One day she contrived to reach Stonehenge.  She was driven there by the farmer with whom she was staying, and she asked to be left there while he went forward.  He was to fetch her when he returned.  It was a clear but grey day, and she sat outside the outer circle on the turf looking northwards over the almost illimitable expanse.  She had been told as much as is known about that mysterious monument,—­that it had been built ages before any record, and that not only were the names of the builders forgotten, but their purpose in building it was forgotten too.  She was oppressed with a sense of her own, nothingness and the nothingness of man.  If those who raised that temple had so utterly passed away, for how long would the memory of her existence last?  Stonehenge itself too would pass.  The wind and the rain had already worn perhaps half of it; and the place that now knows it will know it no more save by vague tradition, which also will be extinguished.

Suddenly, and without any apparent connection with what had gone before, and indeed in contrast with it, it came into Miriam’s mind that she must do something for her fellow-creatures.  How came it there?  Who can tell?  Anyhow, there was this idea in the soul of Miriam Tacchi that morning.

The next question was, What could she do?  There was one thing she could do, and she could not go astray in doing it.  Whatever may be wrong or mistaken, it cannot be wrong or a mistake to wait upon the sick and ease their misery.  She knew, however, that she could not take up the task without training, and she belonged to no church or association which could assist her.  Perhaps one of the best recommendations of the Catholic Church was that it held out a hand to men who, having for some reason or other, learned to hold their lives lightly, were candidates for the service of humanity—­men for whom death had no terrors—­by whom it was even courted, and who were willing therefore to wait upon the plague-smitten, or to carry the Cross amongst wild and savage tribes.  Those who are skilled in quibbling may say that neither in the case of the Catholic missionary nor in that of the Sister of Mercy is there any particular merit.  What they do is done not from any pure desire for man’s welfare, but because there is no healthy passion for enjoyment.  Nothing is idler than disputes about the motives to virtuous deeds, or the proportion of praise to be assigned to the doers of them.  It is a common criticism that a sweet temper deserves no commendation, because the blessed possessor of it is naturally sweet-tempered, and undergoes no terrible struggle in order to say the sweet word which he who is cursed with spite only just manages to force himself to utter.  What we are bound to praise or blame, however, is the result, and the result only—­just as we praise or blame perfect or imperfect flowers.  If it comes to a remorseless probing of motives, there are none of us who can escape a charge of selfishness; and, in fact, a perfectly abstract disinterestedness is a mere logical and impossible figment.