spring to life? "She had a beautiful soul," said, speaking of another woman, the woman whose words I quoted above, "a wide intellect, and tender heart, but ere these qualities could issue forth into life they had perforce to traverse a straitened character. Again and again have I wondered at this want of self-knowledge, of return to self. The man who would wish us to see the deepest recess of his life will begin by telling us all that he thinks and he feels, will lead as to his point of view; we are conscious, perhaps, of much elevation of soul; then, as we enter with him still further into his life, he tells of his conduct, his joys and his sorrows; and in these we detect not a gleam of the soul that had shone through his thoughts and desires. When the trumpet is sounded for action, the instincts rush in, the character hastens between; but the soul stands aloof: the soul, which is man's very highest, being like the princess who elects to live on in arrogant penury rather than soil her hands with ordinary labour." Yes, alas, all is useless till such time as we have learned to harden our hands; to transform the gold and silver of thought into a key that shall open, not the ivory gate of our dreams, but the very door of this our dwelling--into a cup that shall hold, not only the wondrous water of dreams, but the living water that falls, drop by drop, on our roof--into scales, not content vaguely to balance schemes for the future, but that record, with unerring accuracy, what we have done to-day. The very loftiest ideal has taken no root within us, so long as it penetrate not every limb, so long as it palpitate not at our finger-tip. Some there are whose intellect profits by this return to self; with others, the character gains. The first have clearest vision for all that concerns not themselves, that calls them not to action; but it is above all when stern reality confronts them, and time for action has come, that the eyes of the others glow bright. One might almost believe in there being an intellectual consciousness, languidly resting for ever upon an immovable throne, whence she issues commands to the will through faithless or indolent envoys, and a moral consciousness, incessantly stirring, afoot, at all times ready to march. It may be that this latter consciousness depends on the former--indeed who shall say that she is not the former, wearied from long repose, wherein she has learned all that was to be learned; that has at last determined to rise, to descend the steps of inactivity and sally forth into life? And all will be well, if only she have not tarried so long that her limbs refuse their office. Is it not preferable sometimes to act in opposition to our thoughts than never dare to act in accord with them? Rarely indeed is the active error irremediable; men and things are quickly on the spot, eager to set it right; but they are helpless before the passive error that has shunned contact with the real.