touching, is that request of his to be transferred from London to a

rural living--"where I can see God's blessing spring out of the
earth." And that glimpse of him where he was found tending sheep,

with a Horace in his hand. It was in rural solitudes that he
conceived the rhythm of mighty prose. What music of the spheres

sang to that poor, vixen-haunted, pimply-faced man!
The last few pages I read by the light of the full moon, that of

afterglow having till then sufficed me. Oh, why has it not been
granted me in all my long years of pen-labour to write something

small and perfect, even as one of these lives of honest Izaak! Here
is literature, look you--not "literary work." Let me be thankful

that I have the mind to enjoy it; not only to understand, but to
savour, its great goodness.

IV
It is Sunday morning, and above earth's beauty shines the purest,

softest sky this summer has yet gladdened us withal. My window is
thrown open; I see the sunny gleam upon garden leaves and flowers; I

hear the birds whose wont it is to sing to me; ever and anon the
martins that have their home beneath my eaves sweep past in silence.

Church bells have begun to chime; I know the music of their voices,
near and far.

There was a time when it delighted me to flash my satire on the
English Sunday; I could see nothing but antiquated foolishness and

modern hypocrisy in this weekly pause from labour and from bustle.
Now I prize it as an inestimable boon, and dread every encroachment

upon its restful stillness. Scoff as I might at "Sabbatarianism,"
was I not always glad when Sunday came? The bells of London

churches and chapels are not soothing to the ear, but when I
remember their sound--even that of the most aggressively pharisaic

conventicle, with its one dire clapper--I find it associated with a
sense of repose, of liberty. This day of the seven I granted to my

better genius; work was put aside, and, when Heaven permitted,
trouble forgotten.

When out of England I have always missed this Sunday quietude, this
difference from ordinary days which seems to affect the very

atmosphere. It is not enough that people should go to church, that
shops should be closed and workyards silent; these holiday notes do

not make a Sunday. Think as one may of its significance, our Day of
Rest has a peculiarsanctity, felt, I imagine, in a more or less

vague way, even by those who wish to see the village lads at cricket
and theatres open in the town. The idea is surely as good a one as

ever came to heavy-laden mortals; let one whole day in every week be
removed from the common life of the world, lifted above common

pleasures as above common cares. With all the abuses of fanaticism,
this thought remained rich in blessings; Sunday has always brought

large good to the generality, and to a chosen number has been the
very life of the soul, however heretically some of them understood

the words. If its ancient use perish from among us, so much the
worse for our country. And perish no doubt it will; only here in

rustic solitude can one forget the changes that have already made
the day less sacred to multitudes. With it will vanish that habit

of periodic calm, which, even when it has become so largely void of
conscious meaning, is, one may safely say, the best spiritual boon

ever bestowed upon a people. The most difficult of all things to
attain, the most difficult of all to preserve, the supreme

benediction of the noblest mind, this calm was once breathed over
the whole land as often as sounded the last stroke of weekly toil;

on Saturday at even began the quiet and the solace. With the
decline of old faith, Sunday cannot but lose its sanction, and no

loss among the innumerable that we are suffering will work so
effectually for popular vulgarization. What hope is there of

guarding the moral beauty of the day when the authority which set it
apart is no longer recognized?--Imagine a bank-holiday once a week!

V
On Sunday I come down later than usual; I make a change of dress,

for it is fitting that the day of spiritual rest should lay aside
the livery of the laborious week. For me, indeed, there is no

labour at any time, but nevertheless does Sunday bring me repose. I
share in the common tranquillity; my thought escapes the workaday

world more completely than on other days.
It is not easy to see how this house of mine can make to itself a

Sunday quiet, for at all times it is well-nigh soundless; yet I find
a difference. My housekeeper comes into the room with her Sunday

smile; she is happier for the day, and the sight of her happiness
gives me pleasure. She speaks, if possible, in a softer voice; she

wears a garment which reminds me that there is only the lightest and
cleanest housework to be done. She will go to church, morning and

evening, and I know that she is better for it. During her absence I
sometimes look into rooms which on other days I never enter; it is

merely to gladden my eyes with the shining cleanliness, the perfect
order, I am sure to find in the good woman's domain. But for that

spotless and sweet-smelling kitchen, what would it avail me to range
my books and hang my pictures? All the tranquillity of my life

depends upon the honest care of this woman who lives and works
unseen. And I am sure that the money I pay her is the least part of

her reward. She is such an old-fashioned person that the mere
discharge of what she deems a duty is in itself an end to her, and

the work of her hands in itself a satisfaction, a pride.
When a child, I was permitted to handle on Sunday certain books

which could not be exposed to the more careless usage of common
days; volumes finely illustrated, or the more handsome editions of

familiar authors, or works which, merely by their bulk, demanded
special care. Happily, these books were all of the higher rank in

literature, and so there came to be established in my mind an
association between the day of rest and names which are the greatest

in verse and prose. Through my life this habit has remained with
me; I have always wished to spend some part of the Sunday quiet with

books which, at most times, it is fatally easy to leave aside, one's
very knowledge and love of them serving as an excuse for their

neglect in favour of print which has the attraction of newness.
Homer and Virgil, Milton and Shakespeare; not many Sundays have gone

by without my opening one or other of these. Not many Sundays?
Nay, that is to exaggerate, as one has the habit of doing. Let me

say rather that, on many a rest-day I have found mind and
opportunity for such reading. Nowadays mind and opportunity fail me

never. I may take down my Homer or my Shakespeare when I choose,
but it is still on Sunday that I feel it most becoming to seek the

privilege of their companionship. For these great ones, crowned
with immortality, do not respond to him who approaches them as

though hurried by temporal care. There befits the garment of solemn
leisure, the thought attuned to peace. I open the volume somewhat

formally; is it not sacred, if the word have any meaning at all?
And, as I read, no interruption can befall me. The note of a

linnet, the humming of a bee, these are the sounds about my
sanctuary. The page scarce rustles as it turns.

VI
Of how many dwellings can it be said that no word of anger is ever

heard beneath its roof, and that no unkindly feeling ever exists
between the inmates? Most men's experience would seem to justify

them in declaring that, throughout the inhabited world, no such
house exists. I, knowing at all events of one, admit the

possibility that there may be more; yet I feel that it is to hazard
a conjecture; I cannot point with certainty to any other instance,

nor in all my secular life (I speak as one who has quitted the
world) could I have named a single example.

It is so difficult for human beings to live together; nay, it is so
difficult for them to associate, however transitorily, and even

under the most favourable conditions, without some shadow of mutual
offence. Consider the differences of task and of habit, the

conflict of prejudices, the divergence of opinions (though that is
probably the same thing), which quickly reveal themselves between

any two persons brought into more than casualcontact, and think how
much self-subdual is implicit whenever, for more than an hour or

two, they co-exist in seemingharmony. Man is not made for peaceful
intercourse with his fellows; he is by nature self-assertive,

commonly aggressive, always critical in a more or less hostile
spirit of any characteristic which seems strange to him. That he is

capable of profoundaffections merely modifies here and there his
natural contentiousness, and subdues its expression. Even love, in

the largest and purest sense of the word, is no safeguard against
perilous irritation and sensibilities inborn. And what were the

durability of love without the powerful alliance of habit?
Suppose yourself endowed with such power of hearing that all the

talk going on at any moment beneath the domestic roofs of any town