To-day I have sent S—–­ a cheque for fifty pounds; it will come as a very boon of heaven, and assuredly blesseth him that gives as much as him that takes.  A poor fifty pounds, which the wealthy fool throws away upon some idle or base fantasy, and never thinks of it; yet to S—–­ it will mean life and light.  And I, to whom this power of benefaction is such a new thing, sign the cheque with a hand trembling, so glad and proud I am.  In the days gone by, I have sometimes given money, but with trembling of another kind; it was as likely as not that I myself, some black foggy morning, might have to go begging for my own dire needs.  That is one of the bitter curses of poverty; it leaves no right to be generous.  Of my abundance—­abundance to me, though starveling pittance in the view of everyday prosperity—­I can give with happiest freedom; I feel myself a man, and no crouching slave with his back ever ready for the lash of circumstance.  There are those, I know, who thank the gods amiss, and most easily does this happen in the matter of wealth.  But oh, how good it is to desire little, and to have a little more than enough!

IV.

After two or three days of unseasonable and depressing warmth, with lowering but not rainy sky, I woke this morning to find the land covered with a dense mist.  There was no daybreak, and, till long after the due hour, no light save a pale, sad glimmer at the window; now, at mid-day, I begin dimly to descry gaunt shapes of trees, whilst a haunting drip, drip on the garden soil tells me that the vapour has begun to condense, and will pass in rain.  But for my fire, I should be in indifferent spirits on such a day as this; the flame sings and leaps, and its red beauty is reflected in the window-glass.  I cannot give my thoughts to reading; if I sat unoccupied, they would brood with melancholy fixedness on I know not what.  Better to betake myself to the old mechanic exercise of the pen, which cheats my sense of time wasted.

I think of fogs in London, fogs of murky yellow or of sheer black, such as have often made all work impossible to me, and held me, a sort of dyspeptic owl, in moping and blinking idleness.  On such a day, I remember, I once found myself at an end both of coal and of lamp-oil, with no money to purchase either; all I could do was to go to bed, meaning to lie there till the sky once more became visible.  But a second day found the fog dense as ever.  I rose in darkness; I stood at the window of my garret, and saw that the street was illumined as at night, lamps and shop-fronts perfectly visible, with folk going about their business.  The fog, in fact, had risen, but still hung above the house-tops, impermeable by any heavenly beam.  My solitude being no longer endurable, I went out, and walked the town for hours.  When I returned, it was with a few coins which permitted me to buy warmth and light.  I had sold to a second-hand bookseller a volume which I prized, and was so much the poorer for the money in my pocket.