in arm, and conversing so profoundly.

'Who, do you think, was the topic?' Victor asked.

She would not chase the little blue butterfly of a guess.

CHAPTER XIX

TREATS OF NATURE AND CIRCUMSTANCE AND THE DISSENSION BETWEEN THEM AND OF
A SATIRIST'S MALIGNITY IN THE DIRECTION OF HIS COUNTRY

There is at times in the hearts of all men of active life a vivid wild
moment or two of dramatic dialogue between the veteran antagonists,
Nature and Circumstance, when they, whose business it should be to be
joyfully one, furiously split; and the Dame is up with her shrillest
querulousness to inquire of her offspring, for the distinct original
motive of his conduct. Why did he bring her to such a pass! And what is
the gain? If he be not an alienated issue of the great Mother, he will
strongly incline to her view, that he put himself into harness to join
with a machine going the dead contrary way of her welfare; and thereby
wrote himself donkey, for his present reading. Soldiers, heroes, even the
braided, even the wearers of the gay cock's feathers, who get the honours
and the pocket-pieces, know the moment of her electrical eloquence. They
have no answer for her, save an index at the machine pushing them on yet
farther under the enemy's line of fire, where they pluck the golden
wreath or the livid, and in either case listen no more. They glorify her
topping wisdom while on the march to confound it. She is wise in her way.
But, it is asked by the disputant, If we had followed her exclusively,
how far should we have travelled from our starting-point? We of the world
and its prizes and duties must do her an injury to make her tongue
musical to us, and her argument worthy of attention. So it seems. How to
keep the proper balance between those two testy old wranglers, that
rarely pull the right way together, is as much the task for men in the
grip of the world, as for the wanton youthful fry under dominion of their
instincts; and probably, when it is done, man will have attained the
golden age of his retirement from service.

Why be scheming? Victor asked. Unlike the gallant soldiery, his question
was raised in the blush of a success, from an examination of the quality
of the thing won; although it had not changed since it was first coveted;
it was demonstrably the same: and an astonishing dry stick he held, as a
reward for perpetual agitations and perversions of his natural tastes.
Here was a Dudley Sowerby, the direct issue o