but the great bulk of mankind is a hypocrite. When the history of this
age is written, moral cowardice and self-indulgence will be found to
have been the most striking characteristics of the people. There is no
truth to be found in the inward parts."

But Ideala did not often adopt this tone, and she would herself check
other people who were preparing to assume it. She had a favourite
quotation, adroitly mangled, to suit such occasions. "When we begin to
inculcate morality as a science, we must discard moralising as a
method," she declared; and she would also beg us to stop the hysteria.
"It is the mortal malady of all well-beloved measures," she said; "and
it spreads to an epidemic if the infected ones are not suppressed at
once to prevent contagion."

But, although she spoke so positively when taken out of herself by the
interest and importance of a subject, she had no very high opinion of
her own judgment and power to decide. A little more self-esteem would
have been good for her; she was too diffident, "I have not come across
people on whose knowledge I could rely," she told me. "I have been
obliged to study alone, and to form my opinions for myself out of such
scraps of information as I have had the capacity to acquire from
reading and observation. I am, therefore, always prepared to find
myself mistaken, even when I am surest about a thing--for

What am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry!

In practice, too, she frequently, albeit unconsciously, diverged from