y first steps
may be--I am not independent; I must take the work that offers--it is
my ambition to become the teacher of some rural parish which is still
unpolluted by the influences of which we have been speaking--or, at all
events, is still capable of being rescued. For work in crowded centres,
I am altogether unfit; my prejudices are too strong; I should do far
more harm than good. But among a few simple people I think my efforts
mightn't be useless. I can't pretend to care for anything but
individuals. The few whom I know and love are of more importance to me
than all the blind multitude rushing to destruction. I hate the word
_majority_; it is the few, the very few, that have always kept alive
whatever of effectual good we see in the human race. There are
individuals who outweigh, in every kind of value, generations of
ordinary people. To some remote little community I hope to give the
best energies of my life. My teaching will avoid doctrine and
controversy. I shall take the spirit of the Gospels, and labour to make
it a practical guide. No doubt you find inconsistencies in me; but
remember that I shall not declare myself to those I instruct as I have
done to you. I have been laying stress on my antipathies. In the future
it will be a duty and a pleasure to forget these and foster my
sympathies, which also are strong when opportunity is given them.'

Sidwell listened, her face bent downwards but not hidden from the
speaker.

'My nature is intolerant,' he went on, 'and I am easily roused to an
antagonism which destroys my peace. It is only by living apart, amid
friendly circumstances, that I can cultivate the qualities useful to
myself and others. The sense that my life was being wasted determined
me a year ago to escape the world's uproar and prepare myself in
quietness for this task. The resolve was taken here, in your house.'

'Are you quite sure,' asked Sidwell, 'that such simple duties and
satisfactions'--

The sentence remained incomplete, or rather was finished in the timid
glance she gave him.

'Such a life wouldn't be possible to me,' he replied, with unsteady
voice, 'if I were condemned to intellectual solitude. But I have dared
to hope that I shall not always be alone.'

A parched throat would have stayed his utterance, even if words had
offered themselves. But sudden confusion beset his mind--a sense of
having been guilty of monstrous presumption--a panic which threw
darkness about him and made