uce lacking.

Nature has her coinage, and demands payment in her own currency. At
Nature's shop it is you yourself must pay. Your unearned increment, your
inherited fortune, your luck, are not legal tenders across her counter.

You want a good appetite. Nature is quite willing to supply you.
"Certainly, sir," she replies, "I can do you a very excellent article
indeed. I have here a real genuine hunger and thirst that will make your
meal a delight to you. You shall eat heartily and with zest, and you
shall rise from the table refreshed, invigorated, and cheerful."

"Just the very thing I want," exclaims the gourmet delightedly. "Tell me
the price."

"The price," answers Mrs. Nature, "is one long day's hard work."

The customer's face falls; he handles nervously his heavy purse.

"Cannot I pay for it in money?" he asks. "I don't like work, but I am a
rich man, I can afford to keep French cooks, to purchase old wines."

Nature shakes her head.

"I cannot take your cheques, tissue and nerve are my charges. For these
I can give you an appetite that will make a rump-steak and a tankard
of ale more delicious to you than any dinner that the greatest chef in
Europe could put before you. I can even promise you that a hunk of bread
and cheese shall be a banquet to you; but you must pay my price in my
money; I do not deal in yours."

And next the Dilettante enters, demanding a taste for Art and
Literature, and this also Nature is quite prepared to supply.

"I can give you true delight in all these things," she answers. "Music
shall be as wings to you, lifting you above the turmoil of the world.
Through Art you shall catch a glimpse of Truth. Along the pleasant paths
of Literature you shall walk as beside still waters."

"And your charge?" cries the delighted customer.

"These things are somewhat expensive," replies Nature. "I want from you
a life lived simply, free from all desire of worldly success, a life
from which passion has been lived out; a life to which appetite has been
subdued."

"But you mistake, my dear lady," replies the Dilettante; "I have many
friends, possessed of taste, and they are men who do not pay this price
for it. Their houses are full of beautiful pictures, they rave about
'nocturnes' and 'symphonies,' their shelves are packed with first
editions. Yet they are men of luxury and wealth and fashion. They
trouble much concerning the making of money, and Society is their
heaven. Cannot I be as one