Do you believe in Blackfriars Bridge, then; and admit that some day or other there must have been reason to call it “Black Friar’s”? As surely as the bridge stands over Thames, and St. Paul’s above it, these two men, Paul and Francis, had their ecstacies, in bygone days, concerning other matters than ermine tails; and still the same ecstacies, or effeminate sentiments, are possible to human creatures, believe it or not as you will. I am not now, whatever the ‘Pall Mall Gazette’ may think, an ecstatic person myself. But thirty years ago I knew once or twice what joy meant, and have not forgotten the feeling; nay, even so little a while as two years ago, I had it back again—for a day. And I can assure you, good wiseacres, there is such a thing to be had; but not in cheap shops, nor, I was going to say, for money; yet in a certain sense it is buyable—by forsaking all that a man hath. Buyable—literally enough—the freehold Elysian field at that price, but not a doit cheaper; and I believe, at this moment, the reason my voice has an uncertain sound, the reason that this design of mine stays unhelped, and that only a little group of men and women, moved chiefly by personal regard, stand with me in a course so plain and true, is that I have not yet given myself to it wholly, but have halted between good and evil, and sit still at the receipt of custom, and am always looking back from the plough. It is not wholly my fault this. There seem to me good reasons why I should go on with my work in Oxford; good reasons why I should have a house of my own with pictures and library; good reasons why I should still take interest from the bank; good reasons why I should make myself as comfortable as I can, wherever I go; travel with two servants, and have a dish of game at dinner. It is true, indeed, that I have given the half of my goods and more to the poor; it is true also that the work in Oxford is not a matter of pride, but of duty with me; it is true that I think it wiser to live what seems to other people a rational and pleasant, not an enthusiastic, life; and that I serve my servants at least as much as they serve me. But, all this being so, I find there is yet something wrong; I have no peace, still less ecstacy. It seems to me as if one had indeed to wear camel’s hair instead of dress coats before one can get that; and I was looking at St. Francis’s camel’s-hair coat yesterday (they have it still in the sacristy), and I don’t like the look of it at all; the Anglo-Russian Company’s wear is ever so much nicer,—let the devil at least have this due.