ntics of that precious pair
would have but enhanced the beauty of their voices and the beauty of the
accompanying orchestra. You are right. It's mostly a matter of
training. And I am too old, now. I must have the real or nothing. An
illusion that won't convince is a palpable lie, and that's what grand
opera is to me when little Barillo throws a fit, clutches mighty
Tetralani in his arms (also in a fit), and tells her how passionately he
adores her."

Again Ruth measured his thoughts by comparison of externals and in
accordance with her belief in the established. Who was he that he should
be right and all the cultured world wrong? His words and thoughts made
no impression upon her. She was too firmly intrenched in the established
to have any sympathy with revolutionary ideas. She had always been used
to music, and she had enjoyed opera ever since she was a child, and all
her world had enjoyed it, too. Then by what right did Martin Eden
emerge, as he had so recently emerged, from his rag-time and
working-class songs, and pass judgment on the world's music? She was
vexed with him, and as she walked beside him she had a vague feeling of
outrage. At the best, in her most charitable frame of mind, she
considered the statement of his views to be a caprice, an erratic and
uncalled-for prank. But when he took her in his arms at the door and
kissed her good night in tender lover-fashion, she forgot everything in
the outrush of her own love to him. And later, on a sleepless pillow,
she puzzled, as she had often puzzled of late, as to how it was that she
loved so strange a man, and loved him despite the disapproval of her
people.

And next day Martin Eden cast hack-work aside, and at white heat hammered
out an essay to which he gave the title, "The Philosophy of Illusion." A
stamp started it on its travels, but it was destined to receive many
stamps and to be started on many travels in the months that followed.

CHAPTER XXV

Maria Silva was poor, and all the ways of poverty were clear to her.
Poverty, to Ruth, was a word signifying a not-nice condition of
existence. That was her total knowledge on the subject. She knew Martin
was poor, and his condition she associated in her mind with the boyhood
of Abraham Lincoln, of Mr. Butler, and of other men who had become
successes. Also, while aware that poverty was anything but delectable,
she had a comfortable middle-class feeling that poverty was salutary,