ut upon the air in all their stately charm. The old
sinner stole my heart away with his gentle, seductive, Epicurean grace.
I am afraid that I felt like Paolo as he sate beside Francesca. I heard
no more of the sermon that day; I repeated to myself many of the
incomparable quatrains, and felt the poem to be the most beautiful
presentment of pure Agnosticism that has ever been given to the world.
The worst of it is that the delicate traitor makes it so beautiful that
one does not feel the shame and the futility of it.

This evening I have been reading the new life of FitzGerald, so you may
guess what was the result of the sermon for me. It is not a wholly
pleasing book, but it is an interesting one; it gives a better picture
of the man than any other book or article, simply by the great
minuteness with which it enters into details. And now I find myself
confronted by the problem in another shape. Was FitzGerald's life an
unworthy one? He had great literary ambitions, but he made nothing of
them. He lived a very pure, innocent, secluded life, delighting in
nature and in the company of simple people; loving his friends with a
passion that reminds one of Newman; doing endless little kindnesses to
all who came within his circle; and tenderly loved by several
great-hearted men of genius. He felt himself that he was to blame; he
urged others to the activities which he could not practise. And yet the
results of his life are such as many other more busy, more
conscientious men have not achieved. He has left a large body of good
literary work, and one immortal poem of incomparable beauty. He also
left, quite unconsciously, I believe, many of the most beautiful,
tender, humorous, wise letters in the English tongue; and I find myself
wondering whether all this could have been brought to pass in any other
way.

Yet I could not conscientiously advise any one to take FitzGerald's
life as a model It was shabby, undecided, futile; he did many silly,
almost fatuous things; he was deplorably idle and unstrung. At the same
time a terrible suspicion creeps upon me that many busy men are living
worse lives. I don't mean men who give themselves to activities,
however dusty, which affect other people. I will grant at once that
doctors, teachers, clergymen, philanthropists, even Members of
Parliament are justified in their lives; then, too, men who do the
necessary work of the world--farmers, labourers, workmen, fishermen,
are justifiable. Bu