There once was a cuckoo-clock bird; and after the manner of cuckoos it did not lay wind-eggs in its own nest. It deposited them in a mare’s nest, and a stuffed phœnix hatched them dead on the Greek Kalends of April. It was thought at the time that the mechanical, the impossible, and the futile had never been so beautifully combined. Yet I have seen a man repeat the lessons that the last pamphlet had wound him up to say, deposit a handsome donation of his father’s money in the society that published it, crow to all his friends and expect to see the world regenerated. The combination was quite as beautiful, and yet people sneer at Causes! What great general ever lived who had not this, or a similar faculty for combination? And though the things combined may be utterly bad in themselves, we should never forget how very much of them we get for our money--or our father’s money, as the case may be. But it is of little use to speak. There are few men in the world who have a Cause. We are not serious enough. We give our minds to all manner of trifles. With the exception of yourself, perhaps, I believe that I am the only man left who really wants a Cause and is unable to find one. With the rest it is sheer selfishness. See me hit that fly on my boat’s nose. Flop. Missed it. All right, you wait till it comes back again. It seems to have aggravated that fly. It has left the boat’s nose and gone for mine. I wonder if it knows that I do not like to hit my own nose hard: instinct is a marvellous thing in insects. Or it may simply be luck: luck is quite as marvellous. I knew a man once who wanted to do serious good until luck spoilt him. He was fond of whist, and he played a good--University-good--rubber; but he felt that it was not profiting the world, and that he should like to feel that he was working for humanity when he was playing for sixpenny points. And, firstly, it struck him that it would be a good thing to put a small tax on trumps, and help the dear Budget. He wrote to his uncle about it, because his uncle was in the House, and had once picked an earwig off Mr. Gladstone’s coat, and had a good deal of influence. His uncle wrote back to say that it was a good idea, and that he had given it his earnest consideration; but that it was impracticable, because the tax would be too difficult to collect. And, at the same time, his aunt sent him a collecting-box for the Servants’ Home in Tasmania, and asked him to place it in a prominent position in his rooms and do his best for it.