of high value; our first endeavour should be to think as often and as well as we can; but, for all that, it is somewhat beside the mark to believe that the possession, or lack, of a certain faculty for handling general ideas can interpose an actual barrier between men.  After all, the difference between the greatest thinker and the smallest provincial burgher is often only the difference between a truth that can sometimes express itself and a truth that can never crystallise into form.  The difference is considerable—­a gap, but not a chasm.  The higher our thoughts ascend, the vainer and the more arbitrary seems the distinction between him who is thinking always and him who thinks not yet.  The little burgher is full of prejudice and of passions at which we smile; his ideas are small and petty, and sometimes contemptible enough; and yet, place him side by side with the sage, before essential circumstance of life, before love, grief, death, before something that calls for true heroism, and it shall happen more than once that the sage will turn to his humble companion as to the guardian of a truth no less profound, no less deeply human, than his own.  There are moments when the sage realises, that his spiritual treasures are naught; that it is only a few words, or habits, that divide him from other men; there are moments when he even doubts the value of those words.  Those are the moments when wisdom flowers and sends forth blossom.  Thought may sometimes deceive; and the thinker who goes astray must often retrace his footsteps to the spot whence those who think not have never moved away, where they still remain faithfully seated round the silent, essential truth.  They are the guardians of the watch-fires of the tribe; the others take lighted torches and go wandering abroad; but when the air grows heavy and threatens the feeble flame, then is it well to turn back and draw close to the watch-fires once more.  These fires seem never to stir from the spot where they always have been; but in truth they ever are moving, keeping time with the worlds; and their flame marks the hour of humanity on the dial of the universe.  We know exactly how much the inert forces owe to the thinker; we forget the deep indebtedness of the thinker to inert force.  In a world where all were thinkers, more than one indispensable truth might perhaps for ever be lost.  For indeed the thinker must never lose touch with those who do not think, as his thoughts would then quickly cease to be just or profound.  To disdain is only too easy, not so to understand; but in him who is truly wise there passes no thought of disdain, but it will, sooner or later, evolve into full comprehension.  The thought that can travel scornfully over the heads of that great silent throng without recognising its myriad brothers and sisters that are slumbering there in its midst, is only too often merely a sterile, vicious dream.  We do well to remind ourselves at times that the spiritual, no less than the physical, atmosphere demands more nitrogen than oxygen for the air to be breathed by man.