In my last paper I quoted Matthew Arnold's lines--
"Tasks in hours of insight willed May be through hours of gloom fulfilled."
"_Les beaux esprits se rencontrent_," and it will perhaps interest some of you, as it has done myself, to hear that Professor Tyndall used to say of Professor Faraday that "in his warm moments he formed a resolution and in his cool ones he made that resolution good." We cannot all be active scientists or philanthropists, but let us end this little study by resolving that we will be less discouraged and hindered by difficulties in our own special work, or by the consideration of what we are apt to deem our unfitness for the appointed task, our own inadequacy, than we have hitherto been.
"With one hand work and with the other pray, And God shall bless them both from day to day."
A TALE OF THE FRANCO-ENGLISH WAR NINETY YEARS AGO.
BY AGNES GIBERNE, Author of "Sun, Moon and Stars," "The Girl at the Dower House," etc.
Roy did not soon lose sight of those words of Ivor--"Why, Roy, don't you know that you are the one bit of cheer left to us?"
He had not perhaps hitherto been more disposed to put himself into the place of another than most boys of thirteen; but the events of the last few months had tended to make him thoughtful; and close intercourse with Ivor could hardly fail to pull him mentally upwards.
Denham was not only considerably better educated and better read than the average young officer of his day--a matter for congratulation in respect of Roy's present education--but also his intellectual gifts were well above the average level. The main force of the man lay, however, rather in the direction of character than of pure intellect. There was about him a soldierly directness and simplicity, and a thoroughness which often belongs to that type of nature. Whatever might befall, he would do his duty, not only with no thought of consequences to himself, but in the most direct and complete mode possible.
He was a good man as well as a most gallant soldier, and that in the best sense of the word. He was one who might say little, but who would at all costs do what he believed to be right. He was honourable, true, pure-minded, chivalrous towards women, tender towards little children, reverent and faithful towards his God. He was indomitable in courage, when he faced a foe; but so soon as fighting ceased he would be the first to succour a wounded enemy. All this means largely, as has been earlier stated, that Denham Ivor had taken shape under the influence and the example of John Moore. Ivor was the pupil, Moore the master.