They still spent their evenings at the cottage, and they still continued their readings. But the schoolboy days were past; their guide began to put serious books into their hands. His library was not large, but he could borrow of a compatriot, a bookseller in Soho. He therefore introduced the boys to such writers as Chateaubriand, Prosper Mérimée, Alexis de Tocqueville, Victor Hugo, Lamartine, Alfred de Musset, Béranger, and he made certain sparing use of the older writers, such as Montaigne, Rabelais Molière, Marot and the great tragedians. The boys read these works before they read any English literature at all. They knew, which is strange, Béranger before they knew Shakespeare, and Victor Hugo before Milton. They did a great deal of massive reading in those years, and acquired a vast quantity of ideas.

     
When the boys got promotion, which came in due course, and when it was found that they knew French and could write it, and were consequently rewarded with salaries which gave them money to spend, Allen began to buy books. Every boy who loves reading knows the joy of seeing his shelf fill up and overflow into other shelves, until a whole bookcase is filled up — yea, even a whole house, a house of the largest size. And then he began to plough his delightful way through the English poets. Yet the interruption to reading caused by the eight hours of work at his desk was very grievous to him, And he made no friends among his fellow clerks.

     
‘Out of the boy who is always reading,’ said Hector to himself, ‘comes, if he is properly looked after, the man who writes.’

     
He watched the boy more carefully. He saw that Allen now neglected his French books and read nothing but English, and principally English poetry.

     
He observed that the boy would go away by himself into the forest, book in hand. He followed him and saw him, alone as he thought, reading aloud and declaiming. He began to wonder what, if anything, would come of it. And he congratulated himself on his own teaching, because in one thing he was successful — he had made both boys ambitious.

     
If you consider, you will find that every Frenchman knows, what few Englishmen ever learn, that what one man has done another can do. He therefore respects himself as much as he respects the great men of history. The magnanimity of Scipio, the heroism of Horatius the wisdom of Cato, the eloquence of Demosthenes the genius of Hannibal — all these qualities may,

he thinks, be united in himself. These boys had learned the same lesson. They believed in themselves.

     
The time passed by. While it improved the appearance of the young, it played tricks, as usual, with the middle-aged. Time did not knock out Hector’s teeth, nor make him bald, nor did it cripple his legs, nor did it put chalk stones in his knuckles, as he does to some unfortunates; but it turned his once black hair into a creamy white, beard and all, which made him resemble one of the Seven Sages, but I do not know which. They all had white hair, white beards, and bright eyes; they also had, I am sure, deep and sweet voices like this man, their successor.

     
Time, also, made Will a great strong fellow of six feet, with broad shoulders and sturdy limbs, as comely a lad as one may look to see anywhere. Allen was of slighter build, and he had already at eighteen acquired the stoop of those who read. His features were regular, his eyes full and lustrous. With a young man’s regard for appearance he carried an eye-glass, but in his pocket lay the glasses with which he read and wrote.

     
On Will’s face was written the brave resolve to succeed; on Allen’s a curious, triumphant look, as of one who has already succeeded. Will’s face was generally grave, because, though many resolve to succeed, few carry out that resolution. Many long to travel on the same road as Dick Whittington, but cannot find their way. Yet the air of London is charged with the stories of those who. have succeeded: the pavement is worn with the steps of those who have succeeded. He would get on somehow. He must find out the way sometime.

     
Allen never felt any doubt or despondency at all. He held his head high, as one who has already succeeded; his eyes were triumphant; he was a young conqueror, because in imagination he had already succeeded, and because the success of which he dreamed can be won at a single bound, and because it is success in a line in which there are not many rivals, and because it is success of a kind not desired by the practical.

     
We have not forgotten Olinthus. He had long since left them, yet he lived in the village and was still one of them. His future looked bright; his uncle had already promoted him to a place of some trust; he thought the way was clear before him. In person he had not attained quite to the proportions of Apollo, his lines being laid for strength rather than for grace. Compared with the other two he was like a Portsmouth wherry laid up in Haslar Creek beside a racing yacht; he was short and thickset. In order to prevent him from repining, and by way of compensation — kind Nature is always dealing out compensation and making up for things — he was endowed at the outset with an excellent opinion of his own beauty, abilities, and attractions. He fancied himself as much as Narcissus, and had
there been anywhere in the Forest, a clear fountain, I am satisfied

that he would have imitated that self-conscious shepherd, perhaps to his own undoing. Besides this, he was a young man possessed of great good-humour and natural amiability. These excellent qualities shone, visible to all observers, on his large, round, shiny face, wreathed in perpetual smiles. Few things conduce to make a man uniformly cheerful more than a good opinion of himself. Wives should remember this fact and foster such an opinion, especially on days when contentment is wanted for cold mutton and herbs therewith. Upon his cards was written his really magnificent name, Mr. Olinthus Gallaway; but to his friends and all who love him he will ever remain plain Tommy.

     
Hector no longer treated them as boys — they were young men with whom he could converse as equals. They were men — he could reveal himself in his true light. He could even confess his sentiments on the nature of his occupation.

     
‘Tomorrow,’ he said sorrowfully, one day towards the end of January, ‘tomorrow I return to my classes. You think,
then, perhaps, that I love them — my classes — hein? Listen! I will tell you a thing. I abhor them.’ He spread out both his hands in the attitude of detestation. ‘I shrink from them. If it were not for Claire, I would jump out of this frying-pan, which scorches and broils — yes, still, after twenty years and more — into the fire, which burns. I would cross the Channel. I would go to the gendarmerie of Calais. I would say —— “Behold me! it is Philipon, the man of the Barricades; you would have sent him to Cayenne. He gives himself up, he surrenders; send him, then, to exile.” Yes, my friends, but for Claire, who would weep, I would brave the danger of the voyage, I would be a convict with my brethren.’

     
He forgot that the empire which would have sent him there was gone, and that there was no more any reason why he should go to Cayenne at all, even if he did land at Calais. But the habit of regarding himself still as a refugee was too strong. Everybody knew, of course, that he was a French exile; it was rumoured that an immense price had been set upon his head, and it was believed that the Emperor — while Sedan was yet afar off — had often declared that he should know no rest till Hector Philipon was in a dungeon.

     
‘Behold,’ he went on to the astonished boys, ‘the irony of fate! I, who love all women, because they are women; I who would believe them faultless — have to spend my life in finding out the faults of undeveloped woman — Girl. I would give them nothing but pleasure yet I give them continual pain. It seemed to me, at first, incredible. Dionysius certainly became a schoolmaster, but he had alleviations. He was allowed to teach boys. He could therefore flog them, whip them, beat them, reward them with good strokes of foot and hand. You cannot beat — Girl. You may not throw books at — Girl. You must not suffer your-self to grow angry with — Girl. If you do, she laughs; she

rejoices; she triumphs. Such, my friend, is the true disposition of Girl.’

     
On the subject of Girl he was eloquent, even after twenty years of teaching. Time, the great consoler, could not reconcile him with his occupation.

     
‘I was at first,’ he said, ‘unhappy and humiliated. I felt as if my goddess had been torn from me. But an inspiration — no doubt from her — made me separate Woman — whom I love — from Girl — whom I abhor. I regained my divinity. Woman smiled and became once more the giver of love and joy. As for Girl, she is not Woman at all. She is not like her in any respect: Woman has a figure to ravish the beholder’s eyes; Girl is bony and makes her elbows to be felt. Woman thinks always in kindness; Girl nourishes hatred. Woman is confident of herself; Girl is jealous and suspicious. Woman inspires poetry; Girl has no imagination. When woman puts on dress. she becomes a Parisienne; Girl puts on dress and remains — Girl. Woman always tries to please; Girl, never. En fin, she is not Woman. She is, if you please, caterpillar, grub, chrysalis. Can one love a chrysalis?

     
‘Again, can one love a creature who cannot learn the verb irregular, who steals her exercises, copies her translation, and looks over her neighbour’s shoulders at the dictée who even makes grimaces — figure to yourself a Venus making grimaces; who pinches — yes, pinches — her companions? I understand the prudence of French mothers who confide their girls to the care of nuns. It is in order that men should not behold the chrysalis. But I am unhappy no longer. I have returned to my old worship. I say, “This is not Woman; this is Girl.”’

     
These revolutionary sentiments were not uttered in the presence of his daughter. Claire knew that her father regarded his pupils with feelings which admitted of no favouritism except that of the least dislike. But she did not know, and would not have understood, the distinction which he drew between Girl and Woman. He spoke also of graver things, of the Great Revolution, and her daughters, and of what they mean.

     
‘I was born,’ he said, ‘when the Bourbons, who had learned nothing and forgotten nothing, had been back for ten years. I have conversed with many who remembered the beginning of the Revolution. Some of them had not forgotten its ideas and its
phrases; they spoke still — though it was not the time for such
words — of the Sovereign People, the Rights of Man, and oppressed Humanity. To them a Priest was an accursed hypocrite; a King was a sanguinary tyrant; and the voice of the People was the voice of God.

     
‘They were phrases — yes; phrases. Yet, remember, before the Revolution there were no people, there was only a mob. Do you know what La Bruyère said?

     
‘“I see cetain wild animals scattered over the fields; black,

livid, burnt by the sun, bound to the earth. They have an articulate voice, and when they rise on their feet, they show a human form and are, in fact, men.”

     
‘It was a great thing to have made a people out of a herd — a flock. When the people found out themselves they began to dream greater things. I, too, my friends, being young and generous, dreamed with the others, and told my dream.’

     
His voice sank and he went on talking, as if to himself, in deep musical tone.

     
‘The world for mankind. Yes — for whom else should it be? But they made mistakes. They talked of the Rights of Man. Yet the weak must be defeated. Is that a Right? There must also be rich and poor. Is it a right — to be poor? They talked of the Voice of the People and the Voice of God. How is one to recognise that Voice? I have sought for it, but I have never been able to hear it. Is the utterer of that Voice perchance a priest? Or if the people were to speak would they ask for more than sleep and idleness, with dancing, and feasting, and love-making? Is that the Voice of God?

     
‘They told us that the people are full of generous aspirations. There have been four Revolutions. I do not remember any generous deeds or noble thoughts from the crowd. There have been guillotine and hanging à la lanterne, with pikes and heads upon them and barricades. But I do not remember to have heard of mercy or forgiveness, or any virtue at all. Wherefore I now think that noble thoughts descend not to the ignorant and the unlearned.’

     
The young men listened without interrupting.

     
‘When a man gets the idea of humanity into his head it never leaves him. Never, never. He is henceforth doomed to think of his brother-man To comprehend, even but a little, humanity, is to fill the brain. As for us, we meant well, but we hoped too much from governments. That is the mistake we always make; the thing we search for lies at our feet, we may stoop and pick it up, but we expect a government to do it for us. The Republic follows the Empire, yet the people remain the same, for even a Republic brings us no nearer the dream.’

     
‘Yet if it is a noble dream,’ said Will, ‘you would not have it die.’

     
‘It cannot die.’

     
’Will you tell us what it is — the dream?’ asked Allen.

     
‘No. There are some things, such as this dream, which cannot be taught and must be found out. It may be found by both of you, but it will be in different forms.’

     
About this time a grievous doubt and perplexity fell upon the philosopher. He asked himself whether he had done right in putting into the heads of these young men knowledge of all kinds which might only make them discontented. He was

wrong to doubt. Discontent hurts no young man unless it is accompanied by laziness, when it is the Devil. As for knowledge, there is no position which is not rendered happier by its possession. I once knew a man whose business it was to tramp from office to office selling pens and books; in the evening he read and taught himself all kinds of things. His life was hallowed by his evenings. I have known a waiter who read the ‘Saturday Review’ regularly and was a happy waiter; and I have known a policeman who found food for thought when on his beat by recollections of Herbert Spencer. He was a contented policeman.

     
‘My daughter,’ he asked, ’have I done well?’

     
Claire did not know exactly what he meant and therefore replied, in general terms, ‘that he always did well.’

     
‘Have I done well,’ he repeated, ‘for these young men? There is not a better educated couple of young men in London, yet they are only clerks, and may remain servants all their lives unless they get a chance. Fate is sometimes malignant. They may never get the chance. Yet I cannot believe that these two boys, who know so much and can think and reason, will remain where they are.’

     
One day a Thought came to him. It was a half-holiday, and he was gardening among his lettuces, clad in the blue blouse which protected his shirt front and white waistcoat. It was a Thought so great, so splendid, so magnificent, that for the moment it intoxicated him and he reeled to and fro as one who had drunk strong drink. When he partly recovered from this first shock his Thought flared up in his brain like an electric light, as bright as a little sun or two, insomuch that he was blinded by its splendour. It took him half an hour, or thereabouts, to recover his sight, and then his cabbages looked every one like a great Koh-i-noor cliamoncl, so bright was the splendour of this Thought. Next, the thought began to bellow in his ear, like the roar of cannons, or the blast of brazen trumpets, with the clashing of cymbals, the beating of big drums, and the musical roll of mighty organs, and all the time as bright as before. Finally, the Thought, still in this intense light and amid this unearthly instrumental clang, flew at him, banged him from side to side, shook him to and fro, thwacked him on the shoulder, buffeted him on either cheek, and finally doubled him up so that he fell backwards into the wheelbarrow among the cabbage-stalks, and weeds, and dead leaves — an undignified situation for one who never forgot his dignity.

     
All really great Thoughts are thus masterful when they first seek to possess a man. The history of great Thoughts is, in fact, one of the few really important subjects which remain to be written, The case of Peter the Hermit, for instance, may be compared with that of Hector Philipon. Peter’s Thought came to him one night in his cell, He wrongly received it as if

it was a diabolical visitation, or the result of indigestion, and he wrestled with it all through the night but met defeat and discomfiture, and was found in the morning by a brother hermit — who had peacefully slept through the whole of the combat, dreaming of nothing but lentils, and beans, and pulse — fairly doubled up, limp and shattered, a thread-paper, all the conceit knocked out of him, and in the disposition of his shattered frame like unto a cocked hat. The story was published in the last century by Mr. Dicey, of Northampton, in a chap book, illustrated by a curious cut showing the holy man on a shutter after the clapper-clawing of the Thought. Christopher Columbus, on the other hand, made no resistance, but obeyed at once, and allowed the Thought to take possession like a bailiff. In his case it was a voice which called, a finger which pointed, a hand which pushed, day and night, so that he could never rest, never sleep, never sit down, never speak of anything unless in obedience to the perpetual admonition of that Thought. As was Christopher, so was our Hector. He accepted the Thought after the briefest resistance, and allowed it henceforth to guide and rule him.

     
If that Thought had not come to Hector Philipon this history would never have been written. If that Thought had not seized him one knows not what lives of discontent, unsatisfied desire, and thwarted ambition might have been the lot of these two clerks. And yet they do not know the history of this supreme moment, this wrestling and defeat. One can hardly guess in what words, did they know it, their gratitude could be expressed.