ravely, even joyfully--that is the secret; and it is
as idle to repine for the lost joys as it would have been in the former
days to repine because we were not bigger and stronger and more
ambitious. Life, if it does not become sweeter, becomes more
interesting; fresh ties are formed, fresh paths open out; and there
should come, too, a simple serenity of living, a certainty that,
whatever befall, we are in wise and tender hands.

So I reasoned with myself beside the little holy church, not far from
the moving stream.

But the time warned me to be going. The thunder had drawn off to the
west; a faint breeze stirred and whispered in the elms. The day
declined. But I had had my moment, and my heart was full; for it is
such moments as these that are the pure gold of life, when the scene
and the mood move together to some sweet goal in perfect unison.
Sometimes the scene is there without the mood, or the mood comes and
finds no fitting pasturage; but to-day, both were mine; and the
thought, echoing like a strain of rich sad music, passed beyond the
elms, beyond the blue hills, back to its mysterious home. . . .

There, that is the end of my sketch; a little worked up, but
substantially true. Tell me if you like the kind of thing; if you do,
it is rather a pleasure to write thus occasionally. But it may seem to
you to be affected, and, in that case, I won't send you any more of
such reveries.

You seem very happy and prosperous; but then you like heat, and enjoy
it like a lizard. My love to all of you.--Ever yours,

T. B.

UPTON,
July 1, 1904.

DEAR HERBERT,--What you say about forming habits is very interesting.
It is quite true that one gets very little done without a certain
method; and it is equally true that, if one does manage to arrive at a
certain definite programme for one's life and work, it is very easy to
get a big task done. Just reflect on this fact; it would not be
difficult, in any life, to so arrange things that one could write a
short passage every day, say enough to fill a page of an ordinary
octavo. Well, if one stuck to it, that would mean that in the course of
a year one would have a volume finished. Sometimes my colleagues
express surprise that I can find time for so much literary work; and on
the other hand if I tell them how much time I am able to devote to it
they are equally surprised that I can get anything done, because it
seems so little. This is the fact; I can get an hour--pos