ts in the place have almost made
up their minds to send a round-robin to the Vicar to ask that the
_pulsator organorum_, the beater of the organ, as old Cathedral
statutes term him, may be deposed. The last time I attended service,
one of those strangely appropriate verses came up in the course of the
Psalms, which make troubled spirits feel that the Psalter does indeed
utter a message to faithful individual hearts. "_I have desired that
they, even my enemies,_" ran the verse, "_should not triumph over me;
for when my foot slipped, they rejoiced greatly against me._" In the
course of the verse the unhappy performer executed a perfect fandango
on the pedals. I looked guiltily at the senior churchwarden, and saw
his mouth twitch.

In the same afternoon I fell in with the organist, in the course of a
stroll, and discoursed to him in a tone of gentle condolence about the
difficulties of a new instrument. He looked blankly at me, and then
said that he supposed that some people might find a change of
instrument bewildering, but that for himself he felt equally at home on
any instrument. He went on to relate a series of compliments that
well-known musicians had paid him, which I felt must either have been
imperfectly recollected, or else must have been of a consolatory or
even ironical nature. In five minutes, I discovered that my friend was
the victim of an abundant vanity, and that he believed that his
vocation in life was organ-playing.

Again, I remember that, when I was a schoolmaster, one of my colleagues
was a perfect byword for the disorder and noise that prevailed in his
form. I happened once to hold a conversation with him on disciplinary
difficulties, thinking that he might have the relief of confiding his
troubles to a sympathising friend. What was my amazement when I
discovered that his view of the situation was, that every one was
confronted with the same difficulties as himself, and that he obviously
believed that he was rather more successful than most of us in dealing
with them tactfully and strictly.

I believe my principle to be of almost universal application; and that
if one could see into the heart of the people who are accounted, and
rightly accounted, to be gross and conspicuous failures, we should find
that they were not free from a certain pleasant vanity about their own
qualifications and efficiency. The few people whom I have met who are
apt to despond over their work are generally peop