The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-04-27

man, and Italian quite fluently, and
to play and sing and ride-in short,
my mother made a fetish Of my edu-
cation, and sacrificed to it much that
she would have found pleasant. We
were in the most cultivated set, in
Florence, Rome, Dresden, or any CT
the other places where we stayed. I
heard all the jargon of the day about
advanced thought, and the out-worn
nature of religion, and the narrow
ness of creeds and the righteousness
of dogma. I was so used to hear peo-
pie say that their notions were too
wide to be shut up in any one church
that I grew to believe it to be true. 1t
never struck me to wonder whether
they had ever considered what they
that, if they rubbed away all the ed
ges of their opinions till they We're
vague and indefinite, they might de-
scribe themselves as broad. Nor did
means prevents shallowness, but
sometimes, on the contrary, connotes
it. Breadth was the only dimension
they thought necessary for their
views. Height and depth were left
out. There was no true proportion
in their thought. All, well, some
times there comes over me again what
I felt when-long afterwards-I
+, oh ToI ,,,,c x-ic-
ion of the City of God. Do you re-
member? The first thing he noticed
about it was that the length and the
breadth and the height of it were
equal. 1t was perfectly proportion
ed. :. have thought, since, that
with regard to marriage, with regard
to all questions that agitate us so
much to-day,this one thing stands out
clear. We like latitude. We don't
want the other two dimensions. nee
essary though they are, to make the
perfect whole"
ct never thought of that" said Yer
non quickly.
We'll! There I was, aged twenty
two, as self-satisfied a young person
as you could meet in long days
walk. I thought I knew everything,
and I was sure that the life led was
I'm all respects exemplary. 1 used to
visit in a hospital, and I belonged to
a. dozen philanthropic leagues, and
societies for giving mezzotints to poor
people to hang on their walls, and
for Christmas dinners for old horses,
and every kind Of faddfsm run mad.
On Sundays used to go to classical
concerts, and picture galleries, and to
Stage Society performances, where I
saw the people who had not latitude
made fun Of, very successfully
II was quite certain that my little
set alone, of all who ever came into
being, understood the meaning of the
blessed word Progress which was
always on our lips. The chief way
in which we inculcated progress was
by earnestly denying the doctrine Of
personal responsibility We told each
other, and especially the poor, that
.weswere allT the sport of circum=
stance, and that, if circumstances
were comfortable, we should all be
good and happy, as soon as the mar
row influence of our poor benighted
ancestors wore itself OUT
"You thought" broke in Vernon,
puzzled, tthat we are all the sport Of
circumstances, and yet you thought
that you could control circumstances,
quite easily?"
20 dear, yes; we found it a most
cheering belief. And we added to
this the delightful theory that. it was
our duty to try to be as happy as We
could-that happiness was an end
the end-to be striven for. OF course,
our ideals of what constituted true
happiness were lofty in the extreme
sometimes laugh as think how dis
honest I was with myself-of the
what I suppose was the remnant of
my conscience, that I was justified in
doing exactly what I liked, on the
highest grounds.
We'll! one of my pastimes was be-
longing to an amateur orchestral Soc
iety, of very high merit to which it
was hard to gain admission. L play
ed the violin we'll, If I may say so to
you without conceit. had been ex-
cellently taught, and I was fond of
it, so there is no great merit in the
fact that l did it WE'LL He-Cecil-
was in the same orchestra. He play
ed the 'cello-marvellously. We made
great friends. Soon, he was constant
ly at the flat where Miss Brett and
I lived in much comfort on the in
come that to my dear mother had
seemed SO inadequate.
Go BE Continued,