decayed, and spent the blaze
   Of fiery youth, grey ash is all we find. 
     Perhaps we know the tree, of which the pile
   Once formed a part, and oft beneath its shade
     Have sported in our youth; or in quaint style
      Have carved upon its rugged bark a name
      Of which the memory doth alone remain
   A memory doomed, alas! in turn to fade.

Bad enough as verse, the critic will say; refined, confined, find—­what poor rhymes are these! and he will think me wrong to draw these frailties from their forgotten abode.  But I like to think of the solitary old man sitting by his wood fire in the old house, not brooding bitterly on his frustrate life, but putting his quiet thoughts into the form of a sonnet.  The other is equally good—­or bad, if the critic will have it so:—­

   The clock had just struck five, and all was still
     Within my house, when straight I open threw
     With eager hand the casement dim with dew. 
   Oh, what a glorious flush of light did fill
   That old staircase! and then and there did kill
     All those black doubts that ever do renew
     Their civil war with all that’s good and true
   Within our hearts, when body and mind are ill
     From this slight incident I would infer
     A cheerful truth, that men without demur,
   In times of stress and doubt, throw open wide
   The windows of their breast; nor stung by pride
     In stifling darkness gloomily abide;
     But bid the light flow in on either side.

A “slight incident” and a beautiful thought.  But all I have so far said about the little book is preliminary to what I wish to say about another sonnet which must also be quoted.  It is perhaps, as a sonnet, as ill done as the others, but the subject of it specially attracted me, as it happened to be one which was much in my mind during my week’s stay at Norton.  That remote little village without a squire or any person of means or education in or near it capable of feeling the slightest interest in the people, except the parson, an old infirm man who was never seen but once a week—­how wanting in some essential thing it appeared!  It seemed to me that the one thing which might be done in these small centres of rural life to brighten and beautify existence is precisely the thing which is never done, also that what really is being done is of doubtful value and sometimes actually harmful.

Leaving Norton one day I visited other small villages in the neighbourhood and found they were no better off.  I had heard of the rector of one of these villages as a rather original man, and went and discussed the subject with him.  “It is quite useless thinking about it,” he said.  “The people here are clods, and will not respond to any effort you can make to introduce a little light and sweetness into their lives.”  There was no more to be said to him, but I knew he was wrong.  I found the villagers in that part of the country the