the end of winding ways, turning the clear
light of analysis upon the joys of fruition, known as yet in idea alone,
and quick to turn from them in disgust. You might look for the flash of
genius from such a face; you could not miss the ashes of the volcano;
hopes extinguished beneath a profound sense of the social annihilation
to which lowly birth and lack of fortune condemns so many a loftier
mind. And by the side of the poor printer, who loathed a handicraft so
closely allied to intellectual work, close to this Silenus, joyless,
self-sustained, drinking deep draughts from the cup of knowledge and
of poetry that he might forget the cares of his narrow lot in the
intoxication of soul and brain, stood Lucien, graceful as some
sculptured Indian Bacchus.

For in Lucien's face there was the distinction of line which stamps the
beauty of the antique; the Greek profile, with the velvet whiteness of
women's faces, and eyes full of love, eyes so blue that they looked dark
against a pearly setting, and dewy and fresh as those of a child. Those
beautiful eyes looked out from under their long chestnut lashes, beneath
eyebrows that might have been traced by a Chinese pencil. The silken
down on his cheeks, like his bright curling hair, shone golden in the
sunlight. A divine graciousness transfused the white temples that caught
that golden gleam; a matchless nobleness had set its seal in the short
chin raised, but not abruptly. The smile that hovered about the coral
lips, yet redder as they seemed by force of contrast with the even
teeth, was the smile of some sorrowing angel. Lucien's hands denoted
race; they were shapely hands; hands that men obey at a sign, and women
love to kiss. Lucien was slender and of middle height. From a glance at
his feet, he might have been taken for a girl in disguise, and this
so much the more easily from the feminine contour of the hips, a
characteristic of keen-witted, not to say, astute, men. This is a
trait which seldom misleads, and in Lucien it was a true indication of
character; for when he analyzed the society of to-day, his restless mind
was apt to take its stand on the lower ground of those diplomatists who
hold that success justifies the use of any means however base. It is one
of the misfortunes attendant upon great intellects that perforce they
comprehend all things, both good and evil.

The two young men judged society by the more lofty standard because
their social position was at the lo