k, 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 alchemist 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?

_J._ 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._ 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 heartbeats 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 from the demesne of coarse utilities into
that of picture. All trades, all callings, become picturesque by the
water's side, or on the water. The soil, the slovenliness, is washed
out of every calling by its touch. All river-crafts, sea-crafts, are
picturesque, are poetical. Their very slang is poetry.

_M._ The reasons for that