nature which gives his piece of criticism that indescribable quality which every human soul recognises at once as a new revelation of itself.

"The man of talent is simply a trained hand, a dexterity which can be turned at will in any direction; this is the kind of literary faculty which abounds just now, and is so sure of itself that it denies the very existence of genius. The man of genius, on the other hand, is a large, rich nature, with an ear open to every whisper of human experience, and a heart that interprets the deepest things to itself before they have become conscious in the thought. The man of genius lives deeply, widely, royally; and the best expression he ever gives of himself is but a faint echo of the world-melodies that fill his soul. When such a man writes, he does not draw upon a special fund of information and observation; the universe of truth lies about him, and rises like an inexhaustible fountain within him. One feels in the work of such a man as Lowell the presence, to use Ruskin's phrase, not of a great effort, but of a great force. There is no suggestion

(

of limitation, no hint that one has reached the end of his resources; on the contrary, there is present the indefinable atmosphere of an opulent nature, whose wealth is equal to all draughts, and whose capital remains unimpaired by the greatest enterprises. Shakespeare was not impoverished by Hamlet,' nor Goethe by Faust.' 'To be able to set in motion the greatest subjects of thought without any sense of fatigue,' says Amiel, to be greater than the world, to play with one's strength this is what makes the well-being of intelligence, the Olympic festival of thought.''

The fire, which had been burning meditatively during this discourse, sank at this point into a bed of glowing coals, and I took breath long enough to replenish it with a fresh stick or two. Rosalind meanwhile had taken up her sewing.

"Don't you believe, then, in an art of literature apart from life?" she asked.

"To begin with," I answered, "there is no such thing as a separation of art from life; it is modern misconception which not only separates them, but sets them in

contrast. A true art is impossible apart from life; the man of genius always restores this lost harmony. The man of talent divorces his skill from life, the man of genius subordinates his training to the truth which speaks through him. To him. art is not mere skill, but that perfect reproduction of ideal life which the world gains when Pheidias gives it the Olympian Zeus, Raphael the Sistine Madonna, and Dante the Divine Comedy. Mr. Lowell is the greatest of our poets because his trained hand moves in such subtle harmony with his noble thought. He wears 'all that weight of learning lightly as a flower.' The impulses of a man of genius come from life; they are deep, rich, vital; they rise out of the invisible depths of his consciousness as the unseen mists rise out of the mighty abyss of the sea; and as the clouds take form and become the splendour and the nourishment of toiling continents, so do these impulses become distinct and articulate, and touch life at last with an indescribable beauty and strength. On the other hand, the impulses of a man of talent spring from skill, knowledge, the desire

and profit of the moment. The deepest truth is not born of conscious striving, but comes in the quiet hour when a noble nature gives itself into the keeping of life, to suffer, to feel, to think, and to act as it is moved by a wisdom not its own. The product of literary skill is a piece of mechanism — something made and dexterously put together in the broad light of the workshop; the work of genius is always a miracle of growth, hidden from all eyes, nourished and expanded by the invisible forces which sustain the universe."

At this point I became suddenly conscious that my hobby was in full canter, and that Rosalind might be the unwilling spectator of a solitary race against time.

"My dear," I said, "your question must bear the responsibility of this discourse. There are some names so rich in associations with one's intellectual life, so suggestive of the best and truest things, that they have a kind of a magical power over our minds; they are open sesames to about all there is in us.”

CHAPTER XXIV

A HINT FROM THE
SEASON

HIS afternoon, when
Rosalind came in from
her walk, she brought
an indefinable atmos-
phere of spring with
her. I was not sur-
prised when she said.
a bluebird; I should

that she had seen hardly have been surprised if she had told me the summer was at our doors, and the fire must go out that the hearth might be swept and garnished. There are times when prophecy is swiftly fulfilled by the imagination, and turns into history under our very eyes. For days past there have been harbingers of change on every hand; and fancy, taking the clues so magically dropped here and there in field and sky, travels with swift flight onward to the songs and flowers of June. This evening