pot. The wood was there exposed--a
round spot, an inch or two in diameter, being completely bare of
varnish. So many nods--the attrition of thirty years and more of
nodding--had gradually ground away the coat with which the painter had
originally covered the wood. It even looked a little hollow--a little
depressed--as if his head had scooped out a shallow crater; but this was
probably an illusion, the eye being deceived by the difference in colour
between the wood and the varnish around it.

This human mark reminded one of the grooves worn by the knees of
generations of worshippers in the sacred steps of the temple which they
ascended on all-fours. It was, indeed, a mark of devotion, as Mrs. Iden
and others, not very keen observers, would have said, to the god of
Sleep; in truth, it was a singular instance of continued devotion at the
throne of the god of Thought.

It was to think that Mr. Iden in the commencement assumed this posture
of slumber, and commanded silence. But thought which has been cultivated
for a third of a century is apt to tone down to something very near
somnolence.

That panel of wainscot was, in fact, as worthy of preservation as those
on which the early artists delineated the Madonna and Infant, and for
which high prices are now paid. It was intensely--superlatively--human.
Worn in slow time by a human head within which a great mind was working
under the most unhappy conditions, it had the deep value attaching to
inanimate things which have witnessed intolerable suffering.

I am not a Roman Catholic, but I must confess that if I could be assured
any particular piece of wood had really formed a part of the Cross I
should think it the most valuable thing in the world, to which
Koh-i-noors would be mud.

I am a pagan, and think the heart and soul above crowns.

That panel was in effect a cross on which a heart had been tortured for
the third of a century, that is, for the space of time allotted to a
generation.

That mark upon the panel had still a further meaning, it represented the
unhappiness, the misfortunes, the Nemesis of two hundred years. This
family of Idens had endured already two hundred years of unhappiness and
discordance for no original fault of theirs, simply because they had
once been fortunate of old time, and therefore they had to work out that
hour of sunshine to the utmost depths of shadow.

The panel of the wainscot upon which that mark had been worn was in
effect a cros