aristocracy, an aristocracy in the true and genuine sense of the word. You are all to have culture, or taste. Very good: you have talked a great deal about that, and you have seen what you mean by it; and you have recognized, above all, that it includes. a discrimination between right and wrong. But now you, with all this taste and culture,- you gifted men and women of the nineteenth century,- what sort of things does your taste teach you to reach out towards? In what actions and aims, in what affections and emotions, would you place your happiness? That is what I want to hear,-the practical manifestations of this culture."

"Ah," said Mr. Rose, "I have at this moment a series of essays in the press, which would go far towards answering these questions of yours. They do indeed deal with just this: the effect of the choicer culture of this century on the soul of man; the ways in which it endows him with new perceptions; how it has made him, in fact, a being altogether more highly organized. All I regret is that these choicer souls, these Xapievτes, are as yet like flowers that have not found a climate in which they can thrive properly. That mental climate will doubtless come with time. What we have been trying to do this afternoon is, I imagine, nothing more than to anticipate it in imagination."

"Well," said Mr. Herbert, with a little the tone of an Inquisitor, "that is just what I have been asking. What will this climate be like, and what will these flowers be like in this climate? How would your culture alter and better the present, if its powers were equal to its wishes?"

Mr. Rose's soft lulling tone harmonized well with the scene and hour, and the whole party seemed willing to listen to him; or at any rate, no one felt any prompting to interrupt him.

"I can show you an example, Mr. Herbert," he said, “of culture demanding a finer climate, in-if you will excuse my seeming egoism—in myself. For instance (to take the widest matter I can fix upon, the general outward surroundings of our lives), often, when I walk about London, and see how hideous its whole external aspect is, and what a dissonant population throng it, a chill feeling of despair comes over me. Consider how the human eye delights in form and color, and the ear in tempered and harmonious sounds; and then think for a moment of a London street! Think of the shapeless houses, the forest of ghastly chimney-pots, of the hell of distracting noises made by

the carts, the cabs, the carriages; think of the bustling, commonplace, careworn crowds that jostle you; think of an omnibus, think of a four-wheeler- »

"I often ride in an omnibus," said Lord Allen, with a slight smile, to Miss Merton.

"It is true," replied Mr. Rose, only overhearing the tone in which these words were said, "that one may ever and again catch some touch of sunlight that will for a moment make the meanest object beautiful with its furtive alchemy. But that is Nature's work, not man's; and we must never confound the accidental beauty that Nature will bestow on man's work, even at its worst, with the rational and designed beauty of man's work at its best. It is this rational human beauty that I say our modern city life is so completely wanting in; nay, the look of out-of-door London seems literally to stifle the very power of imagining such beauty possible. Indeed, as I wander along our streets, pushing my way among the throngs of faces, - faces puckered with misdirected thought or expressionless with none; barbarous faces set towards Parliament, or church, or scientific lecture-rooms, or government offices, or counting-houses,— I say, as I push my way amongst all the sights and sounds of the streets of our great city, only one thing ever catches my eye that breaks in upon my mood and warns me I need not despair. "

"And what is that?" asked Allen with some curiosity.

"The shops," Mr. Rose answered, "of certain of our upholsterers and dealers in works of art. Their windows, as I look into them, act like a sudden charm on me; like a splash of cold water dashed on my forehead when I am fainting. For I seem there to have got a glimpse of the real heart of things; and as my eyes rest on the perfect pattern (many of which are really. quite delicious; indeed, when I go to ugly houses, I often take a scrap of some artistic crétonne with me in my pocket as a kind of æsthetic smelling-salts), I say, when I look in at their windows, and my eyes rest on the perfect pattern of some new fabric for a chair or for a window curtain, or on some new design for a wall paper, or on some old china vase, I become at once sharply conscious, Mr. Herbert, that despite the ungenial mental climate of the present age, strange yearnings for and knowledge of true beauty are beginning to show themselves like flowers above the weedy soil; and I remember, amidst the roar

and clatter of our streets, and the mad noises of our own times, that there is amongst us a growing number who have deliberately turned their backs on all these things, and have thrown their whole souls and sympathies into the happier art ages of the past. They have gone back," said Mr. Rose, raising his voice a little,"to Athens and to Italy; to the Italy of Leo and to the Athens of Pericles. To such men the clamor, the interests, the struggles of our own times become as meaningless as they really are. To them the boyhood of Bathyllus is of more moment than the manhood of Napoleon. Borgia is a more familiar name than Bismarck. I know, indeed, and I really do not blame them, — several distinguished artists who, resolving to make their whole lives consistently perfect, will on principle never admit a newspaper into their houses that is of later date than the times of Addison: and I have good trust that the number of such men is on the increase; men, I mean," said Mr. Rose, toying tenderly with an exquisite wine-glass of Salviati's, "who with a steady and set purpose follow art for .the sake of art, beauty for the sake of beauty, love for the sake of love, life for the sake of life."

Mr. Rose's slow gentle voice, which was apt. at certain times to become peculiarly irritating, sounded now like the evening air grown articulate; and had secured him hitherto a tranquil hearing, as if by a kind of spell. This, however, seemed here in sudden danger of snapping.

"What, Mr. Rose!" exclaimed Lady Ambrose, "do you mean to say, then, that the number of people is on the increase who won't read the newspapers?"

"Why, the men must be absolute idiots!" said Lady Grace, shaking her gray curls, and putting on her spectacles to look at Mr. Rose.

Mr. Rose, however, was imperturbable.

"Of course," he said, "you may have newspapers if you will; I myself always have them: though in general they are too full of public events to be of much interest. I was merely speaking just now of the spirit of the movement. And of that we must

all of us here have some knowledge. We must all of us have friends whose houses more or less embody it. And even if we had not, we could not help seeing signs of it-signs of how true and earnest it is, in the enormous sums that are now given for really good objects."

"That," said Lady Grace, with some tartness, "is true enough, thank God!"

"But I can't see," said Lady Ambrose, whose name often figured in the Times, in the subscription lists of advertised charities, "I can't see, Mr. Rose, any reason in that why we should not read the newspapers."

"The other day, for instance," said Mr. Rose reflectively, "I heard of eight Chelsea shepherdesses picked up by a dealer. I really forget where,- in some common cottage, if I recollect aright, covered with dirt, giving no pleasure to any one,- and these were all sold in a single day, and not one of them fetched less than two hundred and twenty pounds."

"I can't help thinking they must have come from Cremorne," said Mrs. Sinclair softly.

"But why," said Mr. Rose, "should I speak of particular instances? We must all of us have friends whose houses are full of priceless treasures such as these; the whole atmosphere of whose rooms really seems impregnated with art,- seems, in fact, Mr. Herbert, such an atmosphere as we should dream of for our New Republic."

"To be sure," exclaimed exclaimed Lady Ambrose, feeling that she had at last got upon solid ground. "By the way, Mr. Rose," she said with her most gracious of smiles, "I suppose you have hardly seen Lady Julia Hayman's new house in Belgrave Square? I'm sure that would delight you. I should like to take you there some day and show it to you."

"I have seen it," said Mr. Rose with languid condescension. "It was very pretty, I thought,- some of it really quite nice." This, and the slight rudeness of manner it was said with, raised Mr. Rose greatly in Lady Ambrose's estimation, and she began to think with respect of his late utterances.

"Well, Mr. Herbert," Mr. Rose went on, "what I want to say is this: We have here in the present age, as it is, fragments of the right thing. We have a number of isolated right interiors; we have a few, very few, right exteriors. But in our ideal State, our entire city-our London, the metropolis of our societywould be as a whole perfect as these fragments. Taste would not there be merely an indoor thing. It would be written visibly for all to look upon, in our streets, our squares, our gardens. Could we only mold England to our wishes, the thing to do, I am persuaded, would be to remove London to some kindlier site.

that it might there be altogether born anew. I myself would have it taken to the southwest, and to the sea-coast, where the waves are blue, and where the air is calm and fine, and there—»

"Ah me!" sighed Mr. Luke with a lofty sadness, "cælum non animam mutant."

"Pardon me," said Mr. Rose: "few paradoxes-and most paradoxes are false-are, I think, so false as that. This much at least of sea-like man's mind has: that scarcely anything so distinctly gives a tone to it as the color of the skies he lives under. And I was going to say," he went on, looking out dreamily towards the evening waves, "that as the imagination is a quick workman, I can at this moment see our metropolis already transplanted and rebuilt. I seem to see it now as it were from a distance, with its palaces, its museums, its churches, its convents, its gardens, its picture galleries,-a cluster of domed and pillared marble, sparkling on a gray headland. It is Rome, it is Athens, it is Florence, arisen and come to life again, in these modern days. The aloe-tree of beauty again blossoms there, under the azure stainless sky."

"Do you know, Mr. Rose," said Lady Ambrose in her most cordial manner, "all this is very beautiful; and certainly no one can think London as it is more ugly than I do. That's natural in me, isn't it, being a denizen of poor prosaic South Audley Street as I am? But don't you think that your notion isit's very beautiful, I quite feel that- but don't you think it is perhaps a little too dream-like- too unreal, if you know what I

mean? »

"Such a city," said Mr. Rose earnestly, "is indeed a dream; but it is a dream which we might make a reality, would circumstances only permit of it. We have many amongst us who know what is beautiful, and who passionately desire it; and would others only be led by these, it is quite conceivable that we might some day have a capital, the entire aspect of which should be the visible embodiment of our finest and most varied culture, our most sensitive taste, and our deepest æsthetic measure of things. This is what this capital of our New Republic must be, this dwelling-place of our ideal society. We shall have houses, galleries, streets, theatres, such as Giulio Romano or Giorgio Vasari or Giulio Campi would have rejoiced to look at; we shall have metal-work worthy of the hand of Ghiberti and the praise of Michel Angelo; we shall rival Domenico Beccafumi with our pavements. As you wander through our thoroughfares and our