It was a sunny morning, and several of us were sauntering in the garden for a few minutes before breakfast-time, when Sir John came up to us.

_Ellesmere._ Mind, you must all be “as civil as an orange” to Milverton to-day. If he gives us a reading, you must swear that it is excellent. He has been in such a rage with me.

_Lady Ellesmere._ How wrong it is of you, John, to vex Leonard in this way.

_Ellesmere._ I assure you I did not mean it. Unfortunately we began talking about the Ainah; and I reminded him of his original description of her. Now you know he has been getting more and more enamoured of her; and, if he had to describe her again, she would be a perfect beauty. You will see that he will add all manner of beauty to her countenance, if he talks about her again. There will come charming smiles and dimples, and I know not what besides.

[Here Mr. Milverton joined us; and there was an embarrassing silence.]

_Milverton._ I see that Ellesmere has been telling you of the nonsense he has been talking. I did not mean, I did not say, that her hands were extraordinarily large; but, contrasting her in my mind with the high-bred Talora, I was obliged to confess that there were some drawbacks upon her beauty. Hers was one of those countenances which require nice and loving observation to perceive all the merits and the beauties in them. There was a constant play of beautiful expression; there were exquisite dimples; and----

_Ellesmere._ Ha-ha! Did I not tell you so? Am I not a true prophet?

[Here Sir John began dancing about in the wild manner that he frequently indulges in when he is triumphant in some argument.]

_Milverton._ This dancing dervish is not always wrong when he gives us a taste of his prophetic powers.

In one word, the Ainah’s was _a very marrying face_.

_Cranmer._ What do you mean, Milverton?

_Milverton._ Why, don’t you know, or didn’t you know, Cranmer, when you were younger?

You went into a ball-room, and saw two or three great beauties. Haply your eyes fell upon a cosy young couple in some corner. You asked about them, and were told that they were engaged. The girl was not beautiful; but you said to yourself, “The man is right. He is a sensible man: that girl will make a good wife. She will always----”

_Ellesmere._ Make marriage somewhat less painful and disagreeable than it is its nature to be. Now here is a face

[He came behind Lady Ellesmere, and inclosed her face in his big hands--for he has big hands.]

which would insure a happy marriage. You see in it that assurance of perpetual provocation which will not allow a man time to think whether he is happy or not, for he will be in a constant state of warfare. And that is one form, perhaps the best, of happiness for some men.

Here Lady Ellesmere disengaged herself somewhat hastily from his grasp, and we all went to breakfast, laughing heartily.

* * * * *

There is some celebrated story of a young man who exclaimed, “And I, too, am a painter!” So now I may say, “And I, too, am an author!” It happened in this way. I had been speaking of some of the curious superstitions which exist in a remote part of Scotland where I, when a boy, had been to visit my relations, who were poor fishing people in that district. Upon this, Sir John Ellesmere declared that Sandy could write a tale if he chose, and that Sandy must choose to do so. It would be a very good thing to employ his mind in that way, and would prevent his spoiling “Realmah” by persuading Milverton to introduce foolish chapters about love.

This was two or three weeks ago. I tried very hard to think of a subject for a story; but, think as hard as I would, no subject for some time occurred to me. At last, one night, an idea for a story of the supernatural kind did strike me. I told it to Mr. Milverton. He approved of it, and said he would aid me; and so I wrote my little story. I was very shame-faced and nervous when I came to read it before such an audience; but I managed to get through the reading somehow, and my story was much praised. Of course they said everything they could to encourage me. I shall not venture to trouble the reader with the story; but I mention the fact of having written it, as, without doing so, the following conversation would not be understood.

To-day there was a good deal of talk about my story, and afterwards about those strange fancies which have occupied so many minds in all ages, endowing men with gifts and powers in addition to those which they actually possess. Mr. Mauleverer, of course, maintained that this was a proof of the wretched state of man. Sir Arthur declared that it was an instance of the abounding imagination and poetry that there are in all men, women, and children: while Mr. Cranmer contended that these fancies were rather irreverent; that men had better be contented with what they are, and make the best of that, and not indulge in fancies that could never be realized. Sir John Ellesmere asked whether Mr. Cranmer was prepared to move for the destruction of all fables and of all fairy-stories, and whether all imagination was to be employed in inventing lies about matters of business?

Before recounting any more of the conversation, I must describe the spot where it took place. At the bottom of the hill there is a little rivulet which, even in the driest summer, forms a reedy, rushy sort of place, through which meanders a little stream three or four feet in width, and about nine inches in depth. Mr. Milverton delights in this spot, though it is said to be rather malarious. On one side of the rivulet there is a high grassy bank, having upon it a very comfortable seat. I will now continue my account of the conversation.

_Milverton._ I cannot agree with you, Cranmer, about the irreverence you assign to these fancies. If we are never to fancy that we might here, or hereafter, be endowed with other gifts than those which we now possess, we must close our eyes completely to all the forms of life which surround us, and which are so suggestive.

I have been very fortunate in life as regards friends and acquaintances. I have known poets, historians, philosophers----

_Ellesmere._ Observe where the fellow puts historians, because he happens to dote upon history.

_Milverton._--poets, historians, philosophers, statesmen, men of science, artists, doctors, lawyers, and merchants, but I was never fortunate enough to know any man who had made the insect world his study. I am sure I do not know what is the proper name for such a man--I suppose an entomologist. Well, I was never fortunate enough to know an entomologist.

If we had such a man with us now, what interesting things he could tell us about the myriads of inhabitants of this rushy streamlet. I believe there are creatures below us there, which can both crawl and hop, and fly and swim; which possess eyes by the score; can weave and spin, and build nests, in water; which, in short, embody all the vagaries of the most fanciful person; and about which, by the way, if they were familiar to us, fables and stories might be written having much more pith and diversity in them than those about dogs, bears, wolves, elephants, and foxes, which, after all, are poor simple creatures like ourselves, being seldom able to do more than one thing very well.

_Ellesmere._ I do not think much of your entomologist. I do not want him here at all. He would merely shy barbarous words, half-Latin, half-Greek, at us, and bother us about “genus” and “species,” and other things, for which we should not really care one solitary dump.

Besides, we should have to hear all about his grand discovery of the _onomatoscylax_, some pestilent little creature that hops, and runs, and bites, and wriggles, and turns up its tail spitefully at you. No; give me the man who can talk well about anything if you only give him a rough bit of a brief to talk upon. Just read to me, or any other lawyer, a little chapter in any book about insects, and we will argue their case in a manner that will bring round any jury to think whatever we are instructed to make them think on behalf of our clients. There are creatures, are there not, who pop out of their shells to take the air, and then other creatures pop into the vacant shells; and when the softies come back, they find their houses occupied, and the doors bolted against them. What a good case for an action of ejectment!

_Milverton._ Mark you, I do not mean to say that I have not known men such as Carlyle, Kingsley, and Emerson, who have been able to talk admirably about all forms of nature, from the highest to the lowest. As I think I have told you before, I never heard a more exquisite conversation than one in which Carlyle and Emerson, both of them nice and patient observers of all natural objects, discoursed upon the merits and beauties of common grass. A walk, too, in the country with Kingsley is something to remember; but still I say, as I said before, I should like to know a real entomologist, a man who had lived a great deal with insects----

_Ellesmere._ The Patronage-secretary of the Treasury!

_Milverton._ --and who could tell me all about the _onomatopylex_, which Ellesmere----

_Ellesmere._ No, no; if you are scientific, be accurate--_onomatoscylax._

_Milverton._ --which Ellesmere affects to scorn, but which I have no doubt, if well studied, would afford the human race many a good lesson in the arts of life. Very probably he is a great architect. The arch was constructed by insects long before it was known to man.

_Mauleverer._ Talking of men who have studied these minor creatures, there is Mr. G. H. Lewes. You know him, Milverton?

_Milverton._ Yes; but he is too gelatinous. He describes admirably; is as clear as the sky at Avignon; but his talk is of molluscs, sea-anemones, jelly-fish, and other flabby, pulpy creatures, squeezable as Ministers of State. I want a man who has lived with well-developed, shrewd, masterful, designing insects.

_Sir Arthur._ I do not say we wander from the subject, because the fact of these insects possessing multifarious powers is very suggestive. But I want to know why it is irreverent to imagine men to be endowed with other powers or means than those they now possess. I feel rather guilty in this matter, if there is any guilt, as I was the first to tell you a story of the kind which Mr. Cranmer must disapprove of. I mean my “sleep” story. I intended that to convey some sound doctrine.

_Ellesmere._ Yes; that pleasant tale was nearly suffocated by morality. It was far too moral to be interesting. And observe this, Cranmer, that in almost every story in which extraordinary powers are given to a man, that poor man is sure to come to grief.

Even in that dear “Arabian Nights,” the unfortunate “gins,” or genii, always get the worst of it, being bottled up for a thousand years, or otherwise maltreated. We make a point of pouring misfortunes with a liberal hand upon the head of any creature whom we admit for a moment, even in fancy, to be a more gifted being than man.

_Milverton._ Well, I have a fanciful idea which, indeed, has been in my mind for many years, and which I fear Cranmer would blame, for if realized it would give a great and, as I think, a most delightful increase to human power.

_Ellesmere._ Let us guess. The philosopher’s stone? The power of always reasoning rightly? Long life? A knocker that would knock down all disagreeable people who came to visit you--the postman and telegraph-boy included? A power of eating three dinners a day? A self-upholding umbrella? A supernatural knowledge of trains, so that you could defy Bradshaw and all his books? A perfectly well-built house, built after a model of some insect establishment? A winged paper-cutter that would always fly to you when you whistled for it?

No; I have it! It is never to be sea-sick!

_Milverton._ No; you have not. You certainly have imagined sundry very delightful appurtenances, such as your discriminating knocker, self-upholding umbrella, and flying paper-cutter.

_Sir Arthur._ Is it the power of seeing clearly into other men’s minds?

_Milverton._ No; you will never guess it.

_Ellesmere._ Tell us, then.

_Milverton._ I shall have some difficulty in explaining. I mean that there should be a double soul, taking the word “soul” to include all powers, both of thought and feeling, so that you should be able to give one of these souls perfect rest. They should be so intimately in unison, that what one thinks, or feels, or says, or does, should be admitted to be thought, and felt, and said, and done by the other which is absent. There must be no separate interest, no possibility of reproach. There should be a spare body, so that the one soul could go and recreate itself while the other was fighting the direst battle.

_Lady Ellesmere._ There must be a woman equally gifted to correspond with this man. Conceive a double Sir John! when _one_ is enough to drive a poor woman distracted.

_Ellesmere._ As the soundest theologians and metaphysicians have proved conclusively that women have no souls, it will be doing a very handsome thing if we give _them_ one. But this new possession would embarrass them very much. They would lose all that power of governing, so dear to them. Unreason always governs. _Nothing prevents your having your own way so much as being at all amenable to reason._

_Lady Ellesmere._ Women have just that small portion of irrationality, and only that, which enables them to understand the immense irrationality of men, and so to steer clear of it, or to guide it.

_Sir Arthur._ Well said, Lady Ellesmere! He does not gain much by attacking women in your presence.

_Milverton._ But think of the advantages of my fancy, if it were realized:--all the regrets, and vexations, and remorses being partaken by another soul which would occasionally come fresh to the work, and bear the burden which its exhausted compeer and partner was almost fainting under. Such a man, so gifted, would rule the world. Observe the lives of all great men, who will go on working at a moment when the powers are enfeebled. Imagine Napoleon the First with two such souls. Send one of them to vegetate in the country, while the other is conducting the retreat from Moscow, and you would find that the total Napoleon would never have been sent to Elba. Mark you, the two, when combined, are not to have double power.

_Mauleverer._ I am delighted with Milverton’s idea of a double soul. It proves to me that he sees that the single soul cannot possibly bear up against its misfortunes.

_Milverton._ No, Mauleverer, you press my words too far. It is but an occasional, and even rare, relief that I imagine is so much wanted for the soul. Have you not known occasions in which you have said to yourself, “I would give anything to have another me--to take up the burden for this day only--to attend this funeral--to meet those men upon that painful business in which my feelings are so likely to overcome my judgment--to fight that battle which I could fight so well, if the gaiety of heart which is requisite were not altogether wanting, while I could, as it were, retire into private life, and collect my thoughts, my energies, and my hopefulness, which, at this critical moment, have deserted me?”

_Sir Arthur._ Really, Mauleverer, I agree with Milverton that you have pressed him too hard. It might not be more than twenty times in one’s life that one should want to be absent in the spirit though present in the body; and when one should be so glad to have another soul, a second self, to represent one fully.

I wonder, by the way, whether any of you feel with me that you would like to have been in a different sphere of life.

_Ellesmere._ The life of a sweeper at a crossing used to be my ideal. But I have changed my mind. I should like to have been a waiter at an inn. “Coming, coming, coming.” One would thus see a good deal of life without much trouble. I should observe the different tastes of our customers: how this old gentleman likes to have his mutton-chops well done; how that customer rejoices in baked potatoes; and how the other is offended, if, when he calls for a newspaper, one does not give him the paper which is _his_ paper.

I would be very kind, too, to the young people, who are always a little afraid of waiters.

I would be unmarried, because my ideal would be to be free from all responsibility.

Gradually I should have amassed a large sum in savings--say two hundred and seventy pounds--and then my plan would be to retire, with my sister, a housekeeper in a good family, to our native village of Mudby Parva, which, by the way, would be intolerable to us from the alterations that had been made in it, and from the railway that would pass through it.

But, in reality, we should never realize our great plan of retirement, and I should die in harness, or rather in white tie and seedy black dress-coat.

_Mauleverer._ Think of Ellesmere as a waiter, with no power of interrupting the conversation of the customers! How little men know of themselves! What a miserable mortal he would be!

_Sir Arthur._ And what would you have been, Mauleverer?

_Ellesmere._ Let me answer for him, for I know. He would like to have been the _chef_ in a great kitchen--at some club, for instance--where he could have wandered amidst groves of beef-steaks, and forests of mutton-cutlets, followed by a legion of cooks, giving them orders fraught with culinary wisdom.

_Sir Arthur._ And you, Cranmer?

_Cranmer_. I should like to have been a mail-coachman in the olden times.

_Ellesmere._ Of course he would choose something official. How punctual he would have been! How fussy and important about His Majesty’s Mails! He would have insisted upon being guard and coachman too.

_Sir Arthur._ And you, Milverton?

_Milverton._ Well, I am not so humble as the rest of you. I should like to have been a colonist--to have conducted a body of settlers to Paraguay. That part of the earth, from what I have heard of it, and read about it, takes my fancy more than any other. Almost every known product is to be found there.[18] Then there are great rivers, and vast parks reminding one of English scenery; and withal, a charming climate. Moreover, one would get free, I think, both from European and North American disturbances. Insects, I believe, are not intolerable there. Volcanoes are unknown; and, in fact, it seems to me that it fulfils the idea of an earthly paradise.

Footnote 18:

Mr. Milverton afterwards read to us this extract from some historical work:--

“The most important products of the world can be grown there--sugar, maize, tobacco, cotton; and it has peculiar products of its own, such as the Paraguay tea. It is not volcanic, and has not to dread the catastrophes which have often overwhelmed the Spanish cities on the other side of the Andes....

“It has lakes, rivers, and woods, and, in the character of its scenery, much resembles an English park. It is rich in trees of every description--cedars, palms, balsams, aloes, cocoa-trees, walnut-trees, spice-trees, almonds, the cotton-plant, the quinaquina that produces the Jesuit’s bark, and another tree, of which the inner bark is so delicate and white, that it can be used as writing-paper. There is also the ceyba tree, which yields a soft woolly substance of which the natives make their pillows.

“The fruits of this most fertile land are oranges, citrons, lemons, the American pear, the apple, peaches, plums, figs, and olives. The bees find here their special home. The woods are not like the silent forests of North America, but swarm with all kinds of birds, having every variety of note and feather, from the soft colours of the wild dove to the gay plumage of the parrot; from the plaintive note of the nightingale, to the dignified noise of those birds which are said to imitate the trumpet and the organ. A few Indians, rarely to be seen, and appearing like specks in the landscape, roam over this vast plain, which a modern traveller has well said might be ‘the cradle of a mighty nation.’”

Then I think I should like the business of managing a settlement. I should not take out any lawyers with me--only a notary or two. I should try and get a good many young doctors, and a few very carefully selected clergymen. Carpenters, sailors, and navvies should form the bulk of the common people I would bring with me.

_Mauleverer._ Should you take out a newspaper editor? Because I should rather think that would interfere with the paradise.

_Milverton._ No: I should be my own editor, so that I could represent my own quarrels (for quarrels there would be) in my own paper, the only one in the colony, in my own way.

_Sir Arthur._ Would you have an architect, Milverton?

_Milverton._ Yes: I should not object to having one. We should overpower him, and compel him to make plans to please us, and not according to his own preconceived notions.

_Ellesmere._ Should you take out any women?

_Milverton._ Yes: thirty cooks, who would, of course, marry off like wildfire. The rest of the men must marry the women of the country, so as to secure alliances.

_Lady Ellesmere._ And what would you have been, Sir Arthur?

_Sir Arthur._ A painter.

_Ellesmere._ House?

_Sir Arthur._ No: history. You see there is such a happy mixture of manual and mental work in a painter’s career. I learnt that long ago from one of Hazlitt’s essays. And then, too, what a pleasure to see the work grow under your hand! A book is a thing much further from you than a picture. I look with peculiar tenderness upon a picture, the work of any great painter. I think how it has lived with him--with what fond and anxious looks he has regarded it in early morning and late evening--what joy and sorrow have gone into it--what great men, his friends, have come to look at it.

Suppose it to be a Titian: Charles V. has come to look at his friend’s work; and has given anxious, judicious, and affectionate criticism about it. Then, too, the painter’s loving wife and daughters have given, from day to day, their criticisms, being most careful to give at the same time due encouragement and admiration. In fact, the thing which we see now, has been, for the time, a sort of domestic idol.

Yes, I should like to have been a painter, even if I had been one of only moderate endowments.

_Ellesmere._ Sentiment, sentiment, sentiment! Think, on the other hand, what you would have suffered from art critics.

_Mauleverer._ It is idle talking of what we should like to have been. There may be some wisdom to be gained from contrasting different situations in life--comparing what one is oneself with what another person is, and so deriving wisdom from the contemplation of the contrast. But I rather agree with Cranmer, that these imaginations lead to nothing.

_Ellesmere._ I don’t agree with Cranmer; but I do see, with Mauleverer, that it may be a wise thing to consider what good qualities are developed in positions in life different from our own, and adopting them into our own.

Milverton _once_ said a shrewd thing. Years ago, he remarked to me, that a man generally fulfilled best that position in life for which he was apparently most unfitted by nature. He illustrated it by numberless instances. He said that Lord Althorp was a most successful minister, and _primâ facie_ he had none of the qualities for a minister. Milverton added, I remember, that the best clergymen were those who had some qualities that were somewhat unclerical. I quite agree with him.

You see, old fellow, if you ever do say a good thing, I make a point of remembering it.

_Sir Arthur._ Talking of contrasts of situation, I will tell you the most remarkable instance that ever occurred to me.

I went to see one of the most notable personages in Europe, not on any political errand, but merely as a private friend. Now I shall veil what I am going to tell you as thoroughly as possible, for it is wrong to betray a friend’s moods to any stranger. You will conjecture; and your conjectures will most probably be utterly wrong. Well, when I entered his cabinet, I saw at a glance that he was sunk in the deepest dejection. He gave me a short sad smile, shook hands cordially; but seemed to have nothing to say. At length, however, I persuaded him to tell me what ailed his mind. He was misunderstood, he said; his policy was misrepresented everywhere: he was weary of the never-ending labour and struggle. “See the hideous calumnies that are current about me!” he exclaimed. “What is life worth? What a dreary farce it all is!”

_Ellesmere._ Well, and what friendly stings, my dear fellow, did you add?

_Sir Arthur._ I took an uncommon, but, as I think, a judicious course.

I did not say one word in contradiction to his statements. How could I? They were true. I did not urge, that if he had met with great failures, he had enjoyed great successes. I did not attempt to soothe him by showing what a potent personage he was.

I Mauleverized, if I may coin a word, to explain shortly what I did.

I simply dwelt upon the huge amount of misery and disappointment in the world. To illustrate this, I fell into a strain of quotation. The personage I addressed knew many languages.

I reminded him of the saying of Petrarch: “_Initium cœcitas: progressio labor: error omnia._”

I quoted your favourite bit, Milverton, from Disraeli: “Youth is a blunder; manhood a struggle; old age a regret.”

That made me think of Sir George Lewis’s “Life would be very tolerable but for its pleasures.”

The great man smiled at that, which encouraged me to give a slightly different version of my own--namely: “Life would be intolerable but for its absurdities.” He was pleased to smile at that, too.

Then I quoted from Pascal--I forget what. Then from Rousseau.

Then I ventured humbly to say that I thought that some of the greatest men in the world had been the great writers; and that it was found, as in the case of David and Solomon, that when they were monarchs as well as writers, their writings did not the less betray their misery.

I showed him that Horace, notwithstanding his Chloes, and Lesbias, and myrtle coronets, and Chian wine, was a melancholy individual:

“Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume, Labuntur anni,” &c.

--also Pope, Swift, Byron, Shelley, Cowper, and the rest of them. I gave him Tennyson’s

“Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean. Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart and gather to the eyes In looking at the happy autumn fields, And thinking of the days that are no more.”

Of course, I brought in my Browning bit about the greatness of the mind being shown by the shadow which it casts.

I need hardly say I touched upon Cervantes and Shakespeare,

“But thou wouldst not think how ill all’s here About my heart: but it is no matter.”

And again:

“’Tis but a tale, Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.”

Then thinking I had not treated him with any Italian, I gave him this passage from Leopardi: “_Ma io, quanto a me, con licenza vostra e del secolo, sono infelicissimo; e tale mi credo; e tutti i giornali de’ due mondi non mi persuaderanno il contrario._” The latter bit about the newspapers amused him greatly.

I longed to give him De Quincey’s magnificent passage about “Our Lady of Sorrow,” but I could not recollect it.

Finally, I wound up with Sir William Temple, “When all is done human life is, at the greatest and the best, but like a froward child, that must be played with and humoured a little to keep it quiet till it falls asleep, and then the care is over.”

I think my conversation had, as was natural, a cheering effect for the time. He thanked me very much: something that would have been tears in any other man rose over his expressive countenance, and I withdrew. As I did so, however, I am afraid I noticed in a parting glance at him, as he sank back in his chair, that his melancholy was not so easily to be baffled, but that it only waited for my departure to seize upon him again.

_Ellesmere._ Well, but the contrast? I suppose you saw a happy beggar at the gate, munching an unexpected crust, or revelling in an unaccustomed sausage.

_Sir Arthur._ No; it was not so common-place as that. I went away by train. In the carriage were a young man and his wife, not a newly-married couple. They were the very types of round, smiling, smooth-faced insignificance. But how they did enjoy their excursion! They sucked the same orange: they bit at the same cake. Though they evidently were never parted, they had an unceasing flow of utter babblement to interchange. They put me so much in mind of two monkeys! Their talk, though exquisitely silly, was irradiated--really made beautiful--by happiness. They minded me no more than if I had been a bit of the wood-work of the carriage. No reticence had they in their joy, and in their supreme satisfaction with each other.

When I contemplated them, and when I thought of the great man I had left sunk in gloom and dejection, I felt that happiness was not equally distributed to all, as people sometimes perversely contend. By the way they spoke of the great personage, and very kindly too, which won my heart; but as being one who had an infinity of oranges and cakes, and who had no need to save up for three months, in order to afford such a delightful outing as theirs was to be.

_Ellesmere._ It would have been very wicked; but I should like to have heard what they would have said if you had Mauleverized them.

_Sir Arthur._ I would not have done so for the world; I declare I would rather have stolen their money, and spoiled their excursion in that way.

_Ellesmere._ But to return to the main subject. Do keep to the point, my excursive friends.

I could make the greatest possible improvement as regards your wish for a second soul, Milverton. You want that soul to be exactly like your own. I would have it the complement to your own. Where you are soft, it should be hard; where you are sympathetic, it should be cold; where you are simple and stupid, it should be astute and alert; and then indeed it would be of some good to you. In fact, you ought to have mine as a second soul to yours; and we should fight the battle of life triumphantly. I think I hear the Milvertonian soul saying to the Ellesmerian, “You must fight these fellows to-morrow, for I really cannot;” and the Ellesmerian soul would rejoice in the contest. Perhaps the day afterwards some judicious man would remark, “What a much cleverer fellow Milverton is than I thought; you see we could not take him in at all, he was down upon us in a moment: and so good-humoured, too, whereas I always thought he was an irritable, over-sensitive person. No fussy particularity either; not at all the fellow to be for ever washing his own soap.”

One thing, however, you would have to do, Master Milverton: you would have to manage Lady Ellesmere for me; and I have no doubt she would say, not knowing of the interchange of souls, “How manageable John is to-day! not quite so bright as usual, but how much more my slave; and he seems to think exactly what I think,” for you would have the art, of which I have none, to persuade her that your thoughts were hers, and that when you were acting most completely on your own hook, as the saying is, you were but using her bait. Oh dear, what a surprise it would be to her when the real Ellesmere came back to undertake the management of my lady!

_Sir Arthur._ I think I have heard something like your idea before, Milverton, in some French story.

_Milverton._ No, Sir Arthur, you have not, I assure you. I know what you are thinking of--one of Eugène Sue’s novels. In that, an artisan enters into the body of a marquis, and has to go through some very uncomfortable scenes. But the marquis is totally unconscious of the change; and the artisan is not aware, while he is a marquis, that he has another form of existence. It is only when he comes to himself again that he knows that he has had for twenty-four hours the experience of a marquis’s life. Eugène Sue’s object was, doubtless, to show the poor man how great a mistake it often is to envy the rich man. There was no increase of power given to the individual soul.

Now, I really do not see, taking into consideration the infinite variety and beneficence manifested in creation, why in some happy planet there may not be a great increase of power given to a creature something like man.

_Ellesmere._ I am not so taken as the rest of you with Milverton’s fond imaginations. I see fifty objections to his grand idea. If the other soul is to be of any real use or comfort, it must have individuality. If it has individuality, it will differ in opinion with Soul No. I.

Again, you may talk about joys being doubled, and sorrows being halved; but I do not take much interest in things that are done in committee. The whole affair is too much of a joint-stock transaction.

_Milverton._ I am going to tell you something, which perhaps has some application to Ellesmere, and to the critical race generally--a little simple story which I have often longed to tell when Ellesmere has been taking points, and making endless small objections.

_Ellesmere._ Oh, we are a little nettled now, are we? Nothing makes a man more cross than when a really kind friend shows him that his poetry won’t scan. The same thing when it is shown him that what he thinks to be his most poetical ideas are all awry, as it were, and won’t bear looking at. Pray tell your story, though.

[“Oh, yes, pray do,” said the others.]

_Ellesmere._ How delighted you all are at any attack being made upon me! Everybody seems to rouse up all of a sudden; and Fairy perceiving a general movement, makes a circuit round us, as you see, and sniffs and snuffs as if there were a rat or a badger near, to be hunted or baited. Tell your story; do not spare my feelings. I like to see people happy. This sort of thing amuses you, and it does not hurt me.

_Milverton._ When there is a nursery in a house, everybody must admit that the pleasantest meal in the day is nursery tea. I always contrive to become sufficiently familiar with the nursery authorities to be admitted. The mistress is never more agreeable than when presiding at this tea. The master gets away if he can from his sporting friends and their eternal talk about horses, dogs, and partridges; and enjoys the high paternal pleasure of playing at pick-a-back with his little boys. The children are much more pleasant and natural at this tea-time than when they are brought down in their best nursery-frocks after dinner.

_Ellesmere._ Ugh: this nursery story, which is to confound all judicious critics, including myself.

_Milverton._ Well, I was assisting at one of these pleasant nursery teas in a country house. One of the children present was a pretty little girl about three years old, who had a nurse, especially devoted to her, of the name of Maria.

By the way, I may mention that some baked apples had made their appearance at this nursery tea, which in consequence may be considered to have been what the fashionable world calls “a high tea.”

Suddenly, at a pause in the conversation, the little child, putting down a piece of bread and butter, exclaimed, with a very distinct utterance, “_Ma-i-vey say ‘happles’; fool she are._”

Maria, a jolly country girl about fifteen years old, blushed, but looked quite pleased that Miss Gertrude was so clever, and said, “You dear little thing.”

The mamma was “shocked” at such a “naughty word” as “fool” being used to “good kind Maria.”

Miss Gertrude having uttered her “judicious” criticism, was not much dismayed by mamma’s remonstrance.

I thought of Ellesmere and of his flock of critics whom he delights in.

You see the small critic pointed out, with great satisfaction, a little over-indulgence in the use of the aspirate on the part of poor Maria; but was perfectly unconscious that in her own six words she had committed four errors.

_Ellesmere._ How do you make out four?

_Milverton._ “Maivey” for “Maria,” “say” for “says,” “are” for “is;” and surely you would admit that the use of the word “fool” is thoroughly inappropriate. People who misplace their aspirates are not necessarily fools.

But does not Miss Gertrude’s criticism remind you all, not only of Ellesmere’s way of exercising his critical faculty, but also of other criticisms not heard in nurseries, but in the high courts of literature and politics? Have you never found the critic disclose four errors on his own part for one that he delights to point out in the sayings or doings of the person he criticises? You may be sure that something very nearly akin to “Ma-i-vey say ‘happles’; fool she are,” has been uttered in very high places this very day, and not by children of three years old only.

_Ellesmere._ Absolutely malignant! He has bottled up this story to be told against me on some great occasion. I believe it has been impending over my devoted head for the last two years. I really was not particularly critical to-day; but he was particularly vexed, as people always are when the ideas which they are very fond of, but which are not a little rickety, come to be examined by the drill-sergeant, or rather by the Medical Board.

_Sir Arthur._ It is an excellent story.

_Lady Ellesmere._ I shall never forget it.

_Ellesmere._ I know that; I shall be bored by my lady with the story all my life. And as for Sir Arthur, he was sure to delight in it. He has undergone a little criticism himself in the course of his life--totally unjust, no doubt; for as I heard him say to Milverton the other day, “Criticism is for the most part so thin.” What he meant I do not know, but the two authors chuckled over the phrase, and seemed to think it so condemnatory and so clever.

_Sir Arthur._ Milverton has silenced Ellesmere. I am, however, going to revive Sir John, and I shall do so by returning to our original subject. Have you never felt over-wearied yourself, Ellesmere, and as if you would give anything to have another Sir John to take up the work for you? In no great case that you have had to argue?

_Ellesmere._ I am a sensible man; and I do not allow myself to fret myself to fiddle-strings. Sometimes, after a weighty consultation, I have found myself lying awake, and scheming and planning how to conduct a case. On such occasions I do everything I can to break up such trains of thought. I say to myself, “My health and spirits belong to my clients; there is nothing so important for their interests as that I should be strong and in good nerve to-morrow.”

Only think if race-horses, the night before the Derby, knew about to-morrow’s race, how the more nervous and sensitive spirits among them would fret, and fuss, and lose their sleep, and fail to answer, when called upon to make their final effort.

When I was in the ---- case, one of the heaviest I was ever engaged in, I found myself at this planning of my course of argument the night before, and becoming cold, and nervous, and miserable. I got up, and lit a fire, and set to work to read a volume of Victor Hugo’s novel, “_Les Miserables_.” That great book has, happily, certain long parenthetical discussions which are not very exciting. I fell upon one of these, and in half an hour I was in a sweet and composed state of mind, and I had five hours’ good sleep that night.

My client was a dear friend as well as client, and when I saw his anxious face next day in court, I should not like to have told him that I had read “_Les Miserables_” the previous night, in order to get rid of him and his cause from my thoughts. But it was the best thing I could have done for him.

You see, therefore, that you do not take much by appealing to me to back up Milverton’s “fond imaginations,” for so I must call them.

_Milverton._ My dear Sir Arthur, you cannot bring Ellesmere round, when he has once taken up a side against you. Let us change the subject. Ellesmere’s reference to “_Les Miserables_” has put me in mind of what he said some time ago about novels. Do you remember the fun he made of his “Edwin and Angelina”? But if he meant to run down the works of fiction of the present day, I am sure he is not warranted in doing so. I have just been reading a number of the “Last Chronicle of Barset.” What an excellent novel it is! How true to life are the conversations and the letters! Now I maintain that no age has been so rich in good works of fiction, and perhaps in good writing of all kinds, as ours. Ellesmere will, I dare say, declare that, in a future age, almost all the present writers will be quite forgotten. I do not know, but I cannot imagine that Tennyson and Browning, Dickens and Bulwer, and Thackeray and Trollope, and the great feminine writers, the authoress of “The Mill on the Floss,” the authoress of “Jane Eyre,” or of “John Halifax, Gentleman,” and many others, will cease to be valued and their works to be read.

I think the same may be said of the great historical writers--such as Hallam, Grote, Macaulay, Carlyle, Milman, Froude, and Merivale.

I don’t venture to speak much about the writers of other nations, but I think it will be a long time before Emerson, and Hawthorne, and Prescott will be forgotten in their own country.

Now I have not brought this subject on the _tapis_ merely for the sake of getting a change of subject, but I have something very important to say about it. I see, though, Ellesmere is impatient to have his say.

_Ellesmere._ “Blow the trumpets, sound the drums!” Milverton is going to say something at some future time which will be worth hearing.

You began by talking about the “Last Chronicle of Barset.” I am sorry to say that I fear that my relations with the distinguished author of that work will be considerably changed for the worse. I cannot be friendly with him any more, if Lily Dale----. No, I shan’t tell you what I was going to say: you would only laugh at me.

_Milverton._ How men may misunderstand one another! I really do believe that, if Ellesmere were to meet Mr. Trollope, he would be very cold or cross to him if Lily Dale marries John Eames, or if she marries Crosby, or if she does not marry him, or if she does not become an old maid, for I am sure I do not know what Ellesmere wants her to do.

Trollope would go away thinking that he had somehow or other offended Ellesmere, or was greatly disesteemed by him; whereas Ellesmere would be paying him the highest compliment that could be paid to a man of imagination.

Here is this severe, satirical, case-hardened lawyer, and he is so possessed by a phantom of the novelist’s brain, that he is positively prepared to be enraged if this she-phantom does not act exactly as he would have her. What’s Lily Dale to him, or he to Lily Dale?

_Ellesmere._ Well, she is more to me than many a character I read of in history. Your historical characters are such fleeting things nowadays. I used to dislike Nero. I am now told that he was a most estimable gentleman, and has been quite misunderstood until the present time. _If he fiddled at all, it was not during the fire, but after the fire, to collect subscriptions for the sufferers._

But what was the important thing that you were going to tell us, Milverton?

_Milverton._ I do not care how much you ridicule me, but I do maintain that ours is an age noted for its richness in literary skill. Look at the excellence in the daily and weekly press, and in these innumerable monthlies. It is a perpetual source of astonishment to me to see how many people can write well, and have really a great deal to tell you.

I know that Ellesmere will say that I am always unreasonably prone to dwell upon the merits of everything and everybody; but, upon the other hand, I think I am very critical about the writing of English.

A few minutes ago, I mentioned several names of men eminent in literature. But I could add many others. There are Henry Taylor, and Ruskin, and Kingsley, and John Mill, for instance: I pity the man who has read their works, and has not been able to learn a great deal from them, and to appreciate the goodness of the writing.

Amongst our statesmen, too, there are men who would have been very considerable writers, if they had not devoted themselves to statesmanship. Lord Russell’s “Europe since the Peace of Utrecht” is a very well written work. Mr. Disraeli’s novels are remarkable productions. I read his “Contarini Fleming,” as a youth, with immense admiration; and I read it again, last year, with great pleasure. Mr. Gladstone, also, and the Duke of Argyll, are men who have shown that they can leave their mark in literature.

Whatever you may say, I do maintain that ours is a great age as regards power of thought and expression.

Now, what I want you to notice is, that the great men who have made the age pre-eminent were all born, or at least nurtured, and the direction of their talents given to them, in a time of profound peace. The great strides in European civilization, whether in arts, in science, or in literature, have been made in consequence of there having been such periods. I wish we could have Buckle back again in life here with us, for I am sure he would----

[At this moment the postman made his appearance with the second delivery of letters, which the old man asked us to receive, in order that he might be saved the trouble of going up the hill. Now Sir John is furious about this second delivery. It is no joke with him; he is really very angry.]

_Ellesmere._ Have you no conscience, George; are you dead to all the finer feelings of humanity, that you molest us twice a day? I must come to some understanding with you. Your proper Christmas-box from me is two hundred and forty pence,--that is, if you do not bring me any letters during the time that I am here. For every letter you bring I must deduct a penny, and if the balance turns against you, you must give me a Christmas-box. I do believe you have brought me two hundred and eighty letters this time; consequently you owe me forty pence: which, when I was a National School-boy, used to amount to three shillings and fourpence, the sum, Mr. George, you are now in debt to me.

_George._ Oh, your honour would not be so ’ard on poor old George, as ’ave know’d you these twenty year, and such a snowy winter, too, as last winter ’ave a been. ’Sides I must do what the missus (the postmistress) tells I to.

_Ellesmere._ It is no excuse, George! If we do all that our “missuses” tell us, we shall most of us come to the gallows.

_George._ Ah, you be allus so jokous, Lawyer Ellesmere; but you know we must. (And saying this, the old man took off his hat, and, making a general bow to us, trotted off.)

_Ellesmere._ Do you see Peter Garbet’s house in the distance--that wretched hovel surrounded by other hovels, on the top of Mendmore Hill? I am sorry to tell you that old Peter and two of his children are ill of the fever, and that Mrs. Garbet is nearly distracted.

_Mrs. Milverton._ I knew all about it, John. I have done everything I could for her.

_Ellesmere._ I know you have, my dear Blanche, and so have I in my little way; but how can we counteract the post-office?

_Milverton._ What nonsense, Ellesmere! I am sure old Peter has not received three letters in the course of his life.

_Ellesmere._ Considering that you pretend to have a great admiration for history, you are certainly a very shallow fellow, my dear friend, and never look far back enough to causes.

Who in modern times invented the post-office? As Macaulay would have said, “Every schoolboy knows that.”

Why, Louis the Eleventh: just like him, is it not? Everybody who has seen Charles Kean in the character of Louis the Eleventh would know that that crafty, cruel, unprincipled king would, of course, invent the post-office system.

What did he say to himself?--“Despatches make my life miserable; my subjects shall have a taste of them, too. Besides, they will not look so sharply into my proceedings, if they have their own letters to molest them every day.”

What happens? By these means Louis the Eleventh crushes his nobles, and increases the kingly power to an enormous extent. Louis the Fourteenth, the Regent Orleans, and Louis the Fifteenth abuse this kingly power outrageously. France is rendered miserable; and in good, well-meaning Louis the Sixteenth’s time comes the French Revolution.

Out of the French Revolution, by necessity, comes Napoleon the First.

By an equal necessity, England and Pitt must have a set-to with Napoleon the First.

Hence four hundred millions of debt.

Hence window-tax and excise duty on bricks.

Consequently Peter Garbet’s cottage is built with one side against a damp hill to save bricks, and has a window only eighteen inches square. Hence dampness and insufficient ventilation, and hence poor Peter Garbet and his two children lie ill in that miserable hovel.

_Milverton._ I am sorry to say anything against a series of statements and conclusions which are so admirably set forth by our learned friend; but Louis the Eleventh did not establish the post-office in the sense which Ellesmere understands it. He established a series of posts for the Government and for the Court, but it was not adopted by the community in general till Richelieu’s time.

_Ellesmere._ The same thing. Richelieu was but Louis the Eleventh in cardinal’s petticoats.

_Milverton._ I am sorry to intrude with unpleasant facts, but Richelieu was not the prime agent in this matter. It was done by the Duc d’Epernon, when Richelieu was for a year or two in retirement.

_Ellesmere._ What wretched pedantry all this is! It is clear that the cruel Louis the Eleventh was the inventor of the system. You admit that he applied it to his Court. The Court in those days comprehended the principal men in the kingdom. Well, then, this system was enlarged in Richelieu’s time. Do you think it was done without his approbation, or continued without his consent?

Practically speaking, it is a device of tyranny. After you have passed the immature age of twenty-three, does anybody write to you but to annoy you about something?

_Mauleverer._ I think Ellesmere is quite right. All the clever inventions of man only lead to increased misery.

_Milverton._ What do you say to the use of chloroform?

_Ellesmere._ They do not apply it to the right people. Anybody who is about to write a letter to a lawyer in vacation should be chloroformed, and the trance should be made to last for two years at least.

Here Sir John, who had an immense number of letters to-day, got up and walked away. The rest of us did the same, and so the conversation ended.

* * * * *

We had only just begun our walk, when we heard Sir John calling after us. When he came within speaking distance, he shouted out to us, “Mind, I don’t agree with Milverton about his eminent men being born and nurtured in times of peace. I am prepared to maintain the exact contrary, only I haven’t time just now. Old George, the villain, came at the exact moment to save Milverton, that peace-maniac, from a sound intellectual drubbing. Good-bye.” And so saying, he rushed up the hill again, while we proceeded on our walk towards the town; Mr. Milverton merely remarking, “What a contentious creature it is!” But I never thought he would let that pass.