nd "Very interesting" at intervals; and the only ray of hope
upon the horizon was that the hands of the clock upon the mantelpiece
did undoubtedly move, though they moved with leaden slowness. On the
other side of the savant was a lively talker, Matthews by name, who
grew very restive under the process. The great man had selected
Dorchester as his theme, because he had unhappily discovered that I had
recently visited it. My friend Matthews, who had been included in the
audience, made desperate attempts to escape; and once, seeing that I
was fairly grappled, began a conversation with his next neighbour. But
the antiquary was not to be put off. He stopped, and looked at Matthews
with a relentless eye. "Matthews," he said, "MATTHEWS!" raising his
voice. Matthews looked round. "I was saying that Dorchester was a very
interesting place." Matthews made no further attempt to escape, and
resigned himself to his fate.

Such men as the antiquary are certainly very happy people; they are
absorbed in their subject, and consider it to be of immense importance.
I suppose that their lives are, in a sense, well spent, and that the
world is in a way the gainer by their labours. My friend the antiquary
has certainly, according to his own account, proved that certain
ancient earthworks near Dorchester are of a date at least five hundred
years anterior to the received date. It took him a year or two to find
out, and I suppose that the human race has benefited in some way or
other by the conclusion; but, on the other hand, the antiquary seems to
miss all the best things of life. If life is an educative process,
people who have lived and loved, who have smiled and suffered, who have
perceived beautiful things, who have felt the rapturous and bewildering
mysteries of the world--well, they have learnt something of the mind of
God, and, when they close their eyes upon the world, take with them an
alert, a hopeful, an inquisitive, an ardent spirit, into whatever may
be the next act of the drama; but my friend the antiquary, when he
crosses the threshold of the unseen, when he is questioned as to what
has been his relation to life, will have seen and perceived, and learnt
nothing, except the date of the Dorchester earthworks, and similar
monuments of history.

And of all the shifting pageant of life, by far the most interesting
and exquisite part is our relations with the other souls who are bound
on the same pilgrimage. One desires ardently to