but once feel that here was a
project, equally blessed for rich and poor, the money for it would be at
once forthcoming from many a rich man, who is longing to do good, if he
could only be shown the way; and from many a poor journeyman, who would
gladly contribute his mite to a truly national museum. All that is
wanted is the spirit of self-sacrifice, patriotism and brotherly
love--which God alone can give--which I believe He is giving more and
more in these very days.

I never felt this more strongly than one day, as I was looking in at the
windows of a splendid curiosity-shop in Oxford Street, at a case of
humming-birds. I was gloating over the beauty of those feathered jewels,
and then wondering what was the meaning, what was the use of it all? why
those exquisite little creatures should have been hidden for ages, in all
their splendours of ruby, and emerald, and gold in the South American
forests, breeding and fluttering and dying, that some dozen out of all
those millions might be brought over here to astonish the eyes of men.
And as I asked myself, why were all these boundless varieties, these
treasures of unseen beauty, created? my brain grew dizzy between pleasure
and thought; and, as always happens when one is most innocently
delighted, "I turned to share the joy," as Wordsworth says; and next to
me stood a huge, brawny coal-heaver, in his shovel hat, and white
stockings and high-lows, gazing at the humming-birds as earnestly as
myself. As I turned he turned, and I saw a bright manly face, with a
broad, soot-grimmed forehead, from under which a pair of keen flashing
eyes gleamed wondering, smiling sympathy into mine. In that moment we
felt ourselves friends. If we had been Frenchmen, we should, I suppose,
have rushed into each other's arms and "fraternised" upon the spot. As
we were a pair of dumb, awkward Englishmen, we only gazed a half-minute,
staring into each other's eyes, with a delightful feeling of
understanding each other, and then burst out both at once with, "Isn't
that beautiful?" "Well, that is!" And then both turned back again, to
stare at our humming-birds.

I never felt more thoroughly than at that minute (though, thank God, I
had often felt it before) that all men were _brothers_; that this was not
a mere political doctrine, but a blessed God-ordained fact; that the
party-walls of rank and fashion and money were but a paper prison of our
own making, which we might break through any mom