source of income to them.  In this case the parties in the dispute are women, and one cannot treat their requests with the same bluntness that one treats the requests of men.  “I should feel so much more happy,” one of them says, “if you could just run up and discuss the matter with me; it is so much more satisfactory than a letter,” This will be troublesome, it will take up time, it will be expensive, and, as I say, I shall only succeed in vexing one of the claimants, and possibly both.

Then, again, the widow of an old friend, lately dead, asks my advice about publishing a book which her husband has left unfinished, I do not think it is a very good book, and certainly not worth publishing on its merits.  But the widow feels it a sacred duty to give it to the world; she seems, too, to regard it as a sacred duty for me, as a loyal friend, to edit the book, fill up the gaps, and see it through the press.  Then I shall be held responsible for its publication, and the reviewers will say that it is not worth the paper it is printed on—­an opinion I cannot honestly contest.

Another trial is that a young man, whom I do not know, but whose father was a friend of mine in old days, writes to me to use my influence that he should obtain an appointment.  He says that he is just as well qualified as a number of other applicants, and all that is needed is that I should write a letter to an eminent man whom I know, which will give him his chance, I hate to do this; I hate to use private friendship in order that I may do jobs for my friends.  If I do not write the required letter, the young man will think me forgetful of the old ties; if he does not obtain the appointment, he will blame me for not acting energetically enough.  If he does obtain it on my recommendation, it may of course turn out all right; but if he does not show himself fit for the post, I shall be rightly blamed for recommending him on insufficient grounds; and in any case my eminent friend will think me an importunate person.

I am busy just now on a book of my own, but all these things force me to put my work aside, day after day.  Even when I have some leisure hours which I might devote to my own work, I cannot attain the requisite serenity for doing it—­cannot get these vexatious matters out of my head; and there are other matters, too, of the same kind which I need not further particularise.

Of course, it may be said that the knot is best cut by refusing to have anything to do with any of these things.  I suppose that if one was strong-minded and resolute one would behave like Gallio, who drove the disputants from his judgment-seat.  But I have a tenderness for these people, and a certain conscience in the matter, so that I do not feel it would be right to refuse.  Yet I do not quite know upon what basis I feel that there is a duty about it.  I do not undertake these tasks as a Christian.  The only precedent that I can find in the Gospel which