_Milverton_. I was only noticing the circumstance that there was such a thing, as it appeared to me, as this early direction. But, if it has been ever so unfortunate, a man’s folding his hands over it in a melancholy mood, and suffering himself to be made a puppet by it, is a sadly weak proceeding. Most thoughtful men have probably some dark fountains in their souls, by the side of which, if there were time, and it were decorous, they could let their thoughts sit down and wail indefinitely. That long Byron wail fascinated men for a time; because there is that in Human Nature. Luckily, a great deal besides. _Ellesmere_. I delight in the helpful and hopeful men. _Milverton_. A man that I admire very much, and have met with occasionally, is one who is always of use in any matter he is mixed up with, simply because he wishes that the best should be got out of the thing that is possible. There does not seem much in the description of such a character; but only see it in contrast with that of a brilliant man, for instance, who does not ever fully care about the matter in hand. _Dunsford_. I can thoroughly imagine the difference. _Milverton_. The human race may be bound up together in some mysterious way, each of us having a profound interest in the fortunes of the whole, and so, to some extent, of every portion of it. Such a man as I have described acts as though he had an intuitive perception of that relation, and therefore a sort of family feeling for mankind, which gives him satisfaction in making the best out of any human affair he has to do with. But we really must have the essay, and not talk any more. It is on History. HISTORY. Among the fathomless things that are about us and within us, is the continuity of time. This gives to life one of its most solemn aspects. We may think to ourselves: Would there could be some halting-place in life, where we could stay, collecting our minds, and see the world drift by us. But no: even while you read this, you are not pausing to read it. As one of the great French preachers, I think, says, We are embarked upon a stream, each in his own little boat, which must move uniformly onwards, till it ceases to move at all. It is a stream that knows “no haste, no rest”; a boat that knows no haven but one. This unbated continuity suggests the past as well as the future. We would know what mighty empires this stream of time has flowed through, by what battle-fields it has been tinged, how it has been employed towards fertility, and what beautiful shadows on its surface have been seized by art, or science, or great words, and held in time-lasting, if not in everlasting, beauty. This is what history tells us. Often in a faltering, confused, be-darkened way, like the deed it chronicles. But it is what we have, and we must make the best of it.