result is not as satisfactory as
it would have been if he had waited a few years longer.

Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or
architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself, and the
more he tries to conceal himself the more clearly will his character
appear in spite of him. I may very likely be condemning myself, all the
time that I am writing this book, for I know that whether I like it or no
I am portraying myself more surely than I am portraying any of the
characters whom I set before the reader. I am sorry that it is so, but I
cannot help it--after which sop to Nemesis I will say that Battersby
church in its amended form has always struck me as a better portrait of
Theobald than any sculptor or painter short of a great master would be
able to produce.

I remember staying with Theobald some six or seven months after he was
married, and while the old church was still standing. I went to church,
and felt as Naaman must have felt on certain occasions when he had to
accompany his master on his return after having been cured of his
leprosy. I have carried away a more vivid recollection of this and of
the people, than of Theobald's sermon. Even now I can see the men in
blue smock frocks reaching to their heels, and more than one old woman in
a scarlet cloak; the row of stolid, dull, vacant plough-boys, ungainly in
build, uncomely in face, lifeless, apathetic, a race a good deal more
like the pre-revolution French peasant as described by Carlyle than is
pleasant to reflect upon--a race now supplanted by a smarter, comelier
and more hopeful generation, which has discovered that it too has a right
to as much happiness as it can get, and with clearer ideas about the best
means of getting it.

They shamble in one after another, with steaming breath, for it is
winter, and loud clattering of hob-nailed boots; they beat the snow from
off them as they enter, and through the opened door I catch a momentary
glimpse of a dreary leaden sky and snow-clad tombstones. Somehow or
other I find the strain which Handel has wedded to the words "There the
ploughman near at hand," has got into my head and there is no getting it
out again. How marvellously old Handel understood these people!

They bob to Theobald as they passed the reading desk ("The people
hereabouts are truly respectful," whispered Christina to me, "they know
their betters."), and take their seats in a long row against th