ritings, _The Romance of Natural History_,
even now a sort of classic. Everything combined to make him
believe that the blessing of the Lord was upon him, and to clothe
the darkness of the world with at least a mist of rose-colour. I
do not recollect that ever at this time he bethought him, when I
started in the morning for a long day with my friends on the edge
of the sea, to remind me that I must speak to them, in season and
out of season, of the Blood of Jesus. And I, young coward that I
was, let sleeping dogmas lie.

My companions were not all of them the sons of saints in our
communion; their parents belonged to that professional class
which we were only now beginning to attract to our services. They
were brought up in religious, but not in fanatical, families, and
I was the only 'converted' one among them. Mrs. Paget, of whom I
shall have presently to speak, characteristically said that it
grieved her to see 'one lamb among so many kids'. But 'kid' is a
word of varied significance and the symbol did not seem to us
effectively applied. As a matter of fact, we made what I still
feel was an excellent tacit compromise. My young companions never
jeered at me for being 'in communion with the saints', and I, on
my part, never urged the Atonement upon them. I began, in fact,
more and more to keep my own religion for use on Sundays.

It will, I hope, have been observed that among the very curious
grown-up people into whose company I was thrown, although many
were frail and some were foolish, none, so far as I can discern,
were hypocritical. I am not one of those who believe that
hypocrisy is a vice that grows on every bush. Of course, in
religious more than in any other matters, there is a perpetual
contradiction between our thoughts and our deeds which is
inevitable to our social order, and is bound to lead to _cette
tromperie mutuelle_ of which Pascal speaks. But I have often
wondered, while admiring the splendid portrait of Tartuffe,
whether such a monster ever, or at least often, has walked the
stage of life; whether Moliere observed, or only invented him.

To adopt a scheme of religious pretension, with no belief
whatever in its being true, merely for sensuous advantage, openly
acknowledging to one's inner self the brazen system of deceit,--
such a course may, and doubtless has been, trodden, yet surely
much less frequently than cynics love to suggest. But at the
juncture which I have now reached in my narrative,