She startled echoes from my inmost soul By words that named my “life-work.” “Yes,” I said; “We all should sympathize. All own one lord; All wait beside one shore; all watch one tide.— So too do snipes and snails! and so do souls That yet shall rule in heaven ten towns and one. Souls differ, Grace; and John from James, as well As both from Judas.—Judas lingers too.” “So many,” sigh’d she, “sell their Christ, and think Souls rich, that but receive suggestions rich From art or——” Had regard for Edith, now, Made me, at last, a champion of art?— “However or wherever plied,” I said, “Real power for good owns good enough to claim Some courtesy from Christian charity. If I but fling a stone in yonder pond, Wherever it may fall, it stirs the whole. So if I throw out thought for mind or heart, Through art or through religion, each may move The whole man thus, and move him for his good.” “Ah, but,” she breathed, with slight dogmatic stress, “A simple woman, I would move his heart, Through love, as Christ too did; not so?” “Do this,” I said, “you do but what is woman’s right; And none about you will dispute the right. But ask me not to limit thus the Christ. How dare I?—if our churches teach the truth, If He incarnated the sum of life And spirit of all good,—his holiness His wholeness, and His perfectness, the proof Of what He was? Nor dare I limit those Who follow Him.—Why may they not live His, Not aiming here nor there, but everywhere To make the most of all God meant them for. And things there are that art can do for man To make him manlier. Not the senseless rock Is all it fashions into forms of sense; But senseless manhood, natures hard and harsh, Great classes crush’d, and races driven to crawl Till all their souls are stain’d with smut and soil,— More human seem these when the hands of art Have grasp’d their better traits and hold them forth. And men who see these better traits, and see The tender touch of art that holds them forth, Behold a beauty never else beheld; And all their hearts beat more humanely while They heed the plea of these humanities. And so, I think, although the wilderness, At times, a John in camel’s hair may need, There open too, in ways of life less wild, More ways, where love may plead in guise more soft. In short, as long as one may choose his course, ’Tis best we do what each can do the best.” XLVIII.