ind at the close that
we have gone astray. My choice of life thus compelled is on the stony
thoroughfares, yours in the green fields."

As he thus said, his face became clouded and mournful. The Venosta,
quickly tired of a conversation in which she had no part, and having
various little household matters to attend to, had during this dialogue
slipped unobserved from the room; yet neither Isaura nor Graham felt
the sudden consciousness that they were alone which belongs to lovers.
"Why," asked Isaura, with that magic smile reflected in countless
dimples which, even when her words were those of a man's reasoning, made
them seem gentle with a woman's sentiment,--"why must your road through
the world be so exclusively the stony one? It is not from necessity,
it can not be from taste; and whatever definition you give to genius,
surely it is not your own inborn genius that dictates to you a constant
exclusive adherence to the commonplace of life."

"Ah, Mademoiselle, do not misrepresent me. I did not say that I could
not sometimes quit the real world for fairyland,--I said that I could
not do so often. My vocation is not that of a poet or artist."

"It is that of an orator, I know," said Isaura, kindling; "so they tell
me, and I believe them. But is not the orator somewhat akin to the poet?
Is not oratory an art?"

"Let us dismiss the word orator; as applied to English public life, it
is a very deceptive expression. The Englishman who wishes to influence
his countrymen by force of words spoken must mix with them in their
beaten thoroughfares; must make himself master of their practical views
and interests; must be conversant with their prosaic occupations and
business; must understand how to adjust their loftiest aspirations
to their material welfare; must avoid as the fault most dangerous to
himself and to others that kind of eloquence which is called oratory in
France, and which has helped to make the French the worst politicians
in Europe. Alas! Mademoiselle, I fear that an English statesman would
appear to you a very dull orator."

"I see that I spoke foolishly,--yes, you show me that the world of the
statesman lies apart from that of the artist. Yet--"

"Yet what?"

"May not the ambition of both be the same?"

"How so?"

"To refine the rude, to exalt the mean; to identify their own fame with
some new beauty, some new glory, added to the treasure-house of all."

Graham bowed his head reverently, and then raise