'm
sure, than the Italians, though they did get closer to beauty. Greater
than the French, though we do take all their ideas. I can't help
thinking that England is immense. English literature certainly."

Mr. Pembroke removed his hand. He found such patriotism somewhat craven.
Genuine patriotism comes only from the heart. It knows no parleying with
reason. English ladies will declare abroad that there are no fogs in
London, and Mr. Pembroke, though he would not go to this, was only
restrained by the certainty of being found out. On this occasion
he remarked that the Greeks lacked spiritual insight, and had a low
conception of woman.

"As to women--oh! there they were dreadful," said Rickie, leaning his
hand on the chapel. "I realize that more and more. But as to spiritual
insight, I don't quite like to say; and I find Plato too difficult, but
I know men who don't, and I fancy they mightn't agree with you."

"Far be it from me to disparage Plato. And for philosophy as a whole I
have the greatest respect. But it is the crown of a man's education,
not the foundation. Myself, I read it with the utmost profit, but I have
known endless trouble result from boys who attempt it too soon, before
they were set."

"But if those boys had died first," cried Rickie with sudden vehemence,
"without knowing what there is to know--"

"Or isn't to know!" said Mr. Pembroke sarcastically.

"Or what there isn't to know. Exactly. That's it."

"My dear Rickie, what do you mean? If an old friend may be frank, you
are talking great rubbish." And, with a few well-worn formulae, he
propped up the young man's orthodoxy. The props were unnecessary. Rickie
had his own equilibrium. Neither the Revivalism that assails a boy at
about the age of fifteen, nor the scepticism that meets him five years
later, could sway him from his allegiance to the church into which he
had been born. But his equilibrium was personal, and the secret of it
useless to others. He desired that each man should find his own.

"What does philosophy do?" the propper continued. "Does it make a man
happier in life? Does it make him die more peacefully? I fancy that in
the long-run Herbert Spencer will get no further than the rest of us.
Ah, Rickie! I wish you could move among the school boys, and see their
healthy contempt for all they cannot touch!" Here he was going too far,
and had to add, "Their spiritual capacities, of course, are another
matter." Then he remembered the