force, the reader has only to imagine John Stuart Mill trying to associate with one of those middle-class families that Dickens loved to describe, such as the Wardle family in Pickwick.

It follows from these considerations that unless a man lives in London, or in some other great capital city, he may easily find himself so situated that he must learn the art of being happy without society.

As there is no pleasure in military life for a soldier who fears death, so there is no independence in civil existence for the man who has an overpowering dread of solitude.

There are two good reasons against the excessive dread of solitude. The first is that solitude is very rarely so absolute as it appears from a distance; and the second is that when the evil is real, and almost complete, there are palliatives that may lessen it to such a degree as to make it, at the worst, supportable, and at the best for some natures even enjoyable in a rather sad and melancholy way.

Let us not deceive ourselves with conventional notions on the subject. The world calls “solitude” that condition in which a man lives outside of “society,” or, in other words, the condition in which he does not pay formal calls and is not invited to state dinners and dances. Such a condition may be very lamentable, and deserving of polite contempt, but it need not be absolute solitude.

Absolute solitude would be the state of Crusoe on the desert island, severed from human kind and never hearing a human voice; but this is not the condition of any one in a civilized country who is out of a prison cell. Suppose that I am travelling in a country where I am a perfect stranger, and that I stay for some days in a village where I do not know a soul. In a surprisingly short time I shall have made acquaintances and begun to acquire rather a home-like feeling in the place. My new acquaintances may possibly not be rich and fashionable: they may be the rural postman, the innkeeper, the stone-breaker on the roadside, the radical cobbler, and perhaps a mason or a joiner and a few more or less untidy little children; but every morning their greeting becomes more friendly, and so I feel myself connected still with that great human race to which, whatever may be my sins against the narrow laws of caste and class, I still unquestionably belong. It is a positive advantage that our meetings should be accidental and not so long as to involve any of the embarrassments of formal social intercourse, as I could not promise myself that the attempt to spend a whole evening with these humble friends might not cause difficulties for me and for them. All I maintain is that these little chance talks and greetings have a tendency to keep me cheerful and preserve me from that moody state of mind to which the quite lonely man exposes himself. As to the substance and quality of our conversations, I amuse myself by comparing them with conversations between more genteel people, and do not always perceive that the disparity is very wide. Poor men often observe external facts with the greatest shrewdness and accuracy, and have interesting things to tell when they see that you set up no barrier of pride against them. Perhaps they do not know much about architecture and the graphic arts, but on these subjects they are devoid of the false pretensions of the upper classes, which is an unspeakable comfort and relief. They teach us many things that are worth knowing. Humble and poor people were amongst the best educators of Shakspeare, Scott, Dickens, Wordsworth, George Eliot. Even old Homer learned from them touches of nature which have done as much for his immortality as the fire of his wrathful kings.

Let me give the reader an example of this chance intercourse just as it really occurred. I was drawing architectural details in and about a certain foreign cathedral, and had the usual accompaniment of youthful spectators who liked to watch me working, as greater folks watch fashionable artists in their studios. Sometimes they rather incommoded me, but on my complaining of the inconvenience, two of the bigger boys acted as policemen to defend me, which they did with stern authority and promptness. After that one highly intelligent little boy brought paper and pencil from his father’s house and set himself to draw what I was drawing. The subject was far too difficult for him, but I gave him a simpler one, and in a very short time he was a regular pupil. Inspired by his example, three other little boys asked if they might do likewise, so I had a class of four. Their manner towards me was perfect,—not a trace of rudeness nor of timidity either, but absolute confidence at once friendly and respectful. Every day when I went to the cathedral at the same hour my four little friends greeted me with such frank and visible gladness that it could neither have been feigned nor mistaken. During our lessons they surprised and interested me greatly by the keen observation they displayed; and this was true more particularly of the bright little leader and originator of the class. The house he lived in was exactly opposite the rich west front of the cathedral; and I found that, young as he was (a mere child), he had observed for himself almost all the details of its sculpture. The statues, groups, bas-reliefs, and other ornaments were all, for him, so many separate subjects, and not a confused enrichment of labored stone-work as they so easily might have been. He had notions, too, about chronology, telling me the dates of some parts of the cathedral and asking me about others. His mother treated me with the utmost kindness and invited me to sketch quietly from her windows. I took a photographer up there, and set his big camera, and we got such a photograph as had been deemed impossible before. Now in all this does not the reader perceive that I was enjoying human intercourse in a very delicate and exquisite way? What could be more charming and refreshing to a solitary student than this frank and hearty friendship of children who caused no perceptible hindrance to his work, whilst they effectually dispelled sad thoughts?

Two other examples may be given from the experience of a man who has often been alone and seldom felt himself in solitude.

I remember arriving, long ago, in the evening at the head of a salt-water loch in Scotland, where in those days there existed an exceedingly small beginning of a watering-place. Soon after landing I walked on the beach with no companion but the beauty of nature and the “long, long thoughts” of youth. In a short time I became aware that a middle-aged Scotch gentleman was taking exercise in the same solitary way. He spoke to me, and we were soon deep in a conversation that began to be interesting to both of us. He was a resident in the place and invited me to his house, where our talk continued far into the night. I was obliged to leave the little haven the next day, but my recollection of it now is like the memorandum of a conversation. I remember the wild romantic scenery and the moon upon the water, and the steamer from Glasgow at the pier; but the real satisfaction of that day consisted in hours of talk with a man who had seen much, observed much, thought much, and was most kindly and pleasantly communicative,—a man whom I had never spoken to before, and have never seen or heard of since that now distant but well-remembered evening.

The other instance is a conversation in the cabin of a steamer. I was alone, in the depth of winter, making a voyage by an unpopular route, and during a long, dark night. It was a dead calm. We were only three passengers, and we sat together by the bright cabin-fire. One of us was a young officer in the British navy, just of age; another was an anxious-looking man of thirty. Somehow the conversation