ence appreciates
when he marvels before the exquisite structure of the sea-shell, the
perfect organism of the flower; but the young girl appreciates, too,
when she holds the shell to her ear for its music, when she kisses the
flower for its fragrance. Appreciation! It is an affair of the reason,
indeed; but it is an affair of the emotions also."

"And you prefer what is born of the latter?"

"Not always; but for my music I do. It speaks in an unknown tongue.
Science may have its alphabet, but it is feeling that translates its
poems. Delaroche, who leaves off his work to listen; Descamps, in whose
eyes I see tears; Ingres, who dreams idyls while I play; a young poet
whose face reflects my thoughts, an old man whose youth I bring back, an
hour of pain that I soothe, an hour of laughter that I give; these are
my recompense. Think you I would exchange them for the gold showers and
the diamond boxes of a Farinelli?"

"Surely not. All I meant was that you might gain a world-wide celebrity
did you choose----"

"Gain a honey-coating that every fly may eat me and every gnat may
sting? I thank you. I have a taste to be at peace, and not to become
food to sate the public famine for a thing to tear."

Estmere smiled; he did not understand the man who thus addressed him,
but he was attracted despite all his strongest prejudices.

"You are right! Under the coat of honey is a shirt of turpentine.
Still--to see so great a gift as yours wasted----"

"Wasted? Because the multitudes have it, such as it is, instead of the
units? Droll arithmetic! I am with you in thinking that minorities
should have a good share of power, for all that is wisest and purest is
ever in a minority, as we know; but I do not see, as you see, that
minorities should command a monopoly--of sweet sounds or of anything
else."

"I speak to the musician, not to the politician," said Estmere, with the
calm, chill contempt of his colder manner: the cold side of his
character was touched, and his sympathies were alienated at once.

Tricotrin, indifferent to the hint as to the rebuff, looked at him
amusedly.

"Oh, I know you well, Lord Estmere; I told you so not long ago, to your
great disgust. You and your Order think no man should ever presume to
touch politics unless his coat be velvet and his rent-roll large, like
yours. But, you see, we of the _ecole buissonniere_ generally do as we
like; and we get pecking at public questions for the same reason as our
b