Yeast: a Problem

he boldly went up the next day to the Priory, not to beg pardon, but to justify himself, and succeeded. And, before long, he f

o consider as an insolent calumny against woman. Proudly and indignantly she struggled against the conviction, but in vain. Again and again she argued with him, and was vanquished,-or, at least, what is far better, made to see how many different sides there are to every question. All appeals to authority he answered with a contemptuous smile. 'The best authorities?' he used to say. 'On what question do not the best authorities flatly contradict each other? And why? Because every man believes just what it suits him to believe. Don't fancy that men reason themselves into convictions; the prejudices and feelings of their hearts give them some idea or theory, and then they find facts at their leisure to prove their theory true. Every man sees facts through narrow spectacles, red, or green, or blue, as his nation or his temperament colours them: and he is quite right, only he must allow us the liberty of having our spectacles too. Authority is only good for proving fa

on all points which touched the heart he looked up to her as infallible and inspired. In questions of morality, of taste, of feeling, he listened not as a lover to his mistress, but rather as a baby to its mother; and thus, half uncons

ld of struggling self-conceit and self-disgust-was vanishing away; and as Mr. Tennyson says in one

altered,

ut the hous

e certain s

uld deal in honey, without putting her hand to her mouth. But Lancelot knew better, and marked her for his own. And daily his self-confidence and sense of rightful power developed, and with them, paradoxical as it may seem, the bitterest self-abasement. The contact of her stainless innocence, the growing certainty that the destiny of that innocence was irrevocably bound up with his own, made him shrink from her whenever he remembered his own guilty career. To remember that there were passages in it which she must never know-that she would cast him from her with abhorrence if she once really understood their vileness? To think that, amid all the closest bonds of love, there must for ever be an awful, silent gulf in the past, of which they must never speak!-That she would bring to him what he could never, never bring to her!-The t

ursting spirit which throbs against your brow to flit forth

s own vileness. And in after years, slowly, and in fear and trembling, he knew it for the voice of Go

rried together in that unexhausted mine, among the records of the rich Titan-youth of man. And step by step Lancelot opened to her the everlasting significance of the poem; the unconscious purity which lingers in it, like the last rays of the Paradise dawn; its sense of the dignity of man as man; the religious reverence with which it speaks of all human ties, human strength and beauty-ay, even of merely animal human appetites,

ve in?' she asked

intended me to think of spirit first, He would have let me see it first. But as He has given me material senses, and put me in a material world, I take it as a fair hint that I am meant to use those senses first, wh

had given up long ago wasti

hoever is wrong. If that Hebrew Bible is to be believed by

. But Argemone was beginning to find out that, when people are really in earnest, it may be better sometimes to leave God's metho

mere mathematical figure, would, in his hands, become the illustration of a spiritual truth. And, in time, every fresh lesson on the Odyssey was accompanied by its illustration,-some bold and simple outline drawing. In Arg

ly, and yet modest; in her face pensive tenderness seemed wedded with earnest joy. In her right hand lay a cross, the emblem of self-sacrifice. Her path across the desert was marked by the flowers which sprang up beneath her steps; the wild gazelle stept forward trustingly to lick her hand; a single wandering butterfly fluttered round her head. As the group, one by one, caught sight of her, a human tenderness and intelligence seemed to light up every face. The scholar dropt his book, the miser his gold, the savage his weapons; even in the visage of the half-slumbering sot some nobler recollection seemed wistfully to struggle into life. The artist caught up his pencil, the poet his lyre, with eyes that beamed forth sudden i

ngs at best; the reader must fill up th

figure which was the lodestar of all their emotions-the virginal purity of the whole. And when she fancied that she traced in those bland aquiline lineaments, and in the crisp ringlets which floated like a cloud down to the knees of the figure, some traces of her own likene

have been too bold,'-sa

iful-so full of deep wisdom

gemone caught up the drawing, pressed it to her bosom, covered it with kisses, and hid

cied that she w

ondence,-a method which some clergymen, and some young ladies too, have discovered, in the last few years, to be quite consistent with moral delicacy and filial obedience. John Bull, like a stupid fellow as he is, has still his doubts upon the point; but he should remember that though St. Paul tells women when they want advice to ask their husbands at home, yet if the poor woman has no husband, or, as often happens, her husband's advice is unpleasant, to whom is she to go but to the n

off the holy discipline which a home, even the most ungenial, alone supplies, savoured too much of mere 'Protestantism.' It might be God's plan for christianising England just now, but that was no reason, alas! for its being their plan: they wanted something more 'Catholic,' more in accordance with Church principles (for, indeed, is it not the business of the Church to correct the errors of Prov

nd other such merely fleshly relationships, which, as they cannot have been instituted by God merely to be trampled under foot on the path to holiness, and cannot well have instituted themselves (unless, after all, the Materialists are right, and this world does grind of itself, except

mpathies, entreating him to spare a mother's feelings, he had answered with the same impassive fanaticism, that 'he was surprised at her putting a mother's selfish feelings in competition with the sanctity of her child,' and that 'had his own daughter shown such a desire for a higher vocation, he should have esteemed it the very highest honour;' to which Mrs. Lavington answered,

nt and less confiding; and the vicar, who well knew th

sense of duty.' Almsgiving and visiting the sick were one of the methods of earning heaven prescribed by her new creed. She was ashamed of her own laziness by the side of Honoria's simple benevolence; and, sad though it may be to have to say it, she longed to outdo her by some signal act of self-sacrifice. She had looked to this nunnery, too, as an escape, once and for all, from her own luxury, just as people who have not strength to be temperate take refuge in teetotalism; and the thought of menial services towards the poor, however distasteful to her, came in quite prettily to fill up the little ideal of a life of romantic asceticisms and mystic contemplation, which gave the true charm in her eyes to her wild project. But now-just as a field had opened to her cravings after poetry and art, wider and ri

, embodying for her all her vague surmises, he seemed to beckon her towards him.-She shuddered and turned away. And now she first became conscious how he had haunted her thoughts in the las

-she had always known that he loved her, but she had never dared to confess it to herself. But now the earthquake was come, and all the secrets of her heart

in the mirror opposite the refle

or his love. I do not love him-I do not; and even if I did, to give myself up to a man of whom I know so little, who is not even a Christian, much less a Churchman! Ay! and to give up my will to any man! to become the subject, the slave, of another human being! I, w

er knees-she could not

once to the superior of the Béguines; to go to my mother, and tell her once for all-What? Must I lose him?-must I give him up? Not his love-I cannot give up that-would that I could! but no! he will love me for ever. I know it as well as if an angel told

cry yourself to sleep, while the angels are laughing kindly (if a solemn public, who settles everything for th

ng for him, was scribbling a hasty and angry answer to a letter of Luke's, which, perhaps, came that

d Cousin,-S

gno turbantibu

alterius specta

that disgusting monosyllable of which Protestants are so fond. He felt with me and for me-for my horror of giving pain to my father, and for my wearied and excited state of mind; and strangely enough-to show how differently, according to the difference of the organs, the same object may appear to two people-he quoted in my favour that very verse which you wrest against me. He wished me to show my father that I had only changed my heaven, and not my character, by becoming an Ultramontane-Catholic . . . that, as far as his esteem and affection were founded on anything in me, the ground of it did not vanish with my conversion. If I had told him at once of my altered opinions, he would have henceforth viewed every word and action with a perjudiced eye. . . . Protestants are so bigoted . . . but if, after seeing me for a month or two the same Luke that he had ever known me, he were gradually informed that I had all the while held that creed which he had considered incompatible with such a life as I hope mine would be-you must see the effect which it ought to have. . . . I don't doubt that you will complain of all this. . . . All I can say is, t

est, was utterly corrupt, you would not be so superstitiously careful to tell the truth . . . as you call it; because you would know that man's heart, if not his head, would needs turn the truth into

several strong curses, scr

t in itself divine light-a revelation to man of absolute laws independent of him, as the very heathens hold. But this I will do-thank you most sincerely for the compliment you pay us Cismontane heretics. We do retain some dim belief in a God-even I am beginning to believe in believing in Him. And therefore, as I begin to suppose, it is, that we reverence facts, as the work of God, His acted words and will, which we dare not falsify; which we believe will tell their own story better than we can tell it for them. If our eyes are dimmed, we think it safer to cl

ours after receiving this letter, I will. And I, being a Protes

lf, a red-hot Orangeman, he had thought fit to quarrel with the priest, in consequence of which he found himself deprived both of tithes and congregation; and after receiving three or four Rockite letters, and a charge of slugs through his hat (of which he always talked as if being shot at was the most pleasant and amusing feature of Irish life), he repaired to England, and there, after trying to set up as popular preacher in London, declaiming at Exeter Hall, and writing for all the third-rate magazines, found himself incumb

ing as a cegar about ye? I've been preaching to school-childre

t, really, I have le

okin' the nasty things going up to the castl

pliment,' said Lancelot, gruffly; 'bu

love of ye'-(Panurgus had a happy knack of blurting out truths-when they were pleasant ones). 'And she just the beautifulest creature

inted with my matters than I am. Don't you think, on th

in that same, for ye're as pretty a rider as ever kicked coping-stones out of a wall; and poor Paddy loves a sportsman b

asked Lancelot, with

hat, with his bowings and his crossings, and his Popery made asy for small minds, fo

d really better mind your own

uldn't ye look me out a fine fat widow, with an illigant little fortune? For what's England made for except to find poor Paddy a wife and money? Ah, ye may laugh, but I'd buy me a chapel at the West-end: me talents are thrown

love of me!' He knew it was an impudent exaggeration, but, somehow, it gave him confidence; 'there is no smoke,' he thought, 'without fire.' And his heart beat h

he soon found that she was not thinking of Homer. She was m

assics are de trop this

turned away her head. He fanci

turned to him with a cl

ed. But we must part; and now, God be with you. Oh, that you would but believe that these glorious talents are His loan! That you would but be a true and loyal knight to him who said-"Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls!"-Ay,' she went on, more and more passionately, for she felt that not she, but One mightier than herself was speaking through her, 'then you might be great indeed. Then I might watch your name from afar, rising higher and high

ttle Bible. He took it, and

unspoken, as he looked into the celestial azure of those eyes, calm and pure as a soft evening sky. A mighty struggle between good and evil shook his heart to the roots; and, for the first time in his life, his soul br

m, I have aspired even to you! And I have gained, in the sunshine of your condescension, strength and purity.-Is no

hy did she almost

will. You will think me so cold, heartless, fickle.-Oh, yo

with new force and meaning. A thousand petty incidents, which he had driven contemptuously from

e! We love each other! You a

ly will! The almost coarse simplicity of his words silenced her with a de

ncelot, whither a

er of spirits, is leading you! You, who bel

' And she handed him the vicar's letter. He read it,

ld you have? So "celibacy is the highest state!" And why? Because "it is the safest and the easiest road to heaven?" A pretty reason, vicar! I should have thought that that was a sign of a lower state and not a higher. Noble spirits show their nobleness by daring the most difficult p

im, but kept her fac

your heart to care for my poor soul? Who gave us this strange attraction towards each other, in spite of our unlikeness? Wonderful that the very chain of circumstances which you seem to fancy the offs

m of her woman's nature welled up to the light, as pure as when she first lay on her mother's b

ove

like one who in dreams finds himself in some fairy

y thoughts. All this has been too much for me.

drew it back, frightened. The sensation was new to her. Again the delicious feeling of being utterly in his

s if Lancelot was the whole world, and there was nothing beside him, and wondered how a moment had made him all in all to her; and