ut a new and stirring test and task for himself,
which will assuredly make him cheerful. A knight is not contented
with the statement that his commander has hid his plans so as to
insure victory: what the knight wants is a sword. This demand for a
task is not mere bravado, it is an eternal and natural part of the
higher optimism, as deep-rooted as the foreshadowing of perfection.

I do not know whether Gilbert would yet have actually called himself
a Christian. He was certainly tending towards the more Christian
elements in his surroundings. It seems pretty clear from all he wrote
and said later that he did not hold that transformation to have been
fully effected until after his meeting with Frances, to whom he wrote
many years later:

Therefore I bring these rhymes to you
Who brought the Cross to me.

These papers are undated and are arranged in no sequence. It is
possible this last one was written after their first meeting. Certain
it is that in it he had begun feeling after a more Christian
arrangement of society than Socialism offered--and particularly after
an arrangement better suited to the nature of man. This thought of
man's nature as primary was to remain the basis of his social
thinking to the end of his life.

CHAPTER VII

Incipit Vita Nova

IN THE NOTEBOOK may be seen Gilbert's occasional thoughts
about his own future love story.

SUDDENLY IN THE MIDST

Suddenly in the midst of friends,
Of brothers known to me more and more,
And their secrets, histories, tastes, hero-worships,
Schemes, love-affairs, known to me
Suddenly I felt lonely.
Felt like a child in a field with no more games to play
Because I have not a lady
to whom to send my thought at that hour
that she might crown my peace.

MADONNA MIA

About her whom I have not yet met
I wonder what she is doing
Now, at this sunset hour,
Working perhaps, or playing, worrying or laughing,
Is she making tea, or singing a song, or writing,
or praying, or reading
Is she thoughtful, as I am thoughtful
Is she looking now out of the window
As I am looking out of the window?

But a few pages later comes the entry:

F.B.

You are a very stupid person.
I don't believe you have the least idea how nice you are.

F.B. was Frances, daughter of a diamond merchant some time dead. The
family was of French descent, the name de Blogue having been somewha