The Altar Fire

The peace I mean is a frame of mind which a man would have, who loved passionately, who suffered acutely, who desired intensely, who feared greatly; and yet for whom, behind lov...

The child lay sick many days, his guardian still coming to him and sitting with him, with gentle talk and tender offices, till the scene in the garden was like an evil dream; bu...

Alec is ill to-day. He was restless, flushed, feverish, yesterday evening, and I thought he must have caught cold; we put him to bed, and this morning we sent for the doctor. He...

And then how strange to see this beautiful and delicate confession put into so narrow and constrained a shape! It is the most artificial by far of all the psalms. The writer has...

Maud has been ailing of late--how much it is impossible to say, because she is always cheerful and indomitable. She never complains, she never neglects a duty; but I have found...

I have had a very bad time of late. It seems futile to say anything about it, and the plain man would rub his eyes, and wonder where the misery lay. I have been perfectly well,...

He came, in the morning. One has only to set eyes upon him to know that one is in the presence of a hero, to feel that his poetry just streams from him like light from the sun;...

An old friend has been staying with us, a very interesting man for many reasons, but principally for the fact that he combines two sets of qualities that are rarely found togeth...

It will perhaps be said, and truly felt, that the following is a morbid book. No doubt the subject is a morbid one, because the book deliberately gives a picture of a diseased s...

"Could he not give up the search?" said Maud, smiling tearfully. "Ah, not yet," I said. "You do not know, Maud, what my work has been to me--no man can ever explain that to any...

The danger of art as an occupation is that one uses life, looks at life, as so much material for one's art. Life becomes a province of art, instead of art being a province of li...

I have been looking at a catalogue, this morning, of the publications of a firm that is always bringing out new editions of old writers. I suppose they find a certain sale for t...

I have been thinking all day long of my last walk with Alec, the day before he was taken ill. Maud had gone out with Maggie; and the little sturdy figure came to my room to ask...

It sometimes happens to me--I suppose it happens to every one--to hear some well-meaning person play or sing at a party. Last night, at the Simpsons', a worthy young man, who wa...

I have just heard of the sudden death of an old friend. Francis Willett was a writer of some distinction, whose acquaintance I made in my first years in London. He was a tall, s...

Now what do I honestly feel about all this? I will try for my own benefit to say. Of course I am very much pleased, but the odd thing is that I am not more pleased. I can say qu...

He lived to see his adopted son grow up to maturity; and I do not think I ever saw anything so beautiful as the confidence and affection that subsisted between them; and then he...

Down in the valley which runs below the house is a mill. I passed it to-day at dusk, and I thought I had never seen so characteristically English a scene. The wheel was silent,...

Our new house is charming, beautiful, homelike. It is an old stone building, formerly a farm; it has a quaint garden and orchard, and the wooded hill runs up steeply behind, wit...

The old man sate down again, smiling, and pointed me to a chair. The other two left us; and there followed what was to me a very memorable conversation. "We must make the best u...

Another visitor! I am not sure that his visit is not a more distinguished testimonial than any I have yet received. He is a young Don with a very brilliant record indeed. He wro...

And then, too, I suppose that writing down my thoughts from day to day just eased the dumb pain of inaction, as the sick man shifts himself in his bed. Anyhow it is written, and...