ut as the dirt and debris of a quarry. One
must not, I see, wait for the golden moments of life, because there are
no moments that are not golden, if one can but pierce into their
essence. Yet how is one to realise this, to put it into practice? I
have of late, in my vacuous mood, fallen into the dark error of
thinking of the weary hours as of things that must be just lived
through, and endured, and beguiled, if possible, until the fire again
fall. But life is a larger and a nobler business than that; and one
learns the lesson sooner, if one takes the suffering home to one's
soul, not as a tedious interlude, but as the very melody and march of
life itself, even though it crash into discords, or falter in a sombre
monotony.

The point is that when one seems to be playing a part to one's own
satisfaction, when one appears to oneself to be brilliant, suggestive,
inspiriting, and genial, one is not necessarily ministering to other
people; while, on the other hand, when one is dull, troubled, and
anxious, out of heart and discontented, one may have the chance of
making others happier. Here is a whimsical instance; in one of my
dreariest days--I was in London on business--I sate next to an old
friend, generally a very lively, brisk, and cheerful man, who appeared
to me strangely silent and depressed. I led him on to talk freely, and
he told me a long tale of anxieties and cares; his health was
unsatisfactory, his plans promised ill. In trying to paint a brighter
picture, to reassure and encourage him, I not only forgot my own
troubles, but put some hope into him. We had met, two tired and
dispirited men, we went away cheered and encouraged, aware that we were
not each of us the only sufferer in the world and that there were
possibilities still ahead of us all, nay, in our grip, if we only were
not blind and forgetful.

May 8, 1889.

I saw the other day a great artist working on a picture in its initial
stages. There were a few lines of a design roughly traced, and there
was a little picture beside him, where the scheme was roughly worked
out; but the design itself was covered with strange wild smears of
flaring, furious colour, flung crudely upon the canvas. "I find it
impossible to believe," I said,--"forgive me for speaking thus--that
these ragged stains and splashes of colour can ever be subdued and
harmonised and co-ordinated." The great man smiled. "What would you
have said, I wonder," he replied, "if you had see