stimating himself more
truly; and that he lacked that inner fulness of spirit, that patient
unselfishness, which could alone have sustained him. He remained
indeed a child, with the charm, the gaiety, the simplicity of a child,
but with the wilfulness, the faint-heartedness, the desultoriness of a
child. And he felt that in making his choice he was indeed following
the will of his Father, making the most of his single talent, instead
of juggling with it to make it appear to be two or even ten.

He had his reward in an immediate and simple tranquillity of spirit.
He never doubted nor looked back. Those who saw him, and thought
regretfully what he might have been, what he might have done, would
sometimes give utterance to their disappointment, and even peevishly
blame him. But here again his coldness of temperament assisted him.
He submitted to such criticisms and censures with a regretful air, as
though he were half convinced of their truth. But the severer and
sterner spirit within was never touched or affected. Ambitious and
fond of display as he had been, the loss of dignity and influence
weighed nothing with him; he was even surprised to find how little it
touched him with any sense of regret or yearning. His fear had been
once that perhaps he was great, and that indolence and luxuriousness
alone held him back from exercising that greatness. But God had been
good to him in neither humiliating nor exposing him, and now that he
himself had lifted the lid of the ark in the innermost shrine, and had
seen how bare and unfurnished it was, he saw in a flash of humble
insight how wisely he was held back.

Truth, however painful, has always something bracing and sustaining
about it; and the days in which Hugh learnt the truth about himself had
nothing of gloom or sadness about them. The discovery indeed surprised
him with a certain lightness and freshness of spirit. He smiled to
think that he had entered the vale of humiliation, and had found it
full of greenness and musical with fountains. A great flood of peace
flowed in upon him; and all the delicate love of nature, of trees and
skies, of flowers and moving water, came back to him with an increased
and deep significance. Before, he had seen their outward appearance;
now he looked into their spirit; and so he passed along the dreary
valley light of foot and singing to himself. Mr. Fearing, in the
_Pilgrim's Progress_, went down from the House Beautiful into th