his country--the country which was his, if not Corydon's. He had
read in its history--Irving's "Life of Washington," and ten great
volumes about Lincoln; so he had come to understand that salvation
is of the people, and that those things which the people do not
do--those things have not yet been done. So no one could deceive
him, or lead him astray; he might laugh with the Tories, and even
love them for their foibles--quaint old Samuel Johnson, for
instance, because he was poor and sturdy, and had stood by his trade
of bookman; but at bottom Thyrsis knew that all these men were
gilding a corpse. Wordsworth and Tennyson, Browning and Swinburne
--he followed each one as far as their revolutionary impulse lasted;
and after that there was no more in them for him. Even Ruskin, who
taught him the possibilities of English prose, and opened his eyes
to the form and color of the world of nature--even Ruskin he gave
up, because he was a philanthropist and not a democrat.

Thyrsis had been brought up as a devout Episcopalian. They had
dressed him in scarlet and white to carry the train of the bishop at
confirmation, and had sent him to an afternoon service every day
throughout Lent. Early in life he had stumbled on a paper copy of
Paine's "Age of Reason," and he read it with horror, and then
conducted a private _auto da fe_. But the questions of the book
stayed with him, and as years passed they clamored more loudly. What
would have happened, astronomically, if the sun had stood still? And
how many different species would have had to go into the ark? And
what was the size of a whale's gullet, and the probable digestive
powers of a whale's stomach?

And then came more fundamental difficulties. Could there, after all,
be such a duty as faith in any intellectual matter? Could there be