and Bacon had done it. By Bacon he had justified to
himself,--or rather had failed to justify to himself,--a seclusion
from his family and from the world which had been intended for
strenuous work, but had been devoted to dilettante idleness. And he
had fallen into those mistakes which such habits and such pursuits
are sure to engender. He thought much, but he thought nothing out,
and was consequently at sixty still in doubt about almost everything.
Whether Christ did or did not die to save sinners was a question
with him so painfully obscure that he had been driven to obtain what
comfort he might from not thinking of it. The assurance of belief
certainly was not his to enjoy;--nor yet that absence from fear which
may come from assured unbelief. And yet none who knew him could say
that he was a bad man. He robbed no one. He never lied. He was not
self-indulgent. He was affectionate. But he had spent his life in an
intention to write the life of Lord Verulam, and not having done it,
had missed the comfort of self-respect. He had intended to settle
for himself a belief on subjects which are, of all, to all men the
most important; and, having still postponed the work of inquiry, had
never attained the security of a faith. He was for ever doubting, for
ever intending, and for ever despising himself for his doubts and
unaccomplished intentions. Now, at the age of sixty, he had thought
to lessen these inward disturbances by returning to public life, and
his most unsatisfactory alliance with Mr. Griffenbottom had been the
result.

They who know the agonies of an ambitious, indolent, doubting,
self-accusing man,--of a man who has a skeleton in his cupboard
as to which he can ask for sympathy from no one,--will understand
what feelings were at work within the bosom of Sir Thomas when his
Percycross friends left him alone in his chamber. The moment that he
knew that he was alone he turned the lock of the door, and took from
out a standing desk a whole heap of loose papers. These were the
latest of his notes on the great Bacon subject. For though no line
of the book had ever been written,--nor had his work even yet taken
such form as to enable him to write a line,--nevertheless, he always
had by him a large assemblage of documents, notes, queries, extracts
innumerable, and references which in the course of years had become
almost unintelligible to himself, upon which from time to time he
would set himself to work. Whenever he wa