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BOOK V.
"FOOLS blind to truth; nor know their erring soul
How much the half is better than the whole."
—HESIOD: Op. et Dies, 40.
CHAPTER I.
Do as the Heavens have done; forget your evil;
With them, forgive yourself.—The Winter's Tale.
. . . The sweet'st companion that e'er man
Bred his hopes out of.—Ibid.
THE curate of Brook-Green was sitting outside his door. The vicarage which he inhabited was a straggling, irregular, but picturesque building,—humble enough to suit the means of the curate, yet large enough to accommodate the vicar. It had been built in an age when the indigentes et pauperes for whom universities were founded supplied, more than they do now, the fountains of the Christian ministry, when pastor and flock were more on an equality.