ould cut, had we the sword. Diana did it to the tune of Garryowen or
Planxty Kelly. O for a despot! The cry was for a beneficent despot,
naturally: a large-minded benevolent despot. In short, a despot to obey
their bidding. Thoughtful young people who think through the heart soon
come to this conclusion. The heart is the beneficent despot they would
be. He cures those miseries; he creates the novel harmony. He sees all
difficulties through his own sanguine hues. He is the musical poet of the
problem, demanding merely to have it solved that he may sing: clear proof
of the necessity for solving it immediately.

Thus far in their pursuit of methods for the government of a nation, to
make it happy, Diana was leader. Her fine ardour and resonance, and more
than the convincing ring of her voice, the girl's impassioned rapidity in
rushing through any perceptible avenue of the labyrinth, or beating down
obstacles to form one, and coming swiftly to some solution, constituted
her the chief of the pair of democratic rebels in questions that
clamoured for instant solution. By dint of reading solid writers, using
the brains they possessed, it was revealed to them gradually that their
particular impatience came perhaps of the most earnest desire to get to a
comfortable termination of the inquiry: the heart aching for mankind
sought a nest for itself. At this point Lady Dunstane took the lead.
Diana had to be tugged to follow. She could not accept a 'perhaps' that
cast dubiousness on her disinterested championship. She protested a
perfect certainty of the single aim of her heart outward. But she
reflected. She discovered that her friend had gone ahead of her.

The discovery was reached, and even acknowledged, before she could
persuade herself to swallow the repulsive truth. O self! self! self! are
we eternally masking in a domino that reveals your hideous old face when
we could be most positive we had escaped you? Eternally! the desolating
answer knelled. Nevertheless the poor, the starving, the overtaxed in
labour, they have a right to the cry of Now! now! They have; and if a cry
could conduct us to the secret of aiding, healing, feeding, elevating
them, we might swell the cry. As it is, we must lay it on our wits
patiently to track and find the secret; and meantime do what the
individual with his poor pittance can. A miserable contribution! sighed
the girl. Old Self was perceived in the sigh. She was haunted.

After all, one must l