de and
treaties, of wars of principle and convenience. The very divines are
tainted. 'Live your life to the uttermost,' they cry.

"And in the Western mind the tendency once rooted gathers force from
every quarter. As a necessary concomitant of the restless habit, the
enshrining of the 'effective man' in their proudest temples, comes an
extreme deference to other people, a heated straining of the ears to
catch the murmurs of that vague uncertain heart--Public Opinion. And
why? It follows: if it is in this life alone that triumphs must be
won--if on this stage alone the drama is to be played out, and the
time is short--it is that imperious will that you must conciliate;
therefore employ every power to gain the art of so doing.

"So intent are the Westerns on this drama, so wrapped up in the
actors, so anxious to declaim and strut, that they forget to what end
the play exists: they have left the spectators out for whom alone
the scenes are enacted, and who, though apparently so silent and
motionless, are the _raison d'etre_ of the whole performance.
The play must and will continue through the ages; but the wise, the
enlightened, beat down, and in one sharp encounter overcome, the
lower desire of being seen and applauded, and are content to sit
and watch--the nobler task.

"For we must remember that it is not the drama itself, tragedy or
comedy, fascinating as it be, that we are here to watch--but the
mind of the Being that animates the whole, can be here descried and
here alone, as in a mirror faintly: it is not only the man who fumes
and paces up and down for a few moments and then is called away; but
the vast Existence behind, that knows what the play means and will
not tell us, and that pushes the players on and off as He will.

"And here we find ourselves, with our tiny and uncertain space of
time bounded by the Infinities at either end, with the huge puzzle
set before us. A method has been invented, is now traditional, of
closing the eyes easily and thoughtlessly to the whole; and we are
content to catch that contagion from our predecessors: we eat and
drink, we work and play, and stifle the restless questioning that
springs up so resolutely in our spaces of solitude here; and what
will it do in the immeasurable hereafter?

"When I lived in England I was for a short time the member of a
professional circle of men engaged on high educational aims. They
held, so far as any teachers can be said to hold, many futur