number of quiet, simple, virtuous, and high-minded persons that it contains.  And thus, in my own case, though the choice is made for me by temperament and circumstances, I have no pricking of conscience on the subject of my scanty activities.  It is not mere activity that makes the difference.  The danger of mere activity is that it tends to make men complacent, to lead them to think that they are following the paths of virtue, when they are only enmeshed in conventionality.  The dangers of the quiet life are indolence, morbidity, sloth, depression, unmanliness; but I think that it develops humility, and allows the daily and hourly message of God to sink into the soul.  After all, the one supreme peril is that of self-satisfaction and finality.  If a man is content with what he is, there is nothing to make him long for what is higher.  Any one who looks around him with a candid gaze, becomes aware that our life is and must be a provisional one, that it has somehow fallen short of its possibilities.  To better it is the best of all courses; but next to that it is more desirable that men should hope for and desire a greater harmony of things, than that they should acquiesce in what is so strangely and sadly amiss.

June 18, 1890.

I have made a new friend, whose contact and example help me so strangely and mysteriously, that it seems to me almost as though I had been led hither that I might know him.  He is an old and lonely man, a great invalid, who lives at a little manor-house a mile or two away.  Maud knew him by name, but had never seen him.  He wrote me a courtly kind of note, apologising for being unable to call, and expressing a hope that we might be able to go and see him.  The house stands on the edge of the village, looking out on the churchyard, a many-gabled building of grey stone, a long flagged terrace in front of it, terminated by posts with big stone balls; a garden behind, and a wood behind that—­the whole scene unutterably peaceful and beautiful.  We entered by a little hall, and a kindly, plain, middle-aged woman, with a Quaker-like precision of mien and dress, came out to greet us, with a fresh kindliness that had nothing conventional about it.  She said that her uncle was not very well, but she thought he would be able to see us.  She left us for a moment.  There was a cleanness and a fragrance about the old house that was very characteristic.  It was most simply, even barely furnished, but with a settled, ancient look about it, that gave one a sense of long association.  She presently returned, and said, smiling, that her uncle would like to see us, but separately, as he was very far from strong.  She took Maud away, and returning, walked with me round the garden, which had the same dainty and simple perfection about it.  I could see that my hostess had the poetical passion for flowers; she knew the names of all, and spoke of them almost as one might of children.  This was very wilful and impatient, and had to be