Most people seem to think, that, considering all things, the present head engineer is about the best man that could be found for the post he occupies. There are, however, a number of the Grindwell people--I can't say how many, for they are afraid to speak--who feel more and more that they are living in a stifled and altogether abnormal condition, and wish for an indefinite supply of the light, heat, air, and electricity which they see some of the neighboring cities enjoying. What the result is to be no one can yet tell. We are such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life is rounded with--_a crust_; some say, a very thin crust, such as might be got up by a skilful _patissier_, and over which gilded court-flies, and even _scaraboei_, may crawl with safety, but--which must inevitably cave in beneath the boot-heels of a real, true, thinking man. We cannot forget that there are measureless catacombs and caverns yawning beneath the streets and houses of modern Grindwell. SAINTS, AND THEIR BODIES. Ever since the time of that dyspeptic heathen, Plotinus, the saints have been "ashamed of their bodies." What is worse, they have usually had reason for the shame. Of the four famous Latin fathers, Jerome describes his own limbs as misshapen, his skin as squalid, his bones as scarcely holding together; while Gregory the Great speaks in his Epistles of his own large size, as contrasted with his weakness and infirmities. Three of the four Greek fathers--Chrysostom, Basil, and Gregory of Nazianzen--ruined their health early, and were wretched invalids for the remainder of their days. Three only of the whole eight were able-bodied men,--Ambrose, Augustine, and Athanasius; and the permanent influence of these three has been far greater, for good or for evil, than that of all the others put together. Robust military saints there have doubtless been, in the Roman Catholic Church: George, Michael, Sebastian, Eustace, Martin,--not to mention Hubert the Hunter, and Christopher the Christian Hercules. But these have always held a very secondary place in canonization. If we mistake not, Maurice and his whole Theban legion were sainted together, to the number of six thousand six hundred and sixty-six; doubtless they were stalwart men, but there never yet has been a chapel erected to one of them. The mediaeval type of sanctity was a strong soul in a weak body; and it could be intensified either by strengthening the one or by further debilitating the other. The glory lay in contrast, not in combination. Yet, to do them justice, they conceded a strong and stately beauty to their female saints,--Catherine, Agnes, Agatha, Barbara, Cecilia, and the rest. It was reserved for the modern Pre-Raphaelites to attempt the combination of a maximum of saintliness with a minimum of pulmonary and digestive capacity.