We walked on together, both of us silent, till we came to Glaucus’s rooms. “Farewell,” said he. I replied that I would come in to see whether I could help him to make arrangements for his journey. He said nothing, but suffered me to enter. For some time I busied myself with practical matters. So did Glaucus. But every now and then he stopped, and sat down as though dazed. I questioned him about his journey and time of starting. Finding that only two or three hours remained, I urged him to rouse himself. “It will be of no use,” he said, “but you are right.” Then he exclaimed bitterly, “Am I not obeying Epictetus? Am I not making myself a stone?” “Not quite,” said I, “for a stone feels nothing. You are worse than a stone. For you feel much, yet do nothing to help those for whom you feel.” “Thank you for that,” said he. Then he roused himself. He did injustice to Epictetus, yet I perceived, as never before, how harmful this “stone-doctrine”—if I may so call it—might prove to many people.

I have no space, nor have I the right, to describe more fully Glaucus’s private affairs, the courage, affection, and steadfastness with which he bore the burdens of his family and saved his father and sister from their worst extremity. His course was different from Arrian’s. Arrian remained outside the fold. Glaucus found peace as I did. And I know that many a suffering soul in Corinth suffered the less because Glaucus, having experienced such a weight of sorrow himself, had[281] learned the secret of lightening it for others. He died young, thirty years ago, but he lived long enough to “fight the good fight.”

Our last words together, as he was in the act of departing, I remember well: “What was that you said to me, Silanus, about waiting and having one’s strength renewed?” It was from Isaiah. I repeated it. Then I added, “But I spoke the words, I fear, because I had once felt them to be true. I did not quite feel them to be true at the moment when I repeated them to you. Perhaps I was not quite honest, or at least not quite frank.” “Then you don’t hold to them now?” said he. “God knows,” said I. “Sometimes I do, sometimes I do not. For the most part I think I do. I believe that there is good beneath all the evil, if only we could see it, or at least good in the end, good far off.” “Then” replied he, “you believe, perhaps, in a good God?” “I hope I may hereafter believe,” said I, “nay, I am almost certain I believe in a good God now. But, if I do, it is in a God that is fighting against evil, a God that may perhaps share in our afflictions and in our troubles.” “What?” said he, “you, a pupil of Epictetus, believe that God Himself can be troubled! Then of course you believe that a good man may be troubled?” “Indeed I do,” said I. “At least I half believe it about God, and wholly about man.” “Then you think I have a right to be troubled. You are a heretic.” “We are heretics together,” said I. “You have a right to be troubled, and I to be troubled with you.” “Thank you, and thank the Gods, for that at least!” said he. “Do you know,” said I, “that I am certain that Epictetus felt troubled too, for your sake? I saw him when he did not see me, as I was leaving the room; and I could not be mistaken.” “Ah!” said Glaucus, drawing in his breath. Then suddenly, as we were clasping hands in our last farewell, he added “Do not think too much about those scrawls!” And before I had time to ask his meaning, he had ridden away.

Returning to my rooms, I put away my lecture-notes and took out the gospels. But I could not read, and longed to be in the fresh air. As I rose from my seat to go out, my first thought was, “I will take no books with me.” But Mark[282] happened to be in my hand, the smallest of the gospels. “This,” I said, “will be no weight.” But it weighed a great deal in the rest of my life, as the reader will soon see.

Before long, unconsciously seeking familiar solitudes, I found myself on the way to the little coppice where some days ago I had seen Hesperus above the departed sun, and Isaiah had shed on me the influence of his promise of peace. “Now,” said I sadly to myself, “I have with me a book that calls itself the fulfilment of that promise. But it fulfils nothing for me.” As I spoke, and drew the book from the folds of my garment, several pieces of paper fell on the ground. When I picked them up, I found—what I had completely forgotten—Glaucus’s “scrawls.” I thought they would contain some requests to perform commissions for him in Nicopolis, or to convey messages to friends, and that he might have written these in the lecture-room when he expected to hear news that might call him suddenly away. But they were something quite different. The first that I opened was entitled “A Postscript,” written in verse, rallying me upon my advice about “waiting.” It shewed me how Glaucus, too, had been affected, not only by the lecture that drove him from the room, but also by that saying of Epictetus concerning Zeus (“He would have if he could have”) which had disturbed me so much. It was wildly written as Glaucus himself confessed: but I will give it here, because—besides being a rebuke to me, and to all teachers that preach a gospel they do not feel—it shews how Epictetus himself, the perfection of honesty, stirred up in an honest and truthful pupil questionings and doubts that he could not satisfy or silence:

POSTSCRIPT.
If you, my Silanus
(Who think hopelessness heinous,
And lectured me lately
So sweetly, sedately.
Discussing, dilating,
I will not say “prating,”
On the great use of waiting,
You, whom I respected
But never suspected,
[283]
Never, no never,
Of being so clever)
Would but do your endeavour
To find more rhymes for “ever,”
Then cease would I never
But rhyme on for ever,
Like that horrible lecture,
Our Master’s conjecture,
About Zeus, a kind creature,
Whose principal feature
Was his frankly regretting
That the Fates keep upsetting,
By their cruel preventions,
His noble intentions;
“’Tis not that I would not,
But I could not, I could not,”
So said Zeus in a lecture
Our Master’s conjecture.

P.S. Mad, isn’t it? But isn’t the lecture madder?

P.P.S. I do hope and trust the Master is mad. I must go out.

The larger “scrawl” touched me more nearly because it condemned those who indulge in “self-deceiving” and “call it believing”—a thing that Scaurus dreaded, and taught me to dread; and I was in special dread of it at that time. I have been in doubt whether to give this in full. But I am sure Glaucus, now in peace, would not take it amiss that his wild words of trouble should be recorded if they may help others who have lost peace for a time. So I give it to the reader just as Glaucus gave it to me. Outside was written, in large letters, “RUSTICUS EXPECTAT.” Before the verses came a letter in prose as follows:

Rusticus sends greeting to Silanus.

I am scrawling you a little poem, Silanus, to distract myself from this accursed lecture, lest Epictetus should make me absolutely sick with his nauseating stuff about the duty of sons not to be troubled by the troubles of their parents. Some days ago you gave me some edifying advice. Here is the answer to it—a little drama.

Dramatis personae only two:—(1) Rusticus, for shortness called Hodge, i.e. Glaucus the Rustic, or perhaps Glaucus persuaded by Silanus, so that Glauco-Silanus is the true Rustic, unless you like to take the r?le entirely for yourself. Anyhow Hodge is a great fool; (2) The River, i.e. Destiny, alias[284] Fate, alias Zeus, alias the God of Epictetus, alias the Whirlpool of the All, alias Nothing in Particular.

The metre is appropriate to the subject matter, i.e. whirlpooly, eddyish, chaotic. There is no villain. The River would be if it could. But it can’t—not being able to help being what it is—like Zeus, you know, who said in our lecture-room recently, “I would if I could but I couldn’t.” Hodge starves or drowns. This should make a tragedy. But he is such a fool that he turns it into a comedy—for the amusement of the Gods. They are intensely amused—which perhaps should turn the thing back again into a tragedy. Comedy or tragedy? Or tragicomedy? Or burlesque? I give it up. The one thing certain is, Chaos!

RUSTICUS EXPECTAT.
Hodge sits by the river
Awaiting, awaiting.
Across he is going
If it will but stop flowing.
But when? There’s no knowing.
He dare not try swimming
In those waves full and brimming.
On foot there’s no going,
And there’s no chance of rowing.
So there he sits blinking
And calling it “thinking”!
God nor man can deliver
His soul from that river,
But Hodge won’t believe it
His soul can’t receive it!
Himself he’s deceiving,
But he styles it “believing”!
So this simpleton artless
To a THING that is heartless
Prays!—yes, takes to praying
In the hope of its staying
His soul to deliver:
“Good river, kind river,
Across I’d be going
If you would but stop flowing
Stay! pity my moping!
I’m hoping, I’m hoping
That you won’t flow for ever.
Oh, say, will you never
Cease flowing, cease flowing?
Across I’d be going,
[285]
Rest! Flow not for ever!”
Says the river, deep river:
“I care not a stiver
For all your long waiting
And praying and prating
And whining and pining
And hoping and moping.
Wait, if you like waiting,
Prate, if you like prating,
Pray, if you like praying,
But think not I’m staying,
Dream not I’m delaying
For a man and his praying,
For his smiling or frowning,
His swimming or drowning.
Hope, if you’re for hoping,
Mope, if you’re for moping,
I’m not made for consoling
But for rolling and rolling
For ever.
Time’s stream none can sever.
Then cease your endeavour
Your soul to deliver
By coaxing the river.
Cease shall I never
But flow on for ever
FOR EVER.”

I was walking slowly onward, with the paper in my hand, my eyes bent on the ground. Suddenly a shadow, and a courteous salutatio............