"but for me!" Studious little boys of the free school, all green, grasshopper-looking, walked about as boys knowing something of Latin. Here and there went a couple of them in childish loving way, with their arms about each other's necks. Matrons and shy young maidens sat upon the door steps near. Many a merry laugh filled up the interludes of music. And when evening came softly down upon us, the band finished with " God save the Queen," the little circle of those who would hear the last note moved off, there was a clattering of shutters, a shining of lights through casement windows, and soon the only sound to be heard was the rough voice of some villager, who would have been too timid to adventure anything by daylight, but now sang boldly out as he went homewards.

ELLESMERE. Very pretty, but it sounds to me somewhat fabulous.

MILVERTON. I assure you

ELLESMERE. Yes, you were tired, had a good dinner, read a speech for, or against, the corn laws, fell asleep of course, and had this ingenious dream, which, to this day, you believe to have been a reality. I understand it all.

MILVERTON. I wish I could have many more such

dreams.

CHAPTER V.

OUR last conversation broke off abruptly on the entrance of a visitor; we forgot to name a time for our next meeting; and when I came again, I found Milverton alone in his study. He was reading Count Rumford's essays.

DUNSFORD. So you are reading Count Rumford. What is it that interests you there?

MILVERTON. Everything he writes about. He is to me a delightful writer. He throws so much life into all his writings. Whether they are about making the most of food or fuel, or propounding the benefits of bathing, or inveighing against smoke, it is that he went and saw and did and experimented himself, and upon himself. His proceedings at Munich to feed the poor are more interesting than many a novel. It is surprising, too, how far he was before the world in all the things he gave his mind to.

Here Ellesmere entered.

ELLESMERE. I heard you were come, Dunsford: I

hope we shall have an essay to-day. My critical faculties have been dormant for some days and want to be roused a little. Milverton was talking to you about Count Rumford when I came in, was he not? Ah, the Count is a great favorite with Milverton when he is down here; but there is a book up stairs, which is Milverton's real favorite just now, a portentous looking book; some relation to a blue book, something about sewerage, or health of towns, or public improvements, over which said book our friend here goes into enthusiasms. I am sure if it could be reduced to the size of that tatterdemalion Horace that he carries about, the poor little Horace would be quite supplanted.

MILVERTON. NOW, I must tell you, Dunsford, that Ellesmere himself took up this book he talks about, and it was a long time before he put it down.

ELLESMERE. Yes, there is something in real life, even though it is in the unheroic part of it, that interests one. I mean to get through the book.

DUNSFORD. What are we to have to-day for our essay?

MILVERTON. Let us adjourn to the garden, and I will read you an essay on Greatness, if I can find it.

We went to our favorite place, and Milverton read us the following essay.

74

GREATNESS.

You cannot substitute any epithet for great, when you are talking of great men. Greatness is not general dexterity carried to any extent; nor proficiency in any one subject of human endeavour. There are great astronomers, great scholars, great painters, even great poets, who are very far from great Greatness can do without success, and with it. William is greater in his retreats than Marlborough in his victories. On the other hand, the uniformity of Cæsar's success does not dull his greatness. Greatness is not in the circumstances, but in the man.

men.

What does this greatness then consist in? Not in a nice balance of qualities, purposes, and powers. That will make a happy man, a successful man, a man always in his right depth. Nor does it consist of absence of errors. We need only glance back at any list that can be made of great men, to be convinced of that. Neither does greatness consist in energy, though often accompanied by it. Indeed, it is rather the breadth of the

waters, than the force of the current, that we look to, to fulfil our idea of greatness. There is no doubt that energy acting upon a nature endowed with the qualities that we sum up in the word cleverness, and directed to a few clear purposes, produces a great effect, and may sometimes be mistaken for greatness. If a man is mainly bent upon his own advancement, it cuts many a difficult knot of policy for him, and gives a force and distinctness to his mode of going on which looks grand. The same happens, if he has one pre-eminent idea of any kind, even though it should be a narrow one. Indeed, success in life is mostly gained by unity of purpose; whereas greatness often fails by reason of its having manifold purposes, but it does not cease to be greatness on that account.

If greatness can be shut up in qualities, it will be found to consist in courage and in openness of mind and soul. These qualities may not seem at first to be so potent.

But see what growth there is in them. The education of a man of open mind is never ended. Then, with openness of soul, a man sees some way into all other souls that come near him, feels with them, has their expe