immortality? How does he reply to the anguish of Herbert Spencer, and to that almost terrible, comfortless, and grim cry in the letter of his friend Thomas Huxley? Let me quote the letter first :

I find my dislike to the thought of extinction (wrote the fighting agnostic in 1883) increasing as I get older and nearer the goal. It flashes across me at all sorts of times with a sort of horror that in 1900 I shall probably know no more of what is going on than I did in 1800. I had sooner be in hell a good deal-at any rate in one of the upper circles, where the climate and company are not too trying. I wonder if you are plagued in this way.

I wonder !

I spoke about my own "curiosity" for another existence, the insatiate desire to thread somehow, in some condition or another, the ultimate mazes of How and Why. He understood that spirit. Almost in a rush I remember his saying that if he could see in any field of science a hope of explanation he would follow it to the exclusion of everything else. But he checked on the instant. "Should I, though?" he asked. "I wonder! There are so many things beside."

It was on this occasion that I mentioned the work of Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir William Crookes. He had been talking to me of Spencer's conception of infinite space, and I told him that Sir William Crookes had once rapped a wooden table at my side and told me that the distance separating the electrons of which it was composed relative to their size was greater than the distance separating the planets of our solar system.

I can see his face now as I write, alert and eager and full of inquiry. He listened. He listened intently, the eyebrows high in the wrinkled. forehead, the eyes straining in question, the lips seeming as if they were inspiring the words. That is how he listens to the least of us.

He made me repeat the formula. "Wonderful," he said- "wonderful! But how do men of science feeling out, as you say, from the physical world derive any comfort from knowledge of this kind? Surely, such a saying as that of Crookes makes us all feel-I, J. M., and you, H. B.—each single man of us, that we are but particles of matter, less than electrons, inhabiting a world less than an atom in a system smaller than a grain

of sand? How small it makes us, how unimportant, how insignificant !"

But," I replied, "as I understand conversations with Lodge and Crookes, the effect of this pushing towards the finality of matter is to destroy one's notion of size. There is neither big nor little, neither great nor small; just one infinite whole. If Crookes's formula is correct the whole universe to larger other eyes than ours must present an appearance as whole and one as a table presents to us."

He listened intently, and led me to talk of the work of Oliver Lodge-work which I hope to write about in the next number of this Magazine. He was greatly interested, and showed the true humility of the agnostic before the mysteries of creation; but I do not think he entertains the faintest expectation that science and religion will ultimately converge and be one. To detach consciousness, personality, Ego, what you will, from the action of the brain-from memory, for instance,— and at the same time to preserve identity, presents to him, I think, sheer impossibility.

I asked him what his comfort was, how he supported the burden of all this unintelligible world, how he justified unselfishness and righteousness in a purely material world. His comfort is that the world grows better, that man is happier in doing good than in doing evil, and that lifeeven as we know it now-is good.

But he is not to be regarded as a crude optimist, as his own man-of-the-world—– "that worst enemy of the world." I have seen his face contorted with sharp pain as he talked about the sufferings of humanity. I told him of Charles Booth's map showing by a great splash of sombre colour how vast a number of people in London live on the verge of hunger.

"But have you ever thought," he said, in a sort of awed whisper, "that the mass of the world is always hungry? Hunger and Fear-these are the familiars of the great majority of men and women and little children. We forget in the midst of our comfort that there are millions and millions of mankind who have no provision made for their next meal. Then think of the animals in the same condition, hunting in some sort of agony for food. Mr. G., I remember, used to quarrel with Tennyson's picture of nature 'red in tooth and claw,' and perhaps he was right. But

fear the constant fear of the quarrysurely that is universal, and the hourly search of animals for their prey-surely that is universal too."

He does not, however, dwell on these subjects. The reader may remember that the Bishop of London told me he pushed the thought of London's hunger and pain out of his mind, because to think about these things meant madness. John Morley, without the same spiritual consolation, keeps the thought of the world's pain out of his mind, perhaps for the same reason; but the thought colours his whole philosophy, and is, I believe, the inspiration of all his political and literary activity. He has described himself as "a cautious Whig by temperament, a Liberal by education and training, and a Radical by observation and experience." He is a spiritual force in politics, making for sympathy and for righteousness, for charity and for self-abnegation. "It is certainly not less possible," he exclaims, "to disbelieve religiously than to believe religiously." He is touched to great ends, feels towards a heaven not made with hands, and constrains lesser men to fight with him for the purest ideals, for the humblest and commonest purposes. Who has expressed greater contempt for the moral code of the lowest politician than this good man?"Think wholly of to-day, and not at all of to-morrow. Beware of the high and hold fast to the safe. Dismiss convictions, and study general consensus. No zeal, no faith, no intellectual trenchancy, but as much lowminded geniality and trivial complaisance as you please." A man of the simplest life, hating ceremony and ostentation,-even a little unhappy at the hugeness of his library, whose walls have expanded to house

something like a dozen thousand books. It is there, in this room of books, that you see the real Morley. A slight man, with high square shoulders, who moves with a little skip in his walk from shelf to shelf, reads you extracts from favourite volumes with a winning smile, the kind eyes glancing at you over the rim of his glasses, the mobile lips breaking easily into laughter, the constant cigarette smouldering between the fingers of uplifted hand. He points out to you, with his irresistible humour, the fitness of his furniture. There is the beloved piano in this room, the ample box of cigarettes "straight from Egypt," a picture of Gladstone, a picture of Mill, a photograph of George Meredith-the "Phoebus Apollo" of his youth; and above the books a precious set of Piranesi's engravings bought for five liras apiece! Over the mantelpiece Millet's picture of Industry, one man sawing a huge log of timber, another looking on-" myself at work on Mr. G. and my secretary at the other end of the saw!" Above this, a picture of sea crashing over rocks and hurling spray up to the stars-"the life political: nature's turbulent mood of the hustings!" And the room itself he calls, because of its size, one of the follies of the wise." Delightfullest of hosts, kindest of friends, gentlest of men. His words are those of a prophet and teacher, his face is that of some mothering woman who has learned to smile in the face of overwhelming sorrow. The best in the two sexes have converged in his personality. Like Father O'Flynn, he is "powerf'llst pracher and tinderest craychur," a man infinitely respected by men of all parties, honoured by the noblest souls in the Church, and loved deeply and sincerely by those who know him.

L

IFE had gone very hardly with Gaffer Goodman. It had been very nearly all work and no play. While he had youth and strength he toiled to keep his children in comfort and to secure a shelter for his own old

age. Now the children were all dead, or far away and forgetful, and old age had played strange tricks with him, bending his back, dimming his eyes, and stopping his ears, so that his neighbours must needs scream "Good-morning" or "Goodnight" as loud as if they had been announcing the Judgment Day. From

all that long life of industry, stinting and sobriety, Gaffer Goodman had only saved a small sufficiency to keep his wife and himself outside the poor-house; only just enough to hold their frail old bodies round about their well-nigh flitting souls, and that in no sort of comfort.

When his wife died, a bustling neighbour came in, washed and tidied and fed him, pinned a black band round his old hat, and hurried him out to his seat in the sun, where he sat for hours, shedding helpless and unnoted tears and always after that, the several homely services that love had ever rendered like caresses, were thrust upon him in a little hard daily dole of charity. When the neighbours asked him, did he want his pipe? he said no; did he lack anything? No, he said, who lacked so much, and shook his head and shed more tears. There were days, too, when he was testy and put about, and then the neighbour who cared for him thought her weekly half-crown hardly earned, and went about her work grumbling

and clattering dishes. Gaffer Goodman was not so deaf but that he sometimes heard her, not so old but that he remembered his wife and her fifty years of willing care of him.

"He's very poor company," said the neighbour to her dear gossip. "You may work as you will, and you can't bring a smile to his face."

"It must be like having a funeral about the place," said the other, "only it doesn't move on."

"And so cross as he is at times! Always cross when he is not miserable. You'd think he couldn't last long with such fretting at his age."

It was just about this time that the play-angel came to Gaffer Goodman. He awoke from a doze one day to find the little creature sitting on his knee, one little fist in his, and awaiting his awakening with wide and happy eyes. Play-angels are very much like little young children, save that they have wings (which is a very good thing, for I do not know how else they would reach us) and a close crown of white roses round their brows. They are also even gentler and kinder than our children, and their faces are like those of the little ones we love best of all.

"Now we can play," said the play-angel as the old man awoke; and, slipping off his knees, she stretched her little arms and preened her dovelike wings, and danced about in pleasure at the freedom of her limbs.

The play-angel seemed quite to understand the Gaffer's limitations. She never suggested anything he could not do, but

found out quite a lot of things that he could, and taught him these. They might not have amused folk who had freer use of limbs and wits, but they amused him, and Gaffer Goodman took to smiling and smiling, even laughing aloud at times; for she taught him to twist the buttons of his old coat round and round on the thread and let them spin back very quickly; she taught him to place his fingers for

This is the church

And that's the steeple ;

Open the door

And there's the people;

The parson is mounting the pulpit stairs,
And here he is saying his prayers!

She taught him to talk to his fingers as if they were different people, and to make them talk back to him: all of which was quite company for the Gaffer, and did nobody any harm. She called the pigeons down from the roof and taught him to feed the shy things from his knotted and shaking old hand; she played "peep-bo" from behind the rose bushes and the bean-sticks, and jumped and frisked up and down the garden path till the old man crowed with pleasure, clapped his hands, or tapped his stick upon the path. When she was tired she sat upon his knee, telling him beautiful true stories,

and stroking his face with her baby hands.

People could not see the play-angel, nor know anything about her, though she trotted about between their very legs, stared up into their faces with her round eyes, and even pulled at their coat or dress in passing; and when Gaffer Goodman tried to tell them about her, they said, "yes, yes," and smiled at each other. But they saw that the Gaffer was a changed man: the lines were gone from his brow, the grief from his eye, and in their place were a vague conten, a tired peace, at times even a twinklest of fun. He was never angry now, though he was deafer than ever and could make no plain speech at all.

They said he had gone childish, poor soul, and 'twas a mercy, for he seemed much happier, and it did folks good to see him smile and talk to himself after all that complaining and loneliness. "Twas queer," they said, "to be happier for the loss of your wits! But that was evidently the case with Gaffer Goodman."

With that they went back to their digging and washing or sewing or sweeping; while the old man nodded and smiled in his sunny corner, and the playangel frisked about, or told him her true and beautiful fairy tales.

Τ'

HE whole matter remains something of a puzzle still, despite the lapse of time and the perspective into which it has retreated.

But at Pleating it was more so. Pleating is always a delightful place, particularly when Lady Herapath takes the trouble, as she sometimes does, to select her

company with care. For my part I have got beyond the age when every new face must of necessity be interesting. It is a pleasure to see pretty faces and fine clothes, no doubt, but so it is also to have handsome pictures hanging on the walls, and the appointments of the table faultless. Lady Herapath had all these at Pleating, and she sometimes added to them a company of the elect, with whom conversation was practicable, and who were not there merely to be seen and admired.

I

I had at first the thought that Miss Livingston was one of these latter, for it was obvious that she was admired, and not the less because she was wealthy. had heard of her, of course, in one or two quarters before. I met her, but principally from George Lincoln, who was after all given to enthusiasm, particularly where women were concerned. In any case I reflected, when I arrived, that Pleating was a pleasant house in which to spend a fortnight after the dismal procession of the winter months, and in preparation, so to speak, for the London season. The season does not, in point of fact, trouble me very deeply, but I like to think I am involved in it as a factor of some importance, and I emerge the other side of it with a more or less genuine feeling of enjoyment and relief. But spring at Pleating has attractions. The park is small, but beautifully laid out; the air streams over the hills on the west with a stimulating suggestion of romance which agitates even middle-aged nerves, and in the meadows the primroses and the king-cups are heralding the advance of summer.

It was not until I saw them together that I realised George Lincoln's case, and at the same time appreciated the

Miss Livingston

truth of his eulogies. was singularly handsome, of a light, fine figure, and with a certain quickness of eye which was taking. I encountered them as I walked from the station, having scorned to drive on that balmy day, and Lincoln made the introduction with an obvious eagerness, and as obvious a shyness. His were but common English qualities-a good-looking face, a good carriage, and other virile attributes that attend on such things, at least in this country. But he was certainly not of the elect, and for the moment I was disposed to groan at the fear that Lady Herapath had peopled her house after this kind. I little knew that George was destined to prove more interesting, and also more embarrassing to me, than any of the more specialised types after which I sighed.

There was just frank curiosity in Miss Livingston's eyes when George introduced me as one of his oldest friends.

"Yes," said I, taking off my hat and letting the soft air fan my thinning hair, "so old as to be nearly, but not quite, Sir George's father."

"I'm glad you escaped that," said she dryly, and something in her voice rather than in her little repartee took my

attention.

As we strolled towards the house I discovered what it was that interested me. She had a bright sub-acid wit, which was not in the least annoying, yet countered one, so to speak, even if one were not designing a stroke. She was on her guard, it seemed, all the time, and her sallies, such as they were, covered a certain large restlessness of nature. She may have been beautiful, and she may have been an heiress, as I reflected, but she was also something more—she had a character and notions of her own.

Lady Herapath had not collected a menagerie of interesting people this time." Indeed, I fear that on the whole we were an unexciting lot; but as I was privileged to sit next to Miss Livingston at dinner, I did not resent that. I noticed that she had a hearty appetite, and that her laugh was