Let me try and hand on to some other human soul,
or souls, before I die, the truth which has freed, and which is now
sustaining my own heart. Can any do more? Is not every man who feels any
certainty in him, whatever, bound to do as much? What matter if the
wise folk scoff, if even at times, and in a certain sense, one seem to
oneself ridiculous--absurdly lonely and powerless! All great changes are
preceded by numbers of sporadic, and as the bystander thinks, impotent
efforts. But while the individual effort sinks, drowned perhaps in
mockery, the general movement quickens, gathers force we know not how,
and--'

'While the tired wave vainly breaking,
Seems here no painful Inch to gain,
Far back through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in the main!'

Darkness sank over the river; all the gray and purple distance with its
dim edge of spires and domes against the sky, all the vague intervening
blackness of street, or bridge or railway station were starred and
patterned with lights. The vastness, the beauty of the city filled him
with a sense of mysterious attraction, and as he walked on with his face
uplifted to it, it was as though he took his life in his hand and flung
it afresh into the human gulf.

'What does it matter if one's work be raw and uncomely! All that lies
outside the great organized traditions of an age must always look so.
Let me bear my witness bravely, not spending life in speech, but not
undervaluing speech--above all, not being ashamed or afraid of it,
because other wise people may prefer a policy of silence. A man has but
the one pure life, the one tiny spark of faith. Better be venturesome
with both for God's sake, than over-cautious, over-thrifty. And--to his
own Master he standeth or falleth!'

Plans of work of all kinds, literary and practical, thoughts of
preaching in some bare bidden room to men and women orphaned and
strangled like himself, began to crowd upon him. The old clerical
instinct in him winced at some of them. Robert had nothing of the
sectary about him by nature; he was always too deeply and easily
affected by the great historic existences about him. But when the Oxford
man or the ex-official of one of the most venerable and decorous of
societies protested, the believer, or, if you will, the enthusiast, put
the protest by.

And so the dream gathered substance and stayed with him, till at last
he found himself at his o