sful man, and I can't delude myself
into thinking that my work has any very supreme value. And meanwhile
all the real experiences of life pass me by. I have never, God forgive
me, had time to be in love! That is a pitiful confession.

Sometimes one comes across a person with none of these uneasy
ambitions, with whom living is a fine art; then one realises what a
much more beautiful creation it is than books and pictures. It is a
kind of sweet and solemn music. Such a man or woman has time to read,
to talk, to write letters, to pay calls, to walk about the farm, to go
and sit with tiresome people, to spend long hours with children, to sit
in the open air, to keep poultry, to talk to servants, to go to church,
to remember what his or her relations are doing, to enjoy garden
parties and balls, to like to see young people enjoying themselves, to
hear confessions, to do other people's business, to be a welcome
presence everywhere, and to leave a fragrant memory, watered with sweet
tears. That is to live. And such lives, one is tempted to think, were
more possible, more numerous, a hundred years ago. But now one expects
too much, and depends too much on exciting pleasures, whether of work
or play. Well, my three persons in a garden must be a lesson to me;
and, whatever may really happen to them, in my mind they shall walk for
ever between the apple-trees and the daffodils, looking lovingly at
each other, while the elder man shall smile as he reads in the
Chronicle of Heaven, which does not grow old.--Ever yours,

T. B.

UPTON,
May 9, 1904.

MY DEAR HERBERT,--I am going back to the subject of ambition--do you
mind?

Yesterday in chapel one of my colleagues preached rather a fine sermon
on Activity. The difficulty under which he laboured is a common one in
sermons; it is simply this--How far is a Christian teacher justified in
recommending ambition to Christian hearers? I think that, if one reads
the Gospel, it is clear that ambition is not a Christian motive. The
root of the teaching of Christ seems to me to be that one should have
or acquire a passion for virtue; love it for its beauty, as an artist
loves beauty of form or colour; and the simplicity which is to be the
distinguishing mark of a Christian seems to me to be inconsistent with
personal ambition. I do not see that there is any hint of a Christian
being allowed to wish to do, what is called in domestic language
"bettering" himself. The idea rather is t