repentance was--I WILL ARISE AND GO TO MY FATHER. The omissions in
Morris's comment were striking. There was no word of the orthodox
machinery of forgiveness. It was through Morris that the Bible
became what it always has been to me. It has not solved directly
any of the great problems which disturb my peace, and Morris seldom
touched them controversially, but he uncovered such a wealth of
wonder and beauty in it that the problems were forgotten.

Lord Bacon was Morris's hero, both for his method and his personal
character. These were the days before the researches of Spedding,
when Bacon was supposed to be a mass of those impossible paradoxes
in which Macaulay delighted. To Morris, Bacon's Submission and his
renunciation of all defence were sufficient. With what pathos he
repeated Bacon's words when the Lords asked him whether the
subscription to the Submission was in his own hand. "My Lords, it
is my act, my hand, my heart. I beseech your Lordships, be merciful
to a broken reed."

There is nothing more to be said about Chapman's. I left after an
offer of partnership, which, it is needless to say, I did not
accept. Mr. Whitbread obtained for me a clerkship in the Registrar-
General's office, Somerset House. I was there two or three years,
and was then transferred to the Admiralty. Meanwhile I had married.

The greater part of my life has been passed in what it is now usual
to contemn as the Victorian age. Whatever may be the justice of the
scorn poured out upon it by the superior persons of the present
generation, this Victorian age was distinguished by an enthusiasm
which can only be compared to a religious revival. Maud was read at
six in the morning as I walked along Holborn; Pippa Passes late at