t least not in my bed? If not in sackcloth, at least not in purple and
fine linen? If not altogether freed from all, at least from immoderate
desires? Do I give, if not as Zaccheus did, fourfold, as the law
commands, with the fifth part added? If not as the rich, yet as the
widow? If not the half, yet the thirtieth part? If not above my power,
yet up to my power?' And then over the page there are some illegible
pencillings from old authors of his such as this from Augustine: 'A good
man would rather know his own infirmity than the foundations of the earth
or the heights of the heavens.' And this from Cicero: 'There are many
hiding-places and recesses in the mind.' And this from Seneca: 'You must
know yourself before you can amend yourself. An unknown sin grows worse
and worse and is deprived of cure.' And this from Cicero again: 'Cato
exacted from himself an account of every day's business at night'; and
also Pythagoras,

'Nor let sweet sleep upon thine eyes descend
Till thou hast judged its deeds at each day's end.'

And this from Seneca again: 'When the light is removed out of sight, and
my wife, who is by this time aware of my practice, is now silent, I pass
the whole of my day under examination, and I review my deeds and my
words. I hide nothing from myself: I pass over nothing.' And then in
Mr. Prywell's boldest and least trembling hand: 'O yes! many shall come
from the east and the west and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and
Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, when many of the children of the kingdom
shall be cast out. O yes.' Now, this 'O yes!' Miss Peacock tells us, is
the Anglicised form of a French word for our Lord's words, Take heed how
ye hear!

4. 'A sober and a judicious man' it is said of Mr. Prywell also. To a
certainty that. It could not be otherwise than that. For Mr. Prywell's
office, its discoveries and its experiences, would sober any man. 'I am
sprung from a country,' says Abelard, 'of which the soil is light, and
the temper of the inhabitants is light.' So was it with Mr. Prywell to
begin with. But even Abelard was sobered in time, and so was Mr.
Prywell. Life sobered Abelard, and Mr. Prywell too; life's crooks and
life's crosses, life's duties and life's disappointments, especially Mr.
Prywell. 'The more narrowly a man looks into himself,' says A Kempis,
'the more he sorroweth.' Not sober-mindedness alone comes to him who
looks narrowly into himself, but great