h happiness it seemed
so useless, so unnecessary to ask why so heavy a burden was bound on
their backs, because here at all events was a scene of the purest and
most innocent rapture. I went on my way full of wonder and even of
hope. I could not fathom the deep mystery of the failure, the
suffering, the weakness that runs across the world like an ugly crack
across the face of a fair building. But then how tenderly and wisely
does the great Artificer lend consolation and healing, repairing and
filling so far as he may, the sad fracture; he seems to know better
than we can divine the things that belong to our peace; so that as I
looked across the purple rolling plain, with all its wooded ridges, its
rich pastures, the smoke going up from a hundred hamlets, a confidence,
a quiet trust seemed to rise in my mind, filling me with a strange
yearning to know what were the thoughts of the vast Mind that makes us
and sustains us, mingled with a faith in some large and far-off issue
that shall receive and enfold our little fretful spirits, as the sea
receives the troubled leaping streams, to move in slow unison with the
wide and secret tides.

XVI

The Cripple

I went to-day to see an old friend whom I had not met for ten years.
Some time ago he had a bad fall which for a time crippled him, but from
which it was hoped he would recover; but he must have received some
obscure and deep-seated injury, because after improving for a time, he
began to go backwards, and has now to a great extent lost the use of
his limbs. He was formerly a very active man, both intellectually and
physically. He had a prosperous business in the country town on the
outskirts of which he lives. He was one of those tall spare men,
black-haired and black-eyed, capable of bearing great fatigue, full to
the brim of vitality. He was a great reader, fond of music and art;
married to a no less cultivated and active wife, but childless. There
never was a man who had a keener enjoyment of existence in all its
aspects. It used to be a marvel to me to see at how many points a man
could touch life, and the almost child-like zest which he threw into
everything which he did.

On arriving at the house, a pleasant old-fashioned place with a big
shady garden, I was shown into a large book-lined study, and there
presently crept and tottered into the room, leaning on two sticks, a
figure which I can only say in no respect recalled to me the
recollection of