rm, as compact, as just as it can. But not here does his hope lie;
he looks forward to a far different regeneration than can be effected
by law and police. He looks forward to a time when the hearts of men
shall be so wise and tender and simple that they shall smile at the
thought that life needs all this organising and arranging. For those
who labour for social good lose sight too often of the end in the
means. They think of education as a business of delightful intricacy,
and forget that it is but an elaborate device for teaching men to love
quiet labour and to enjoy the delight of leisure. They lose themselves
in the dry delight of codifying law, and forget that law is only
necessary because men are born brutal and selfish. Morality may be
imposed from without, or grace may grow from within; and the poet is on
the side of the inner grace, because he thinks that if it can be
achieved it will outrun the other lightly and easily.

But as we journey through the world, as we become aware of the meanness
and selfishness of men, as we learn to fight for our own hand, the high
vision is apt to fade. Who then can be more sad than the man who has
felt in the depths of his soul the thrill of that opening light, and
the further that he journeys, finds more and more weary persons who
tell him insistently that it was nothing but a foolish incident of
youth, a trick of fancy, a passing mood, and that life must be given to
harder and more sordid things? It is well for him if he can resist
these ugly voices; if he can continue to discern what there is of
generous and pure in the hearts of those about him, if he can persevere
in believing that life does hold a holy and sweet mystery, and that it
is not a mere dreary struggle for a little comfort, a little respect, a
little pleasure by the way. It is upon a man's power of holding fast to
undimmed beauty that his inner hopefulness, his power of inspiring
others, depends. But though it is sad to see some artist who has tasted
of the morning dew, and whose heart has been filled with rapture,
trading and trafficking, in conventional expression and laborious
seriousness, with the memories of those bright visions, it is sadder
far to see a man turn his back cynically upon the first hope, and
declare his conviction that he has found the unreality of it all. The
artist must pray daily that his view may not grow clouded and soiled;
and he must be ready, too, if he finds the voice grow faint, to