nt century, and Michael was
already considered somewhat of a fossil. Robert was inconsistent, as the
old doctrine when it is decaying, or the new at its advent always is; but
the main difference between Michael and Robert was not any distinct
divergence, but that truths believed by Michael, and admitted by Robert,
failed to impress Robert with that depth and sharpness of cut with which
they were wrought into his father. Mere assent is nothing; the question
of importance is whether the figuration of the creed is dull or vivid--as
vivid as the shadows of a June sun on a white house. Brilliance of
impression, is not altogether dependent on mere processes of proof, and a
faultless logical demonstration of something which is of eternal import
may lie utterly uninfluential and never disturb us.

Robert walked out the next morning to the house he went to visit the day
before. Nobody save Miss Shipton and himself knew anything about his
adventure. He had made some excuse for his wet clothes. The beach of
the little village in the early part of the day was almost always
deserted, and the man who attended to the machine had been lying on his
back on the shingle smoking his pipe during the few minutes occupied in
Miss Shipton's rescue. It was settled weather. The sky was cloudless,
and the blue seemed on fire. What little wind there was, was from the
south-south-east, and every outline quivered in the heat. The water
inshore was absolutely still, and of such an azure as nobody whose sea is
that of the Eastern Coast or the Channel can imagine. A boat lay here
and there idle, with its shadow its perfect double in unwavering detail
and blackness. Just beyond this cerulean lake the river ebb, as
yesterday, rippled swiftly round Deadman's Nose; the buoys, with their
heads all eastward, breaking the stream as it impatiently hurried past
them on its mysterious errand. Beyond and beyond lay the ocean,
unruffled, melting into the white haze which united it with the sky on
the horizon. Robert loved the summer, and especially a burning summer.
The sun, of which other persons complained, some perhaps sincerely, but
for the most part hypocritically--can anybody really hate the
sun?--rejoiced him. He loved to be out in it when the light on the
unsheltered Cornish rocks and in the whitewashed street was so "glaring,"
as silly people called it, that they put up parasols and umbrellas, and
the warmth which made him withdraw his hand