_M_. No! that is too equivocal a position, whether in modern mythology,
or Hoffman's tales. I should choose to be a gnome.

_J_. That choice savors of the pride that apes humility.

_M_. By no means; the gnomes are the most important of all the elemental
tribes. Is it not they who make the money?

_J_. And are accordingly a dark, mean, scoffing,--

_M_. You talk as if you had always lived in that wild unprofitable
element you are so fond of, where all things glitter, and nothing is
gold; all show and no substance. My people work in the secret, and their
works praise them in the open light; they remain in the dark because
only there such marvels could be bred. You call them mean. They do not
spend their energies on their own growth, or their own play, but to feed
the veins of mother earth with permanent splendors, very different from
what she shows on the surface.

Think of passing a life, not merely in heaping together, but making
gold. Of all dreams, that of the alchymist is the most poetical, for he
looked at the finest symbol. Gold, says one of our friends, is the
hidden light of the earth, it crowns the mineral, as wine the vegetable
order, being the last expression of vital energy.

_J_. Have you paid for your passage?

_M_. Yes! and in gold, not in shells or pebbles.

_J_. No really wise gnome would scoff at the water, the beautiful water.
"The spirit of man is like the water."

_S_. Yes, and like the air and fire, no less.

_J_. Yes, but not like the earth, this low-minded creature's chosen
dwelling.

_M_. The earth is spirit made fruitful,--life. And its heart-beats are
told in gold and wine.

_J_. Oh! it is shocking to hear such sentiments in these times. I
thought that Bacchic energy of yours was long since repressed.

_M_. No! I have only learned to mix water with my wine, and stamp upon
my gold the heads of kings, or the hieroglyphics of worship. But since I
have learnt to mix with water, let's hear what you have to say in praise
of your favorite.

_J_. From water Venus was born, what more would you have? It is the
mother of Beauty, the girdle of earth, and the marriage of nations.

_S_. Without any of that high-flown poetry, it is enough, I think, that
it is the great artist, turning all objects that approach it to picture.

_J_. True, no object that touches it, whether it be the cart that
ploughs the wave for sea-weed, or the boat or plank that rides upon it,
but is brought at once fro