A Mere Accident

land, these families had for generations lived unanimous lives. In England the hunting field, the grouse moor, the croquet and tennis lawn, with its charming adjunct the fiv

with her hair done up. And she remembered his first appearance in evening clothes, and how

ago, a young curate, bespattered with the grey mud of the downs, had startled her and her husband by addressing her as Lizzie. Lizzie she had remained to him, he was William to her, and henceforth their lives had been indissolubly linked. Not a week had passed without their seeing each other. There were visits to pay, there was hunting, and then habit intervened; and for many years, in suffering, in joy, in hope, their thoughts had instinctively looked to each other for reflective sy

t in the broad day of their lives they had ever thought of each other as friends. He had advised her on the management of her estate, on the education of her son; and in his afflictions-in his widowerhood-when hi

y welcome; but she whom Mrs Norton would have preferred to all others was the daughter of her old friend. Her son had deserted her, and now all her affections were centred in Kitty. Kitty was as much at Thornby Pl

n College; and to send this fair flower to his great-to his only-friend, was a joy, and the bitterness of temporary loss was forgotten in the sweetness of the sharing. He had suffered much; but these last years had been quiet, free from despair at least, and he wished to drift a little longer with the tide of this time. Why strive to hasten events? If this thing was to be, it would be. So he had thoug

tanton College to beg John Norton to return to Thornby Place, and to say what he could in favour of marriage generally. This was very compromising. He had been deceived; Li

ricket field with a solitary divine reading his breviary. The drive turned and turned again in great sloping curves; more divines were passed, and then there came a long terrace with a balustrade and a view of the open country, now full of mist. And to see the sharp spire of the di

windows stared upon the ugly Staffordshire landscape. A square tower squatted in the middle of the building, and o

ook," thought Mr Hare, as he laid his

the servant came. "Will you give him my c

trong and barren, and only about the varnished staircase was there any sign of comfort. There a virgin in bright blue stood on a crescent moon; above her the ceiling was panelled in oak, and the banisters, the cocoa nut matting, the bit of stained glass, and the religious prints, suggested a mock air

watched the divines hurrying along the windy terrace, and the tramp of

the yearning of the large prominent eyes, suggested at once a clear, delightful intelligence,-a mind timid, fearing, and doubting, such a one as would seek support in mysticism and dogma, that would rise instantly to a certain point, but to drop as suddenly as if sickened by the too intense light of the cold, pure heaven of reason to the gloom of the sanctuary and the consolations of Faith. Let us turn to the mouth for a further indication of character. It was large, the lips were thick, but without a trace of sensuality. They were dim in colour, they were undefined in shape, they were a little meaningless-no, not meaningless, for they confirme

? and who would have expected to se

the voice which did not quite correspond with the sacerdotal elegance of this young man. Then

nd seeing it as it now is, you would not believe all the delightful detail that a ray of

ege is not looking its best on a day like

ey for some time back. I have had to make some very heavy reductions. Pearson declared he could not possibly continue at the present rent with corn as low as eight pounds a load. This is very serious, but it is very difficult to arrive at the tr

you the last time you were at Thornby

college-Birmingham Tudor; my mother invented the expression. When she is in a passion she hits on the very happiest concurrence of words

thought it was for the sake of the architecture, which I fran

for the sake of th

me home and spend Chris

with the plain Protestantism, the smug materialism of Sussex at su

e the people starving? If your dislike of Protestan

. But I beg your pardon-I

ing; "continue: we were talking

epy smug materialism.... Oh, it is horrible; I cannot think of Sussex without a revulsion of feeling. Sussex is utterly opposed to the monastic spirit. Why, even the downs are easy, yes, easy as one of the upholsterer's armchairs of the villa residences. And the aspect of the county tallies exa

ement of his hands he seemed to spurn the entire m

better. You-yes, you and the whole place are, in every sense of the word, Conse

is not by any means so satisfied with the present con

t was clear that the parad

ne will ever know me-would think that I had not a care in the world. Well, I have suffered as horribly, I have been tortured as crue

or of

e see life in all its worm-like meanness, and death in its plain, stupid loathsomeness. Two days out of this year live like fire in my mind. I went to my uncle Richard's funeral. There was cold meat and sherry on the table; a dreadf

bscene, it was not so obscene as the vie

nes of pale yellow, and there were glass cases filled with pickle bottles, and there were piles of ropes and a machine in motion, and in nooks there were some dreadful lay figures, and written underneath them, 'Indian corn-seller,' 'Indian fish-seller.' And there was the Prince of Wales on horseback, three times larger than life; and there were stuffed deer upon

fe-tattered housewives, girls grown stout on porter, pretty-faced babies, heavy-handed fathers, w

monastic life of the Middle Ages; but an ideal is wholly wanting in nineteenth cen

d reviling humanity. I do not see how you reconcile these o

to use those arguments against me

, and at the end of a

e college now, and when that's done you will come u

latticed windows with green, and the divine walking to and fro was a spot of black. There were pictures along the walls of the corridor-pictures

al Ribera.... The chapel is on the right, the refectory on the left. Come

handsome; it cost fiv

e transparency of the green-watered skies; and turning their backs on the bishops, the blue ceiling with the gold stars was declared, all things considered, to be in excellent taste. The benches in the body of the church were for boys; the carved chairs set along both walls between the communion rails and the first steps

s St George's, and further on, in an addition made lately, there were

ish them beyond the precincts. And it is easy to imagine how the unspeakable feminality of those maid-servants jars a beautiful impression-the altar towering white with wax candles, the benedictive odour of incense, the richness of the v

to sudden recollections of mona

." And then, half playfully, half seriously, and

not do them good. They should be well whipped. I belie

tar. Altar service was rewarded by a large piece of toast for breakfast. Handsome lads of sixteen were chosen for acolytes, the torch-bearers were selected from the smallest boys, the office of censer was filled by John Norton, and he was also t

, Mr Hare took his place at the handle; and he found it even more embarrassing to give an opinion on the religiosity of the music, than on the arch?ological colouration of the bishops in the windo

othed out the fine linen of the under vestments; and his voice, too, seemed to gain a sharp tenderness and emotive force, as he told how these were the gold vestments worn by the bishop, and only on certain great feast-days, and that these were the white vestments worn on days especially

ary. John pointed out the excellent supply of

just towards the end the young man falls in love and proposes; but there must not be much of that sort of thing. Here are Robert Louis Stevenson's works, 'Treasure Islan

don't

es in art and poetry-I gave it myself to the library. We were so sorry we could not include that most beautiful book, 'Marius the Epicurean.' We have some young men here of twenty and three and twenty, and it would be delightful to see th

't say

d is upon every page; the wide temples, the lustral water-the youths apportioned out for divine service, and already happy with a sense of dedication, the altars

e to the external world, that the

he first time the false veil of my grosser nature was withdrawn, and I looked into the true ethereal eyes, pale as wan water and sunset skies, of my higher self. Marius was to me an awakening; the rapture of knowledge came upon me that even our temporal life might be beautiful; that, in a word, it was possible to somehow come to terms with life.... You must read it. For instance, can anyone conceive anything more perfectly beautiful than the death of Flavian, and all that youthful co

were writing the histo

e literary, the scientific, and the theological l

at fireplace, and the stained glass seemed to delight him, and he alluded to the art classes of monastic life. The class-rooms were peepe

floor there was an oak table-a table made of sharp slabs of oak laid upon a frame that was evidently of ancient design, probably early German, a

s this?" sa

u have no idea how difficult it is to buy the works of any Latin authors except those of the Augustan age. Milo was a monk, and he lived in the eighth century. He was a man of very considerable attainments, if

es, silv?que et

es, pariter val

te genus: quod

jacet ecce in p

It found numberless imitators and favour even with the Humanists, and it was reprinted eight times in the seventeenth century. This poem is of especial interest to me on account of the illustration it affords of a theory of my own concerning the unconsciousness of the true artist. For breaking away from the literary habitudes of his time, which were to do the gospels or the li

riferum pingit

?, foliis qu?

lata brevis,

i caules trans

aves leni dis

plici vigeat

tis apprime o

sis incommoda

not seem to construe satisfactorily, and I am not certain that the poet may not hav

cs. I have known many strange tastes, but you

cold-blooded and self-satisfied. There is no agitati

rful macaw! Why does it not speak in strange dialect? It trails lengths of red silk. Such red! The pigment is twirled and heaped with quaint device, until it se

line; and the painter has made meaning with every blot of colour! Look at the two principal dancers! They are down on their knees, arms raised, bosoms advanced, skirts extended, a hundred coryphées are clustered about them. Leani

g the horizon up with it like a heavy, deadly curtain. But the roof of the villa is white, and the green of the laurels shaken free of the snow sh

it is full of fading blues. The dazzling sky deepens as it rises to breathless azure, and the soul pines for and is fain of God. White sails show aloft; a

glass filled with pale roses, by Renoi

obe stood in one corner, and facing it, in front of the prie-dieu, a life-size Christ hung with outstretched arms. The parson l

eous than a padded arm-chair. All design is lost in that infamous stuffing. Stuffing is a vicious excuse for the absence of design. If uphol

ou find these chairs very uncomfortable. Don't you think that you wou

k at these chairs, nothing can be plainer; a cottage stool is hardly more simple, and yet they are not offensive to the eye. I had them made from a pictu

look after yourself. You

ant and richly coloured Havanas.... Mr Hare took a cigar, and glanced at the table on which

is modern, surel

a lot of old-fashioned furniture and pile it up in my rooms, Turkey carpets and Japaneseries of

atin authors; and the parson, who prided himself on his Latinity, was surprised, and a little nettled, to find so much ignorance proved upon him. With Tertullian, St Jerome, and St Augustine he was of c

son read through the titles of Mr Browning's work. Tennyson was in a cheap seven-and-six edition; then came Swinburne, Pater, Rossetti, Morris, two novels by Rhoda Broughton,

said, glancing once again at the Latin

u explain to me in a few words the line you are taking. Your mother tel

rs out of some hundreds, are of the slightest literary interest, and very few indeed of any real ?sthetic value. I have been hard at work lately, and I think I know enough of the literature of the Middle Ages to enable me to make a selection that will comprise

little earlier, in some a little later, when it was replaced by the national idioms. The different literatures of the West had therefore been preceded by a Latin literature that had for a long time held out a supporting hand to each. The language of

at a language that has played so important a part in

o satiety, to a naive joy in the present; on this theme, all that could be said had been said, all that could be sung had been sung, and the Rhetoricians were at work with alliteration and refrain when Christianity ca

whom do

tullian,

do you thi

ure, but I cannot help being attracted by that wild African spirit, so full of savage contradictions, so full of energy that it never knew repose: in him you find all the imperialism of ancient times. When you consider that he lived in a time when the church was s

t I do know something of Tertullian, and you mean to tell me that you a

s, and full of colour, the reader supplies with delight the connecting link, th

ntiabantur, cum ipso Jove et ipsis suis testibus in imis tenebris congemiscentes!-Tunc magis trag?di audiendi, magis scilicet vocales in s

and glittering colour. The phrases are not all dove-tai

And whom do you

antius; to the latter I attribute

laudian'

He took the idea from the Arians. He saw the effect it had upon the vulgar mind, and he resolved to combat the heresy with its own weapons. He composed a vast number of hymns. Only four have come down to us, and they are as perfect in form as in matter. You will scarcely find a

virtue, was very influential. He lauds the virgin above the wife, and, indeed, he goes so far as to tell parents that they can obtain pardon of their sins by offering their daughters to God. His teaching in this resp

ur thoughts dwell very

of conscience. Then he said, somewhat abruptly, "St Jerome I speak of, or rather I allude to him, and pass on at

degree, and seriously prejudices the value of the 'Confessions' as considered from the artistic standpoint. But when he bemoans the loss of the fri

d been done, but heretofore the life of the soul had been lived in silence-none had come to speak of its suffering, its uses, its tribulation. In the time of Horace it was enough to sit in Lalage's bower and weave roses; of the communion of souls none had ever thought. Let us speak of the soul! This is the great di

rent of psychological analysis which, with the development of the modern novel, grows daily greater in volume and more penetrating in

allad, most particularly the English ballad

trace back our north-country b

re is much in his hymns that

is hy

of St Ambrose, in the same or in similar metres, but with this difference, the hymns of Prudentius are three, four, and sometimes seven times longer than those of St Ambrose. The Spanish poet did not consider, or he lost sight of, the practical usages of poetry. He sang more from an artistic than a religious impulse. That he delighted in the song for the song's own sake is manifest; and this is shown in the variety of his treatment, and t

ar, 'Peristephanon,' that is to say, the

, in verses of four lines each. In the time of the persecutions of Valerian, the Roman prefect, devoured by greed, summoned St Laurence, the treasurer of the church, before him, and on the plea that parents were making away with their fortunes to the de

ers, advancing with trembling and hesitating steps. Those are the treasures, the golden vases and so forth, that the saint has catalogued and is going to exhibit to the prefect, who is waiting in the sanctuary. The prefect is dumb with rage; the saint observes that gold is found in dross; that the disease of the body is to be less feared than that of the soul; and he developes this idea with a good deal of wit. The boasters suffer from dropsy, the miser from cramp in the wrist, the

hymn. In a hundred and thirty-three hendecasyllabic verses the story of a young virgin condemned to a house of ill-fame is sung with exquisite sense of grace and melody. She is exposed naked at the corner of a street. The crowd piously turns away; only one young man looks upon her with lust in his heart. He is instantly struck blind by lightning, but at

t example in medi?val literature of allegorical

seeks to strike her eyes, but Modesty disarms him and pierces him with her sword. 'Since the Virgin without stain gave birth to the Man-God, Lust is without rights in the world.' Patience watches the fight; she is presently attacked by Anger, first with violent words, and then with darts, which fall harmlessly from her armour. Accompanied by Job, Patience retires triumphant. But at that moment, mounted on a wild and unbridled steed, and covered with a lionskin,

ues, speaks of surrender. But suddenly Sobriety (Sobrietas) lifts the standard of the Cross towards the sky. Lust falls from her chariot, and Sobriety fells her with a stone. Then all her saturnalian army is scattered. Love casts away his quiver. Pomp strips herself of her garments, and Voluptuousness (Voluptas) fears not to tread upon thorns, &c.c. But A

curious indeed. I know no

y fe

ppose, translated s

from 'Hamartigenia,' which, by the way, some consider as his greatest work. And I show more completely, I think, than any other commentator, the analogy betwe

was a contemporary of Claudian. Wh

purer and his verse was better, that is to say,

any other

st Christian poetry there is a tendency to write by accent rather than by quantity, but that does not say that the hymns have not a quaint Gothic music of their own. This is very noticeable in Sedulius, a poet of the fifth century. Hi

t it is certain that the poet wasted the greater part of his life writing verses to her and her adopted daughter Agnes. In a beautiful poem in praise of virginity, composed in honour of Agnes, he speaks in a very disgusting way of the love with which nuns regard our Redeemer, and the recompence that awaits them in Heaven for their chastity. If it had not been for the great interest attaching to his verse as an example of the radical alteration that had been effected in the language,

sative for the ablative, one of St Gregory's favourite forms of speech, pro or quod for quoniam, conformable to old French porceque, so common for parceque. And while national idiom was oozing through grammatical construction, national forms of verse were replacing the classical metres which, so far as syllables were concern

f exquisite grace, and surprisingly modern is his music, which is indeed a won

no dulces fac,

us, surge et fa

es, vatorum es

tes cuncti con

id dulces can

es, vatorum es

vid inspirat c

stris faciat a

mat David, fac,

s, vatorum est

nk-'ipsius,' oh, oh!-'vatorum.

to reply, when the clanging

d that is d

chameleon-like, on air, or worse still, on false quantities. Ha, h

on the high roofs, smearing the red out of the walls and buttresses, and melancholy and tall the red college seemed amid its dwarf plantation, now filled with night w

o say to your mother. Will y

annot account even to myself for my dislike to the place. I cannot th

t with you, but I think

e to Sussex, and marry m

our neighbour's daughter, but I take it tha

adow, a spectator whose duty it is to watch and encourage, and pity the hurrying throng on the stage. The church would approve this attitude, whereas hate and loathing of humanity are not to be justified. But I can d

fox-hunting, marriage, Robert Louis Stevenson's stories, nor Sir Frederick Leighton's pictures; I prefer monkish Latin to Virgil, and I adore Degas, Monet, Manet, and Renoir, and since this is so, and alas, I a

sition of every farmer on my estate, the property does not owe fifty pounds;-I keep the tenants up to the mark; I do not approve of waste and idleness, but when a little help is wanted I am re

ute one; but your mother is very anxious, remember you

y adventitious presence that might jar or destroy it. To keep oneself unspotted, to feel conscious of no sense of stain, to know, yes, to hear the heart repeat that this self-hands, face, mouth and skin-is free from all befouling touch, is all one's own. I have always been strongly attracted to the colour wh

TNO

i Roma