things, for instance,
can ever be absolutely equal, except imaginary equalities--and that's the
mischief of logic applied to life, that it presumes an exact valuation of
the ideas it works with, when no two people's valuations of the same idea
are identical, and even one person's valuation varies from time to time;
and logic breeds a phantom sort of consistency which only exists in the
imagination. You know the story of how Smith and Jones were arguing, and
Smith said, 'Brown will agree with me': 'Yes,' said Jones triumphantly, 'he
will, but for my reasons!'"

LXIII

OF WRENS AND LILIES

It was the first warm and sunny day, after a cold and cloudy spring: I took
a long and leisurely walk with Father Payne down a valley among woods, of
which Father Payne was very fond. "Almost precipitous for Northamptonshire,
eh?" he used to say. I was very full of a book I had been reading, but I
could not get him to talk. He made vague and foolish replies, and said
several times, "I shall have to think that over, you know," which was, I
well knew, a polite intimation that he was not in a mood for talk. But I
persisted, and at last he said, "Hang it, you know, I'm not attending--I'm
very sorry--it isn't your fault--but there's such a lot going on
everywhere." He quoted a verse of _The Shropshire Lad_, of which he
was very fond:

"'Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more'";

adding, "That's the only instance I know of a subtraction sum made into
perfect poetry--but it's the other way round, worse luck!

"And _add_ to seventy springs a score,
_That_ only leaves me forty more!"

The birds were singing very sweetly in the copses as we passed--"That isn't
art, I believe," said Father Payne. "It's only the reproductive instinct, I
am told! I wish it took such an artistic form in my beloved brothers in the
Lord! There," he added, stopping and speaking in a low tone; "don't
move--there's a cock-wren singing his love-song--you can see his wings
quivering." There followed a little tremolo, with four or five emphatic
notes for a finish. "Now, if you listen, you'll hear the next wren answer
him!" said Father Payne. In a moment the same little song came like an echo
from a bush a few yards away. "The wren sings in stricter time than any
bird but the cuckoo," said Father Payne--"four quavers to a bar. That's
very important! Those