no positive intention of speaking. Very much, nevertheless, is he
wishing in the back of his mind that he could say something--something
whereat the great Doctor would turn on him and say, after a pause for
thought, 'Why yes, Sir. That is most justly observed' or 'Sir, this has
never occurred to me. I thank you'--thereby fixing the observer for
ever high in the esteem of all. And now in a flash the chance presents
itself. 'We have,' shouts Johnson, 'no sermons addressed to the
passions, that are good for anything.' I see the curate's frame quiver
with sudden impulse, and his mouth fly open, and--no, I can't bear it,
I shut my eyes and ears. But audible, even so, is something shrill,
followed by something thunderous.

Presently I re-open my eyes. The crimson has not yet faded from that
young face yonder, and slowly down either cheek falls a glistening tear.
Shades of Atterbury and Tillotson! Such weakness shames the Established
Church. What would Jortin and Smalridge have said?--what Seed and South?
And, by the way, who were they, these worthies? It is a solemn thought
that so little is conveyed to us by names which to the palaeo-Georgians
conveyed so much. We discern a dim, composite picture of a big man in a
big wig and a billowing black gown, with a big congregation beneath him.
But we are not anxious to hear what he is saying. We know it is all very
elegant. We know it will be printed and be bound in finely-tooled
full calf, and no palaeo-Georgian gentleman's library will be complete
without it. Literate people in those days were comparatively few; but,
bating that, one may say that sermons were as much in request as novels
are to-day. I wonder, will mankind continue to be capricious? It is a
very solemn thought indeed that no more than a hundred-and-fifty years
hence the novelists of our time, with all their moral and political and
sociological outlook and influence, will perhaps shine as indistinctly
as do those old preachers, with all their elegance, now. 'Yes, Sir,'
some great pundit may be telling a disciple at this moment, 'Wells
is one of the best. Galsworthy is one of the best, if you except his
concern for delicacy of style. Mrs. Ward has a very firm grasp of
problems, but is not very creational.--Caine's books are very edifying.
I should like to read all that Caine has written. Miss Corelli, too, is
very edifying.--And you may add Upton Sinclair.' 'What I want to know,'
says the disciple, 'is, what English n