“Yea; for this present,—­each inch and each second
      Hath its own soul in a thought or a word;
    Ev’n as I watch, God’s finger hath beckon’d,
      Ev’n as I wait, God’s whisper is heard! 
    Trifles, some judge them, that finger, that whisper,—­
      But on such pivots vast issues revolve;
    Those are the watchful reminders of Mizpah,
      Jazer and Bethel, Life’s secret to solve!

    V.

    “Mizpah,—­for carefulness, honour, uprightness;
      Jazer,—­by penitence, meekness, and faith;
    Bethel,—­in foretastes of gladness and brightness,—­
      These are the keynotes to life out of death: 
    Providence bidding, and prudence obeying,
      Thou shalt have peace from beginning to end,—­
    Thankfully, trustfully, instantly praying,
      Walking with God as thy Father and Friend.”

12.  Apropos to my mention of Mortimer Collins’ visit to Albury on another page, I make this extract from his “Pen Sketches by a Vanished Hand,” vol. i. pp. 167, 168:—­

“A Walk through Surrey.

“At Albury I called upon a poet,—­one whom critics love to assail, but who derides critics and arrides the public.  Pleasant indeed is the fine old house, with emerald lawn and stately trees, wherein he resides.  Not Horace in his Sabine farm, nor Catullus at Tiburs, had a more poetic retreat than the author of “Proverbial Philosophy” at Albury.  But, like Catullus, the advent of May had set the poet longing for a flight far away: 

    “’Jam ver egelidos refert tepores,
    Jam coeli furor aequinoctialis
    Jucundis Zephyri silescit auris;
    Jam mens praetrepidans avet vagari
    Jam laeti studio pedes vigescunt.’

And he was about to take wing for sea-side resorts, and the soft cyclades of the Channel, beloved by Victor Hugo.

“Right hospitable was he; a bottle of cool claret cheered the dusty wayfarer, and an hour’s pleasant talk was even more cheering.  Hence I walked through Albury Park towards Gomshall.”

The exquisite bit from Catullus will best excuse my otherwise egotistical quotation.

A few more anecdotes about literary men and things may here find place.  Take these respecting Thackeray, and Leech, both of which immortal humorists were my schoolfellows at the Charterhouse; but, as I have said, they having the misfortune to be merely lower-form boys, and your present scribe ranging as a dignified Emeritus, of course there was then a great gulf between us, pleasantly to be bridged over in after life.  Thackeray’s career has long been fully detailed in public, and I can have little to add of much consequence; but I call to mind how that quiet small cynic—­so gigantic in all senses afterwards—­used to caricature Bob Watki and the other masters on the fly-leaves of his classbooks, to the scandal of myself and other responsible monitors; these illustrated classics having since been sold by auction at high prices.  But “My School-Days” have recorded all that.