A few years ago, one of them placed on record his pious delight at the closeness with which Dr. Pusey's theological system resembled that of Mr. Jowett. He seemed to think that we are all of us getting year by year into closer agreement, and that the golden mean toward which all are gravitating is that hazy creed which looms vaguely upon the inner vision of Dean Stanley.
THE SAGACIOUS WIG.
I.
A wig may be said to have two lives—the one with its own head, the other with its adopted head, or rather the head which adopts it; it has, therefore, a double chance for wisdom, and might be expected to profit accordingly. Generally speaking, this is the case, and wig and wisdom are almost synonymous.
Such wonderful tales had been told in a certain shop, by wigs that came back to be fixed a little, of the glory of their new abodes—wigs shorn from the very dregs of the people—from heads that had never been combed or petted or cared for—from heads houseless and hatless, that had been rained on and hailed on, and now in their second life dwelt in splendor unmitigated—that their discourses fairly curled up tighter every wig in the place. The shop had proved but a stepping-stone to blissful companionship with wits and statesmen; they reposed on the brows of sages and philosophers, shared the applauses of the multitude with popular orators, listened to the eloquence born of champagne and gaslight, and won the smiles and flirted with sweet ladies on Turkish divans and velvet fauteuils; all this and more, the wigs who came back had to relate. No wonder hopes were raised in each that went forth—hopes often delusive.
II.
If the few hairs which made a kind of rim round the head of Martin Tryterlittle had chosen to speak when he first clapped a wig on his bald crown, (bald though not yet old,) they could have told a long story, or rather a succession of many stories, of hope, expectation, and disappointment in the three great walks of life—money-making, love-making, and fame-making. Striving, ever striving, he hardly paused to look back at the profitless path he had trodden. The meeting accidentally with an old school-chum in fine broadcloth, or the ultra urgency of his landlady or some other disagreeable creditor, gave him occasionally more vivid views of things, and at such times he indulged in indignant and certainly very disrespectful language toward mankind in general and some individuals in particular; but generally his mood was patient endurance.
Success in life was an enigma. There was Job Lovemee, who began his career by ridiculously marrying a girl as poor as himself, and blessed since with six children, was getting as rich as a nabob; "while I," said Martin, "with no such drawbacks, am as poor as a church mouse."
It was a pleasant bright spring morning when Martin Tryterlittle suddenly resolved to turn over a new leaf in his book of life and mend its story.