Ambition. They are absent
from my mechanism. By the accident of birth I do not require bread and
cheese; by the accident of temperament and of philosophical culture
I care nothing about praise or blame. But without want of bread and
cheese, and with a most stolid indifference to praise and blame, do you
honestly think that a man will do anything practical in literature or
politics? Ask Mrs. Campion."

"I will not ask her. Is the sense of duty nothing?"

"Alas! we interpret duty so variously. Of mere duty, as we commonly
understand the word, I do not think I shall fail more than other men.
But for the fair development of all the good that is in us, do you
believe that we should adopt some line of conduct against which our
whole heart rebels? Can you say to the clerk, 'Be a poet'? Can you say
to the poet, 'Be a clerk'? It is no more to the happiness of a man's
being to order him to take to one career when his whole heart is set
on another, than it is to order him to marry one woman when it is to
another woman that his heart will turn."

Cecilia here winced and looked away. Kenelm had more tact than most men
of his age,--that is, a keener perception of subjects to avoid; but then
Kenelm had a wretched habit of forgetting the person he talked to and
talking to himself. Utterly oblivious of George Belvoir, he was talking
to himself now. Not then observing the effect his _mal-a-propos_ dogma
had produced on his listener, he went on, "Happiness is a word very
lightly used. It may mean little; it may mean much. By the word
happiness I would signify, not the momentary joy of a child who gets
a plaything, but the lasting harmony between our inclinations and our
objects; and without that harmony we are a discord to ourselves, we are
incompletions, we are failures. Yet there are plenty of advisers who say
to us, 'It is a duty to be a discord.' I deny it."

Here Cecilia rose and said in a low voice, "It is getting late. We must
go homeward."

They descended the green eminence slowly, and at first in silence.
The bats, emerging from the ivied ruins they left behind, flitted and
skimmed before them, chasing the insects of the night. A moth, escaping
from its pursuer, alighted on Cecilia's breast, as if for refuge.

"The bats are practical," said Kenelm; "they are hungry, and their
motive power to-night is strong. Their interest is in the insects they
chase. They have no interest in the stars; but the stars lure the moth."

Cec