“Behold, this dreamer cometh!” So, with an envious contempt, the petty-minded scheming brethren of the inspired child beloved of God greeted him, as he came in unsuspecting innocence to join them in the field. He was to learn, even in the tender days of boyhood, how heavy a burden that secret knowledge was to be, that inheritance of the inner and deeper sight which could pierce behind the veil of mortality. If he could have foreseen the weary way he was to travel to the calm and prosperous eminence of later years, would he not have hidden the visions which he revealed so guilelessly? Not even the certainty of the honour and comfort of the future would have made amends for the loneliness, the malignity, of the labyrinth which he was so gently and faithfully to thread. This power of inner sight, this perception of the essence of things, must always, it seems, bring its possessor a certain sadness, a certain isolation. The prosperous worldly spirits, that swim so vigorously on the surface of things, have always a suspicion, a jealousy, a contempt, for one who dives deeper and brings back tidings of the strange secrets that the depth holds. But if such clear-sighted spirits go tranquilly upon their way, and utter fearlessly the truth they discern, though the way be difficult and arduous, the honour comes at last, unsought, unprized. And it is well perhaps that the conquest is so hard, because if the victory came at once, with it would doubtless come the relish for the easy, the obvious triumph; but by the time that it arrives, the pure spirit, chastened and refined, has reached a region where the only pleasure that fame brings is the knowledge that the truth has somewhat prevailed. There is no taint of personal complacency, no luxurious yielding to lower satisfactions, nothing but the unstained delight that the mystery, discerned and interpreted, is bearing in other hearts its rich and reviving fruits. Such is the life that I have attempted to depict. It is the life of one who, through a dreamful and unpraised boyhood, through a silent and undistinguished youth, gradually discerned a principle in things; learned to see, with an impassioned zest, the truth that, in art and life alike, the victory is with those who attain to a certain patient and appreciative attitude of soul; who learn through careful toil, through much sorting of accumulated thought and expression, to discriminate between what is facile, impressive, specious, and what is deep, permanent, sincere. No taste can of course be wholly catholic; it is swayed by instinct, prepossession, and preference. But the point is, in however limited a sphere, to be able to detect with unfailing certainty the true quality of things.