one craved; that long perspective of summer mornings, of pacings
to and fro, of happy work, of firelit evenings, of talk, of laughter,
the groups breaking up and reforming--how little one had guessed and
valued the joy, the content, the blessing of them at the time! In the
midst of them, one was reaching forwards, restlessly and vainly, to the
future that was to be richer yet. Then the future became the happy
present, and still one had leaned forward. How idle it all was! even
while he waited and gazed, the light of evening was gone, the clouds
were lustreless and wan, the sunset, that band of golden light, was
flying softly, a girdle of beauty round the world; but the twilight and
the night had their beauty too, their peace, their refreshment, their
calm.

XLI

Following the Light--Sincerity

It must not be thought that because this little book attempts to trace
the more secret and solitary thoughts of Hugh, as his soul took shape
under the silent influences of pensive reflection, that the current of
his life was all passed in lonely speculation. He had a definite place
in the world, and mixed with his fellow-men, with no avoidance of the
little cares of daily life. He only tended, as solitude became more
dear to him, and as the thoughts that he loved best rose more swiftly
and vividly about him, to frame his life, as far as he could, upon
simple and unambitious lines.

In this he acted according to the dictates of a kind of intuition. It
was useless, he felt, to analyse motives; it was impossible to discover
how much was disinterestedness, how much unworldliness, how much the
pursuit of truth, how much the avoidance of anxious responsibility, how
much pure indolence. He was quite ready to believe that a certain
amount of the latter came in, though Hugh was not indolent in the
ordinary sense of the word. He was incapable of pure idling; but he
was also incapable of carrying out prolonged and patient labour, unless
he was keenly interested in an object; and the fact that he found the
renunciation of ambitions so easy and simple a thing, was a sufficient
proof to him that his interest in mundane things was not very vital.
But Hugh above all things desired to have no illusions about himself;
and he was saved from personal vanity, not so much by humility of
nature, as from a deep sense of the utter dependence of all created
things on their Creator. He did not look upon his own powers, his own
good qua