Only the Christian Church can offer any rational objection to a complete confidence in the rich. For she has maintained from the beginning that the danger was not in man's environment, but in man. Further, she has maintained that if we come to talk of a dangerous environment, the most dangerous of all is the commodious environment. I know that the most modern manufacture has been really occupied in trying to produce an abnormally large needle. I know that the most recent biologists have been chiefly anxious to discover a very small camel. But if we diminish the camel to his smallest, or open the eye of the needle to its largest: if, in short, we assume the words of Christ to have meant the very least that they could mean, His words must at the very least mean this--that rich men are not very likely to be morally trustworthy. _'Orthodoxy.'_ JUNE 24th _MIDSUMMER DAY_ O well for him that loves the sun, That sees the heaven-race ridden or run, The splashing seas of sunset won, And shouts for victory. God made the sun to crown his head, And when death's dart at last is sped, At least it will not find him dead, And pass the carrion by. O ill for him that loves the sun; Shall the sun stoop for anyone? Shall the sun weep for hearts undone Or heavy souls that pray? Not less for us and everyone Was that white web of splendour spun; O well for him who loves the sun Although the sun should slay. _'Ballad of the Sun.'_ JUNE 25th A man's good work is effected by doing what he does: a woman's by being what she is. _'Robert Browning.'_ JUNE 26th If the old priests forced a statement on mankind, at least they previously took some trouble to make it lucid. It has been left for the modern mobs of Anglicans and Nonconformists to persecute for a doctrine without even stating it. _'Heretics.'_ JUNE 27th From the time of the first fairy tales men had always believed ideally in equality; they had always thought that something ought to be done, if anything could be done, to redress the balance between Cinderella and the ugly sisters. The irritating thing about the French was not that they said this ought to be done: everybody said that. The irritating thing about the French was that they did it. _Introduction to 'Hard Times.'_ JUNE 28th My Lady clad herself in grey, That caught and clung about her throat; Then all the long grey winter-day On me a living splendour smote; And why grey palmers holy are, And why grey minsters great in story, And grey skies ring the morning star, And grey hairs are a crown of glory. My Lady clad herself in green, Like meadows where the wind-waves pass; Then round my spirit spread, I ween, A splendour of forgotten grass. Then all that dropped of stem or sod, Hoarded as emeralds might be, I bowed to every bush, and trod Amid the live grass fearfully.