d by the awful fact that a piece of conduct
to-day may prove a curse to men and women scores and even hundreds of
years after the author of it is dead; and second, they will more and
more feel that they can only satisfy their sentiment of gratitude to
seen or unseen benefactors, can only repay the untold benefits they have
inherited, by diligently maintaining the traditions of service.

'And so forth, full of interest and suggestiveness all through. When he
got here, he chatted to R---- over our lunch, with something of the
simple amiableness of a child, about the wild flowers, the ways of
insects, and notes of birds. He was impatient for the song of the
nightingale. Then I drove him to our little roadside station, and one of
the most delightful days of my life came to its end, like all other
days, delightful and sorrowful.'

Alas, the sorrowful day which ever dogs our delight followed very
quickly. The nightingale that he longed for fills the darkness with
music, but not for the ear of the dead master: he rests in the deeper
darkness where the silence is unbroken for ever. We may console
ourselves with the reflection offered by the dying Socrates to his
sorrowful companions: he who has arrayed the soul in her own proper
jewels of moderation and justice and courage and nobleness and truth, is
ever ready for the journey when his time comes. We have lost a great
teacher and example of knowledge and virtue, but men will long feel the
presence of his character about them, making them ashamed of what is
indolent or selfish, and encouraging them to all disinterested labour,
both in trying to do good and in trying to find out what the good
is,--which is harder.

MR. MILL'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

_Chercher en gemissant_--search with many sighs--that was Pascal's
notion of praiseworthy living and choosing the better part. Search, and
search with much travail, strikes us as the chief intellectual ensign
and device of that eminent man whose record of his own mental nurture
and growth we have all been reading. Everybody endowed with energetic
intelligence has a measure of the spirit of search poured out upon him.
All such persons act on the Socratic maxim that the life without inquiry
is a life to be lived by no man. But it is the rare distinction of a
very few to accept the maxim in its full significance, to insist on an
open mind as the true secret of wisdom, to press the examination and
testing of our convictions as the tru