Shakespeare. 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 practical energy found scope for itself in the material and
administrative restoration of the wasted land.

His intellectual activity breathed fresh life into education and
literature. His capacity for inspiring trust and affection drew the
hearts of Englishmen