med opinion e with men nd censured rrowness of t, the good,

Ow with me: n authority by a strange ly filled the material of n inner life, consciously nce of dogerhaps more ted friends

compel me c, the more ad derided. ngs of the armth and

excess of a how often

where their ve becomes ps, finally,

dom! If

vals, light confiding, om a high nges into r not is sunk, or

sensible world interrupt the calm circle of immutab irresistible demonstration. Such knowledge is tru own and amply sufficient reward. But from logic, not as a verbal system of deduction, but as the the once and the method of all strict thinking, I gain first insight, however dim, into those ultimate por human consciousness on which the whole array of o rests into what, with the profoundest sense of its tions, in quality and in degree, must yet be calledis at least none beyond-ultimate truth. Vivified was by the same eloquent and accurate thinker, after than twenty centuries Aristotle now fulfilled, or seer fulfil, the promise of his work, and supplied a English student with a living method in mind,—an of thinking.

IV But although this first introduction to th upon thought came on me, I remember, with a n surprise, a shock and a blind sense of expansion ( summer, and the days seemed brighter than their wor sunbeams of more than common vivacity),—it was to books than those strictly studied, to two writers of ou land especially, that during the latter portion of three years I look back and am thankful for immedia almost tangible blessing. Readers will see, perhaps smile, that my own wilfulness only had blinded sources of delight hardly more distant than sun and the common aspects of Nature. But even this obtus I think, gave me no claim to originality. Strange it take down, many others have probably experienced, to down at last by chance and open some volume, and that within our own possession treasures of majest music, counsels of heroic wisdom set to perfect words been long silently laid up for us within the compa

mutable and is truly its logic, treated

Che theory at I gained the ate points of y of opinion of its limitaalled-there

ivified as he

after more or seemed to

ed a young -an Organ

to thought
a mighty
sion (it was
ir wont, the
as to other

of our own
n of these
mediate and
aps with a
ded me to
and air, or
obtuseness,
ge it is to
ed, to take

and find
ajesty and
ords, have
mpass of

fect to me still as on the first day. Indeed the swe of the years of hope and Désirée will sometimes, as them, flash along the lines and go': in the verses added delight to delight, something arises yet whic altogether counterfeits consolation. But these are a treasure of my own; I will not run the risk of by naming them. And I should refrain, even wer result impossible, in pages written not for criticism Désirée.

V To my confession of confused thoughts, weak and wasted hours, I should add that the pure lo Nature, partly from the pressure of these new experi in human life, partly from the notorious want of conspicuous charm in the surrounding country, in from a cause (presently to be noticed) which during period disinclined me from travelling, gained also no se advance. Except indeed by force of the vague ple any contemplation of our own youth gives, as the tho of Spring in December, and what secretly underlies pleasure, remembrance of so many bright faces, and v days spent between friend and friend,- that now faint feeble horizon of college residence would be to the w no alluring retrospect. The predominance of Love, w like that sky-climbing star, the sun's white-wi 'herald', gave a certain promise of day, a manly as tion and unity to so much else poor and aimless, is the feature that redeems it into any ideal beauty. Exist was now too varied and vivacious, the warmth and delig friendship too satisfying, to suggest such contrasts as I noted during my school-days, or at least to render the source of special enjoyment: but I may say with truth flower and first fruits of this new life were holy to How often I broke away from joyous expedition, or br

le sweetness
es, as I read
verses that

; which not
› are a fairy
sk of loss
I were this
ticism, but

weak aims,

re love of experiences

nt of any
y, in part
uring this
no sensible

e pleasure
e thought
erlies that
and whole

faint and
he writer

e, which, e-winged

y aspira

the one
Existence

elight of
s I have

them a
uth, the

to Her.

bright

society, from Philosopher and Poet, to be more with the thought of Désirée! How many little fragments of the surrounding landscape, copses by the slow-creeping streams, bare hill-sides, green undulations of heath, even dusty high-roads, and the very angles of the way, still, as I have since seen, or remembered them, recall the sweetness of that one image! How often this thought supplied ardour to study, or refreshment to fatigue! . . . How often (but that was not so often) praised for any work by the dear dear Friend who wasted precious hours in attempt to raise faint faculties to the level of his own large and subtle comprehension, I recorded the triumph, with the prayer that this might be one step more in elevating me to worthiness of her! How always I lay down to sleep in absolute confidence of God's loving-kindness, the sweet fearless assurance that what so many thousand times I had asked in a Heaven-compelling Name, He would give me; trusting all to Him, He would give me my heart's desire, knowing He would never leave or forsake me, that He had promised—and this anguish the fulfilment. . . . Deus, Deus meus, quare me dereliquisti ?

...

VI Heaven and earth, I thought then, would rather pass away than that word fail (the text on the fulfilment of which Arnold, a man blessed with more than common happiness, almost founded his faith), Whatsoever ye ask . . . The writer would be untrue to truth, did he not record the defeat of Faith: but, again, he would not dare record it, had he not in the strictest sense enjoyed entire Faith once, reliance the most childly and reposing on the answers of an all-gracious Providence. Every evening at my own home I heard a voice loved and venerated, for the final blessing of the day, read texts rich in those promises :