our recollection of the occasion with a rich sense of joy.  Is it that we do not really desire the peace and joy of others?  It would seem so.  How many of us are not conscious of feeling extremely friendly and helpful when our friend is in sorrow, or difficulty, or discredit, and yet of having no taste for standing by and applauding when our friend is joyful and successful!  There is nothing, it seems, that we can render to our friend in the latter case, except the praise of which he has already had enough!

It seems then that the process of anatomising the nature and philosophy of shyness only ends in stripping off, one by one, as from an onion, the decent integuments of the human spirit, and revealing it every moment more and more in its native rankness.  Let me forbear, consoling myself with the thought that the qualities of human beings are not meant to be taken up one by one, like coins from a tray, and scrutinised; but that what matters is the general effect, the blending, the grouping, the mellowed surface, the warped line.  I was only yesterday in an old church, where I saw an ancient font-cover—­a sort of carved extinguisher—­and some dark panels of a rood-screen.  They had been, both cover and panels, coarsely and brightly painted and gilt; and, horrible to reflect, it flashed upon me that they must have once been both glaring and vulgar.  Yet to-day the dim richness of the effect, the dints, the scaling-off of the flakes, the fading of the pigment, the dulling of the gold, were incomparable; and I began to wonder if perhaps that was not what happened to us in life; and that though we foolishly regretted the tarnishing of the bright surfaces of soul and body with our passions and tempers and awkwardnesses and feeblenesses, yet perhaps it was, after all, that we were taking on an unsuspected beauty, and making ourselves fit, some far-off day, for the Communion of Saints!

IX

EQUALITY

It is often said that the Anglo-Saxon races suffer from a lack of ideals, that they do not hold enough things sacred.  But there is assuredly one thing which the most elementary and barbarous Anglo-Saxon holds sacred, beyond creed and Decalogue and fairplay and morality, and that is property.  At inquests, for instance, it may be noted how often inquiries are solicitously made, not whether the deceased had religious difficulties or was disappointed in love, but whether he had any financial worries.  We hold our own property to be very sacred indeed, and our respect for other men’s rights in the matter is based on the fact that we wish our own rights to be respected.  If I were asked what other ideals were held widely sacred in England and America I should find it very difficult to reply.  I think that there is a good deal of interest taken in America in education and culture; whereas in England I do not believe that there is very much interest taken in either;