So the little, trim, compact figure trudged away, like a spirit of law,
decency, and order, with the long fields stretching to left and right
with their distant clumps of trees. He seemed to me to be the
embodiment of sensible civilisation, knowing his own mind perfectly, a
drill-sergeant of humanity, with a strong sense of responsibility for,
but no sympathy with, all lounging, fanciful, and irresolute persons.
How useful, how competent, how good, how honourable he was! What a
splendid guide, mentor, and guardian! and yet I felt helplessly that he
possessed and desired none of the things that make humanity dear and
the world beautiful. I often feel very impatient with the way in which
writers, and particularly clerical writers, use the word spiritual; it
often means, I feel, that they are only conscious of the entire
inadequacy of the motives for conduct that they are themselves able to
supply; but the moment that I set eyes upon Meyrick, I know what the
word means, that it is the one great quality that, for all his virtue
and strength, he misses. I do not know what the quality is exactly, but
I do know that he is without it; and in the dry light of Meyrick's
mind, I forgive all muddled and irresolute people their sins and
foolishnesses, their aggravating incompetence, their practical
inefficacy; because I know that they have somehow in a clumsy way got
hold of the two great principles that "The end is not yet," and "It
doth not yet appear what we shall be." For them the misty goal is not
even in sight; the vale is bounded by huge pine-clad precipices,
wreathed with snow and crowned with cloud; but to Meyrick it does
appear quite definitely what we are, and as for the end, well, the
avenue of the world seems to lead up to a neat classical building with
pillars and a pediment, that is called the temple of reason and
common-sense.

I do not know what Meyrick's religious views are; he attends his
College chapel with a cool decorum. But I suspect him of being a quiet
agnostic. I do not think he cares a straw whether his individuality
endures, and he looks forward to a progress which can be tabulated and
statistics about the decrease of crime and disease that can be
verified; that, I am sure, is his idea of the Kingdom of Heaven.

XL

I have been staying with a friend in Yorkshire, in an out-of-the-way
place, and I have seen a good deal of the parish clergyman there, who
is rather a pathetic person, I think. It