hat one faltered and
lost faith. One thing was certain, that it was useless to _search_ for
a mission; the purpose must descend from heaven, as the eagle pounced
on Ganymede, and carry the trembling and awed minister high above the
heads of men. But the only thing that the faithful writer could do was
to map out some little piece of quiet work, make no vast design, seek
for no large sovereignty; and then work patiently on with ever-present
enjoyment, learning his art, gaining skill and mastery over his vast
and complex instrument, till he gained certainty of touch and the power
of saying, with perfect lucidity, with pure transparency of phrase,
exactly what he meant; and then, behind his art, to live resolutely in
his simple creed, whatever article of it he could master, sure of this,
that if his inspiration came, he would be able to present it worthily;
and if it did not come--well, his would have been a grave, quiet,
gracious life, like the life of a song-bird that had never had an
audience, or a stream which dropped in crystal cataracts from unvisited
rocks, upon which no gazer's eye had ever fallen. And so there shaped
itself what must be for the lover of the beautiful the first article of
his faith, the thought that the happiness of art came in the making,
the weighing, the disposing, and not in the recognition of the triumph
by others; and that the temptation to gain a hearing, to touch hearts,
to sway emotions was a natural one enough, but that it must be the
first of all to be discarded, as one set foot in the enchanted world,
among the dim valleys and rock-ridges, the thickets and the plains,
that stretched beyond the sunset and on to the sea's rim,--that wider,
more shadowy, more remote world of awe and mystery which lay so near,
outside the window, at the opening of a door, at the sound of a voice,
the glance of an eye, and in which one's busy fevered life was set,
like the print of the wind's footstep in the crisping wave, on the
surface of some vast unfathomable sea.

X

Retrospect--Renewal of Youth--The New Energy

In reading biographies of illustrious personages, Hugh was often
interested and surprised to compare the pictures of undergraduate life
drawn there with his own experience of that period. They were
generally related in the form of reminiscences, seen far-off, at the
end of a long perspective of years. It was generally represented as a
period of high enthusiasm, intense energy, ea