anything of aesthetics and with no pretence
to be Stoics; but, then, they are Christians."

"There are some such Christians, no doubt; but they are rarely to be met
with. Take Christendom altogether, and it appears to comprise the most
agitated population in the world; the population in which there is the
greatest grumbling as to the quantity of labour to be done, the
loudest complaints that duty instead of a pleasure is a very hard and
disagreeable struggle, and in which holidays are fewest and the moral
atmosphere least serene. Perhaps," added Kenelm, with a deeper shade of
thought on his brow, "it is this perpetual consciousness of struggle;
this difficulty in merging toil into ease, or stern duty into placid
enjoyment; this refusal to ascend for one's self into the calm of an air
aloof from the cloud which darkens, and the hail-storm which beats
upon, the fellow-men we leave below,--that makes the troubled life of
Christendom dearer to Heaven, and more conducive to Heaven's design in
rendering earth the wrestling-ground and not the resting-place of man,
than is that of the Brahmin, ever seeking to abstract himself from
the Christian's conflicts of action and desire, and to carry into its
extremest practice the aesthetic theory, of basking undisturbed in the
contemplation of the most absolute beauty human thought can reflect from
its idea of divine good!"

Whatever Mrs. Emlyn might have said in reply was interrupted by the rush
of the children towards her; they were tired of play, and eager for tea
and the magic lantern.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE room is duly obscured and the white sheet attached to the wall; the
children are seated, hushed, and awe-stricken. And Kenelm is placed next
to Lily.

The tritest things in our mortal experience are among the most
mysterious. There is more mystery in the growth of a blade of grass than
there is in the wizard's mirror or the feats of a spirit medium. Most of
us have known the attraction that draws one human being to another, and
makes it so exquisite a happiness to sit quiet and mute by another's
side; which stills for the moment the busiest thoughts in our brain, the
most turbulent desires in our heart, and renders us but conscious of a
present ineffable bliss. Most of us have known that. But who has ever
been satisfied with any metaphysical account of its why or wherefore? We
can but say it is love, and love at that earlier section of its history
which has not yet escap