s fanciful, may be, but
it is not illogical. And without being either a Christian or a
Materialist, without beholding either majesty or divinity in humanity,
surely the best emotion that our natures know--pity--must be large
enough to draw us to console where we can, and sustain where we can, in
view of the endless suffering, the continual injustice, the appalling
contrasts, with which the world is full. Whether man be the _vibrion_ or
the heir to immortality, the bundle of carbon or the care of angels, one
fact is indisputable: he suffers agonies, mental and physical, that are
wholly out of proportion to the brevity of his life, while he is too
often weighted from infancy with hereditary maladies, both of body and
of character. This is reason enough, I think, for us all to help each
other, even though we feel, as you feel, that we are as lost children,
wandering in a great darkness, with no thread or clue to guide us to the
end."

* * *

"We do not cultivate music one-half enough among the peasantry. It
lightens labour; it purifies and strengthens the home life; it sweetens
black bread. Do you remember that happy picture of Jordaens' 'Where the
old sing, the young chirp,' where the old grandfather and grandmother,
and the baby in its mother's arms, and the hale five-year-old boy, and
the rough servant, are all joining in the same melody, while the goat
crops the vine-leaves off the table? I should like to see every cottage
interior like that when the work was done. I would hang up an etching
from Jordaens where you would hang up, perhaps, the programme of
Proudhon."

Then she walked back with him through the green sun-gleaming woods.

"I hope that I teach them content," she continued. "It is the lesson
most neglected in our day. '_Niemand will ein Schuster sein; Jedermann
ein Dichter._' It is true we are very happy in our surroundings. A
mountaineer's is such a beautiful life, so simple, healthful, hardy, and
fine; always face to face with nature. I try to teach them what an
inestimable joy that alone is. I do not altogether believe in the
prosaic views of rural life. It is true that the peasant digging his
trench sees the clod, not the sky; but then when he does lift his head
the sky is there, not the roof, not the ceiling. That is so much in
itself. And here the sky is an everlasting grandeur; clouds and domes of
snow are blent together. When the stars are out above the glaciers how
serene the