although she had ample means for all her
requirements now, it was not an easy thing to find the special
conditions on which she had set her heart. The first impulse of a
woman of noble nature is to be consistent, to live up to all she
professes to admire. As Beth grew older, to live for others became
more and more her ideal of life;--not to live in the world, however,
or to be of it, but to work for it.

"I must be quiet," she said to Angelica one day when they were
discussing her future. "I am done for so far as work is concerned when
I come into contact with crowds. I want to live things then; I don't
want to think about them. Excitement makes me content to be, and
careless about doing. My truest and best life is in myself, and I can
only live it in circumstances of tranquil monotony. People talk so
much about making the most of life, but their attempts are curiously
bungling. What they call living is for the most part more pain than
pleasure to them; for the truth is, that life should not be lived by
men of mind, but contemplated; it is the spectator, not the actor, who
enjoys and profits. The actor has his moment of applause, but all the
rest is misery. People rush to great centres to obtain a knowledge of
life, and do not succeed, for there they see nothing but broad
effects. We find our knowledge of life in individuals, not in crowds.
There is no more individuality in a crowd of people than there is in a
flock of sheep. All I know of life, of its infinite diversity, I have
learnt here and there from some one person or another, known
intimately. A solitary experience, rightly considered in all its
bearings, teaches us more than numbers of those incidents of which we
see the surface only 'in the joy of eventful living;' and, if the
truth were known, I expect it would be found that each one of us had
obtained the most valuable part of our experience in such homely
details of simple unaffected human nature as came under our
observation in our native villages."

"Yes," Angelica answered thoughtfully, "the looker-on sees most of the
game. But I don't think you allow enough for differences of
temperament. You are thinking of the best conditions for creative
work. You mustn't lose sight of all the active service that is going
on."

"No; but it is in retirement that the best preparation is made for
active service also. And I was thinking of active service more than of
creative work just then. The truth is, I am in a st