264 FRESH FIELDS 



he would serve; deeply absorbed in the social and 

 political problems of his time, and yet able to arrive 

 at no adequate practical solution of them; passion- 

 ately religious, and yet repudiating all creeds and 

 forms of worship; despising the old faiths, and dis- 

 gusted with the new ; honoring science, and acknow- 

 ledging his debt to it, yet drawing back with horror 

 from conclusions to which science seemed inevit- 

 ably to lead; essentially a man of action, of deeds, 

 of heroic fibre, yet forced to become a "writer of 

 books ; " a democrat who denounced democracy ; a 

 radical who despised radicalism; "a Puritan with- 

 out a creed." 



These things measure the depth of his sincerity; 

 he never lost heart or hope, though heart and hope 

 had so little that was tangible to go upon. He had 

 the piety and zeal of a religious devotee, without 

 the devotee's comforting belief; the fiery earnest- 

 ness of a reformer, without the reformer's definite 

 aims; the spirit of science, without the scientific 

 coolness and disinterestedness ; the heart of a hero, 

 without the hero's insensibilities; he had strag- 

 glings, wrestlings, agonizings, without any sense of 

 victory; his foes were invisible and largely imagi- 

 nary, but all the more terrible and unconquerable 

 on that account. Verily was he lonely, heavy 

 laden, and at best full of "desperate hope." His 

 own work, which was accomplished with such pains 

 and labor throes, gave him no satisfaction. When 

 he was idle, his demon tormented him with the 

 cry, " Work, work ; " and when he was toiling at 



