night for
the Alps! What a night to be upon some Alpine height, watching the moon
through a good telescope, and waiting for the sunrise!"

"Defer that wish for a few months," I replied smiling. "You would
scarcely like Switzerland in her winter robes."

"Nay, I prefer Switzerland in winter," she said. "I passed through part
of the Jura about ten days ago, and saw nothing but snow. It was
magnificent--like a paradise of pure marble awaiting the souls of all
the sculptors of all the ages."

"A fantastic idea," said I, "and spoken like an artist."

"Like an artist!" she repeated, musingly. "Well, are not all students
artists?"

"Not those who study the exact sciences--not the student of law or
divinity--nor he who, like myself, is a student of medicine. He is the
slave of Fact, and Art is the Eden of his banishment. His imagination is
for ever captive. His horizon is for ever bounded. He is fettered by
routine, and paralyzed by tradition. His very ideas must put on the
livery of his predecessors; for in a profession where originality of
thought stands for the blackest shade of original sin, skill--mere
skill--must be the end of his ambition."

She looked at me, and the moonlight showed me that sad smile which her
lips so often wore.

"You do not love your profession," she said.

"I do not, indeed."

"And yet you labor zealously to acquire it--how is that?"

"How is it with hundreds of others? My profession was chosen for me. I
am not my own master."

"But are you sure you would be happier in some other pursuit? Supposing,
for instance, that you were free to begin again, what career do you
think you would prefer?"

"I scarcely know, and I should scarcely care, so long as there was
freedom of thought and speculation in it."

"Geology, perhaps--or astronomy," she suggested, laughingly.

"Merci! The bowels of the earth are too profound, and the heavens too
lofty for me. I should choose some pursuit that would set the Ariel of
the imagination free. That is to say, I could be very happy if my life
were devoted to Science, but my soul echoes to the name of Art."

"'The artist creates--the man of science discovers," said Hortense.
"Beware lest you fancy you would prefer the work of creation only
because you lack patience to pursue the work of discovery. Pardon me, if
I suggest that you may, perhaps, be fitted for neither. Your sphere, I
fancy, is reflection--comparison--criticism. You are not made for
action, o