to be of living
alone, to which his friend, a good-humoured and ineffective man, said
that he found that the stir and movement of town kept people from
rusting. Hugh wondered--but did not express his wonder--what was
supposed to be the use of keeping the blade bright to no purpose; and
he wished to ask his contented friend what his object was; but that
appeared to be priggish, so Hugh left the question unuttered.

It was however with a huge relief that, his business over, Hugh found
himself in the homeward train. But at the same time he took himself to
task for finding this suspension of routine, this interruption of his
literary work, so unpalatable. He realised that he was becoming
inconveniently speculative; and that his growing impulse to get behind
things, to weigh their value, to mistrust the conventional view of
life, had its weak side, After all, the conventional, the normal view
reflected the tastes of the majority of mankind. Their life was laid
out and regulated on those lines; and the regulating instinct was a
perfectly natural development of human temperament. Ought he not to
embrace it for himself? was he not, perhaps, by seeking so diligently
for fine flavours and intense impressions, missing the food of the
banquet, and sipping only at the sauces? If his own work had been of
any particular importance; if he was exercising a wide influence
through his books, in the direction of leading others to love the
simple sources of happiness, then his withdrawal from ordinary
activities and pleasures would be justifiable. Was it justified as it
was? Hugh could not answer the question. He only knew that as the
train glided on its way, as the streets became less dense, as the
country verdure began to occupy more and more of the horizon; as the
train at last began to speed through wide fields full of ripening
grain, and hamlets half hidden in high elms, he felt the blessed
consciousness of returning freedom, the sense of recovering the region
of peace and purity dear to his spirit; and the thought of the hot
stifling town, with all its veins and arteries full of that endless ebb
and flow of humanity, seemed to him like a nightmare from which he was
being gradually delivered, and which he was leaving far behind him.

It was not peace, indeed! there was the obstinate spirit, repining,
questioning, reviewing all things, striving to pierce the veil. But
the veil was not so thick as it had seemed in the city. T