te the art of
being alone. There were many people in the world who found themselves
the poorest of all company, and Hugh resolved that he would find his
own society the most interesting of all; he would not be beaten by
life, as so many people appeared to him to be. Of course he knew that
there were threatening clouds in the sky, that in a moment might burst
and drench the air with driving rain. But Hugh hoped that his attitude
of curiosity and wonder could find food for high-hearted reflection
even there. The universe teemed with significance, and if God had
bestowed such a quality with rich abundance everywhere, there must be a
still larger store of it in His own eternal heart. The world was full
of surprises; trees drooped their leaves over screening walls, houses
had backs as well as fronts; music was heard from shuttered windows,
lights burned in upper rooms. There were a thousand pretty secrets in
the ways of people to each other. Then, too, there were ideas, as
thick as sparrows in an ivied wall. One had but to clap one's hands
and cry out, and there was a fluttering of innumerable wings; life was
as full of bubbles, forming, rising into amber foam, as a glass of
sparkling wine. That cup he would drink, and try its savour. There
would be times when he would flag, no doubt, but it should not be from
any failure of desire. He would try to be temperate, so as to keep the
inner eye unclouded; and he would try to be perfectly simple and
sincere, deciding questions on their own merits, and with no
conventional judgment. Such an attitude might be labelled by peevish
persons, with prejudices rather than preferences, a species of
intellectual Epicureanism. But Hugh desired not to limit his gaze by
the phenomena of life, but to keep his eyes fixed upon the further
horizon; the light might dawn when it was least expected; but the best
chance of catching the first faint lights of that other sunrise, was to
have learnt expectancy, to have trained observation, and to have kept
one's heart unfettered and undimmed.

He saw that the first essential of all was to group his life round a
centre of some kind, to have a chosen work, to which he should be vowed
as by a species of consecration; it was in choosing their life-work, he
thought, that so many people failed. He saw men of high ability, year
after year, who continued to put off the decision as to what their work
should be, until they suddenly found themselves con