l energy
found scope for itself in the material and administrative restoration of
the wasted land. His intellectual activity breathed fresh life into
education and literature. His capacity for inspiring trust and affection
drew the hearts of Englishmen to a common centre, and began the
upbuilding of a new England. And all was guided, controlled, ennobled by
a single aim. "So long as I have lived," said the King as life closed
about him, "I have striven to live worthily." Little by little men came
to know what such a life of worthiness meant. Little by little they came
to recognize in AElfred a ruler of higher and nobler stamp than the world
had seen. Never had it seen a King who lived solely for the good of his
people. Never had it seen a ruler who set aside every personal aim to
devote himself solely to the welfare of those whom he ruled. It was this
grand self-mastery that gave him his power over the men about him.
Warrior and conqueror as he was, they saw him set aside at thirty the
warrior's dream of conquest; and the self-renouncement of Wedmore struck
the key-note of his reign. But still more is it this height and
singleness of purpose, this absolute concentration of the noblest
faculties to the noblest aim, that lifts AElfred out of the narrow bounds
of Wessex. If the sphere of his action seems too small to justify the
comparison of him with the few whom the world owns as its greatest men,
he rises to their level in the moral grandeur of his life. And it is this
which has hallowed his memory among his own English people. "I desire,"
said the King in some of his latest words, "I desire to leave to the men
that come after me a remembrance of me in good works." His aim has been
more than fulfilled. His memory has come down to us with a living
distinctness through the mists of exaggeration and legend which time
gathered round it. The instinct of the people has clung to him with a
singular affection. The love which he won a thousand years ago has
lingered round his name from that day to this. While every other name of
those earlier times has all but faded from the recollection of
Englishmen, that of AElfred remains familiar to every English child.

[Sidenote: English Literature]

The secret of AElfred's government lay in his own vivid energy. He could
hardly have chosen braver or more active helpers than those whom he
employed both in his political and in his educational efforts. The
children whom he trained to rule