, conventions, and prejudice; the very things that in
thought she despised.) This is the history often of the too-meditative
soul. But it is difficult to pass judgment on an entire existence; and
here there were much to be said of the devotion wherewith she
sacrificed the best years of her youth to an undeserving, though
unfortunate, brother. Our remarks then, in a case such as this, must be
understood generally only; but still, how long and how narrow is the
path that leads from the soul to life! Our thoughts of love, of justice
and loyalty, our thoughts of bold ambition--what are all these but
acorns that fall from the oak in the forest? and must not thousands and
tens of thousands be lost and rot in the lichen ere a single tree
spring to life? "She had a beautiful soul," said, speaking of another
woman, the woman whose words I quoted above, "a wide intellect, and
tender heart, but ere these qualities could issue forth into life they
had perforce to traverse a straitened character. Again and again have I
wondered at this want of self-knowledge, of return to self. The man who
would wish us to see the deepest recess of his life will begin by
telling us all that he thinks and he feels, will lead as to his point
of view; we are conscious, perhaps, of much elevation of soul; then, as
we enter with him still further into his life, he tells of his conduct,
his joys and his sorrows; and in these we detect not a gleam of the
soul that had shone through his thoughts and desires. When the trumpet
is sounded for action, the instincts rush in, the character hastens
between; but the soul stands aloof: the soul, which is man's very
highest, being like the princess who elects to live on in arrogant
penury rather than soil her hands with ordinary labour." Yes, alas, all
is useless till such time as we have learned to harden our hands; to
transform the gold and silver of thought into a key that shall open,
not the ivory gate of our dreams, but the very door of this our
dwelling--into a cup that shall hold, not only the wondrous water of
dreams, but the living water that falls, drop by drop, on our
roof--into scales, not content vaguely to balance schemes for the
future, but that record, with unerring accuracy, what we have done
to-day. The very loftiest ideal has taken no root within us, so long as
it penetrate not every limb, so long as it palpitate not at our
finger-tip. Some there are whose intellect profits by this return to
self; w