signs of healthy energy, becomes ashamed and
abashed in its presence. The atmosphere that it creates is oppressive,
remote, ungenial. "I declare that Uncle John is intolerable, except when
there is a death in the family--and then he is insupportable," said a
youthful nephew of a virtuous clergyman of this type in my presence the
other day, adding, after reflection, "He seems to think that to die is
the only really satisfactory thing that any one ever does." That is the
worst of carrying out the precept, "Set your affections on things above,
not on things of the earth," too literally. It is not so good a precept,
after all, as "If a man love not his brother, whom he hath seen, how
shall he love God, Whom he hath not seen?" It is somehow an incomplete
philosophy to despise the only definite existence we are certain of
possessing. One desires a richer thing than that, a philosophy that ends
in temperance, rather than in a harsh asceticism.

The handling of life that seems the most desirable is the method which
the Platonic Socrates employed. Perhaps he was an ideal figure; but
yet there are few figures more real. There we have an elderly man of
incomparable ugliness, who is yet delightfully and perennially youthful,
bubbling over with interest, affection, courtesy, humour, admiration.
With what a delicious mixture of irony and tenderness he treats the
young men who surround him! When some lively sparks made up their minds
to do what we now call "rag" him, dressed themselves up as Furies, and
ran out upon him as he turned a dark corner on his way home, Socrates
was not in the least degree disturbed, but discoursed with them readily
on many matters and particularly on temperance; when at the banquet the
topers disappear, one by one, under the table, Socrates, who, besides
taking his due share of the wine, had filled and drunk the contents of
the wine-cooler, is found cheerfully sitting, crowned with roses, among
the expiring lamps, in the grey of the morning, discussing the higher
mathematics. He is never sick or sorry; he is poor and has a scolding
wife; he fasts or eats as circumstances dictate; he never does anything
in particular, but he has always infinite leisure to have his talk
out. Is he drawn for military service? he goes off, with an entire
indifference to the hardships of the campaign. When the force is routed,
he stalks deliberately off the field, looking round him like a great
bird, with the kind of air that ma