eed not be surprised if the scream
is sometimes a theory. Shelley, chafing at the Church of England,
discovered the cure of all evils in universal atheism. Generous lads
irritated at the injustices of society see nothing for it but the
abolishment of everything and Kingdom Come of anarchy. Shelley was a
young fool; so are these cock-sparrow revolutionaries. But it is better
to be a fool than to be dead. It is better to emit a scream in the
shape of a theory than to be entirely insensible to the jars and
incongruities of life, and take everything as it comes in a forlorn
stupidity. Some people swallow the universe like a pill; they travel on
through the world, like smiling images pushed from behind. For God's
sake give me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of
himself! As for the others, the irony of facts shall take it out of
their hands, and make fools of them in downright earnest, ere the farce
be over. There shall be such a mopping and a mowing at the last day, and
such blushing and confusion of countenance for all those who have been
wise in their own esteem, and have not learnt the rough lessons that
youth hands on to age. If we are indeed here to perfect and complete our
own natures, and grow larger, stronger, and more sympathetic against
some nobler career in the future, we had all best bestir ourselves to
the utmost while we have the time. To equip a dull, respectable person
with wings would be but to make a parody of an angel.

In short, if youth is not quite right in its opinions, there is a strong
probability that age is not much more so. Undying hope is co-ruler of
the human bosom with infallible credulity. A man finds he has been wrong
at every preceding stage of his career, only to deduce the astonishing
conclusion that he is at last entirely right. Mankind, after centuries
of failure, are still upon the eve of a thoroughly constitutional
millennium. Since we have explored the maze so long without result, it
follows, for poor human reason, that we cannot have to explore much
longer; close by must be the centre, with a champagne luncheon and a
piece of ornamental water. How if there were no centre at all, but just
one alley after another, and the whole world a labyrinth without end or
issue?

I overheard the other day a scrap of conversation, which I take the
liberty to reproduce. "What I advance is true," said one. "But not the
whole truth," answered the other. "Sir," returned the first (an