pulling up the plant to see how it grows, which is the weakening and the stunting thing.  Of course any principle can be used sophistically; but I think that many people commit a kind of idolatry by worshipping their rules and principles rather than by trusting God.  It develops a larger and freer life, if one is not too cautious, too precise.  Of course one must follow what light one has, and all lights are lit from God; but if one watches the lanterns of moralists too anxiously, one may forget the stars.

July 8, 1889.

I lose myself sometimes in a dream of misery in thinking of the baseness and meanness and squalor that condition the lives of so many of the poor.  Not that it is not possible under those conditions to live lives of simplicity and dignity and beauty.  It is perfectly possible, but only, I think, for strong natures possessing a combination of qualities—­virtue, industry, sense, prudence, and above all good physical health.  There must still be thousands of lives which could be happy and simple and virtuous under more secure conditions, which are marred and degraded by the influences under which they are nurtured.  Yet what can the more fortunate individual do in the matter?  If all the rich men in England were to resign to-morrow all the wealth they possessed, reserving only a bare modicum of subsistence, the matter could not be amended.  Even that wealth could not be wisely applied; and, if equally divided, it would hardly make any appreciable difference.  What is worse, it would not alter the baneful influences in the least; it would give no increased security of material conditions, and it would not affect the point at issue, namely, the tone and quality of thought and feeling, where the only hope of real amelioration lies, and which is really the source and root of our social evils.

Moreover, the real difficulty is not to see what the classes on whom the problem presses most grimly need, but what they want.  It is no use theorising about it, and providing elegant remedies which will not touch the evil.  What one requires to know is what those natures, who lie buried in this weltering tide, and are dissatisfied and tormented by it, really desire.  It is no use trying to provide a paradise on the farther bank of the river, till we have constructed bridges to cross the gulf.  What one wants is that some one from the darkness of the other side should speak articulately and boldly what they claim, what they could use.  It is not enough to have a wistful cry for help ringing in our ears; one wants a philosophical or statesmanlike demand—­just the very thing which from the nature of the case we cannot get.  It may be that education will make this possible; but at present education seems merely to be a ladder let down into the abyss, by which a few stronger natures can climb out of it, with horror and contempt in their hearts of what they have left behind.  The question that stares one in the face is, is there honest work