ance_, between the rising and the waning glory, and ink is shed in
torrents. The odd part of it is that the Royalist-Romantics are all
for liberty in literature, and for repealing laws and conventions;
while the Liberal-Classics are for maintaining the unities, the
Alexandrine, and the classical theme. So opinions in politics on
either side are directly at variance with literary taste. If you are
eclectic, you will have no one for you. Which side do you take?"

"Which is the winning side?"

"The Liberal newspapers have far more subscribers than the Royalist
and Ministerial journals; still, though Canalis is for Church and
King, and patronized by the Court and the clergy, he reaches other
readers.--Pshaw! sonnets date back to an epoch before Boileau's time,"
said Etienne, seeing Lucien's dismay at the prospect of choosing
between two banners. "Be a Romantic. The Romantics are young men, and
the Classics are pedants; the Romantics will gain the day."

The word "pedant" was the latest epithet taken up by Romantic
journalism to heap confusion on the Classical faction.

Lucien began to read, choosing first of all the title-sonnets.

EASTER DAISIES.

The daisies in the meadows, not in vain,
In red and white and gold before our eyes,
Have written an idyll for man's sympathies,
And set his heart's desire in language plain.

Gold stamens set in silver filigrane
Reveal the treasures which we idolize;
And all the cost of struggle for the prize
Is symboled by a secret blood-red stain.

Was it because your petals once uncurled
When Jesus rose upon a fairer world,
And from wings shaken for a heav'nward flight
Shed grace, that still as autumn reappears
You bloom again to tell of dead delight,
To bring us back the flower of twenty years?

Lucien felt piqued by Lousteau's complete indifference during the
reading of the sonnet; he was unfamiliar as yet with the disconcerting
impassibility of the professional critic, wearied by much reading of
poetry, prose, and plays. Lucien was accustomed to applause. He choked
down his disappointment and read another, a favorite with Mme. de
Bargeton and with some of his friends in the Rue des Quatre-Vents.

"This one, perhaps, will draw a word from him," he thought.

THE MARGUERITE.

I am the Marguerite, fair and tall I grew
In velvet meadows, 'mid the flowers a star.
They sought me for my beauty near and far;
M