I did not then foresee how closely my godson’s life and mine were in after years to be bound up together; if I had, I should doubtless have looked upon him with different eyes and noted much to which I paid no attention at the time.  As it was, I was glad to get away from him, for I could do nothing for him, or chose to say that I could not, and the sight of so much suffering was painful to me.  A man should not only have his own way as far as possible, but he should only consort with things that are getting their own way so far that they are at any rate comfortable.  Unless for short times under exceptional circumstances, he should not even see things that have been stunted or starved, much less should he eat meat that has been vexed by having been over-driven or underfed, or afflicted with any disease; nor should he touch vegetables that have not been well grown.  For all these things cross a man; whatever a man comes in contact with in any way forms a cross with him which will leave him better or worse, and the better things he is crossed with the more likely he is to live long and happily.  All things must be crossed a little or they would cease to live—­but holy things, such for example as Giovanni Bellini’s saints, have been crossed with nothing but what is good of its kind,

CHAPTER XXIV

The storm which I have described in the previous chapter was a sample of those that occurred daily for many years.  No matter how clear the sky, it was always liable to cloud over now in one quarter now in another, and the thunder and lightning were upon the young people before they knew where they were.

“And then, you know,” said Ernest to me, when I asked him not long since to give me more of his childish reminiscences for the benefit of my story, “we used to learn Mrs Barbauld’s hymns; they were in prose, and there was one about the lion which began, ’Come, and I will show you what is strong.  The lion is strong; when he raiseth himself from his lair, when he shaketh his mane, when the voice of his roaring is heard the cattle of the field fly, and the beasts of the desert hide themselves, for he is very terrible.’  I used to say this to Joey and Charlotte about my father himself when I got a little older, but they were always didactic, and said it was naughty of me.

“One great reason why clergymen’s households are generally unhappy is because the clergyman is so much at home or close about the house.  The doctor is out visiting patients half his time:  the lawyer and the merchant have offices away from home, but the clergyman has no official place of business which shall ensure his being away from home for many hours together at stated times.  Our great days were when my father went for a day’s shopping to Gildenham.  We were some miles from this place, and commissions used to accumulate on my father’s list till he would make a day of it and go and do