sham.  Wonder not at the world of man.  Waste not your admiration, interest, hope on it, its pretty toys, gay fashions, fine clothes, tawdry luxuries, silly amusements.  Wonder at the works of God.  You will not, perhaps, take my advice yet.  The world of man looks so pretty, that you will needs have your peep at it, and stare into its shop windows; and if you can, go to a few of its stage plays, and dance at a few of its balls.  Ah—­well—­After a wild dream comes an uneasy wakening; and after too many sweet things, comes a sick headache.  And one morning you will awake, I trust and pray, from the world of man to the world of God, and wonder where wonder is due, and worship where worship is due.  You will awake like a child who has been at a pantomime over night, staring at the “fairy halls,” which are all paint and canvas; and the “dazzling splendours,” which are gas and oil; and the “magic transformations,” which are done with ropes and pulleys; and the “brilliant elves,” who are poor little children out of the next foul alley; and the harlequin and clown, who through all their fun are thinking wearily over the old debts which they must pay, and the hungry mouths at home which they must feed:  and so, having thought it all wondrously glorious, and quite a fairy land, slips tired and stupid into bed, and wakes next morning to see the pure light shining in through the delicate frost-lace on the window-pane, and looks out over fields of virgin snow, and watches the rosy dawn and cloudless blue, and the great sun rising to the music of cawing rooks and piping stares, and says, “This is the true wonder.  This is the true glory.  The theatre last night was the fairy land of man; but this is the fairy land of God.”

CHAPTER VII—­THE CHALK-CARTS

What do you want to know about next?  More about the caves in which the old savages lived,—­how they were made, and how the curious things inside them got there, and so forth.

Well, we will talk about that in good time:  but now—­What is that coming down the hill?

Oh, only some chalk-carts.

Only some chalk-carts?  It seems to me that these chalk-carts are the very things we want; that if we follow them far enough—­I do not mean with our feet along the public road, but with our thoughts along a road which, I am sorry to say, the public do not yet know much about—­we shall come to a cave, and understand how a cave is made.  Meanwhile, do not be in a hurry to say, “Only a chalk-cart,” or only a mouse, or only a dead leaf.  Chalk-carts, like mice, and dead leaves, and most other matters in the universe are very curious and odd things in the eyes of wise and reasonable people.  Whenever I hear young men saying “only” this and “only” that, I begin to suspect them of belonging, not to the noble army of sages—­much less to the most noble army of martyrs,—­but to the ignoble army of noodles, who think nothing