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