To what, now, does all this amount? Is there any more substantial solace in it than in the "Oh, may I join the Choir Invisible" aspiration of mid-nineteenth-century positivism? Far be it from me to speak contemptuously of that aspiration. It gives a new orientation and consistency to thought and effort during life; and to the man who feels that his little note will melt into the world-harmony that is to be, that thought may impart a certain serenity under the shadow of the end. It is certainly better to feel at night, "I have done a fair day's work," than to lie down with the confession, "My day has been wasted, and worse." No one wants, I suppose, to say with Peer Gynt:-- Thou beautiful earth, be not angry with me, That I trampled thy grasses to no avail; Thou beautiful sun, thou hast squandered away Thy glory of light in an empty hut. Beautiful sun and beautiful earth, You were foolish to bear and give light to my mother. But there is also another side to the question. The more surely you believe that "through the ages one increasing purpose runs"--the more intimately you have merged your individual will in what Mr. Wells would call the will of the Invisible King--the less do you relish the thought that you can never see that will worked out. The intenser your interest in the play, the greater your disinclination to leave the theatre just as the plot is thickening. Nor does it afford much consolation to know that the Producer is just (as it were) getting into his stride, and that, if the house should become too cold for comfort, arrangements will be made for the transference of the production to another theatre, with a better heating-apparatus.