As I do not intend to underline all Mr. Jeff's speeches, I will explain here that he was one of those persons who choose their words with care, and then bestow upon them a certain emphasis--an emphasis of breath--a soft cough, so to say, intended merely to call your attention to the word in question as an unexceptionable word. At first you wondered at the speaker's earnestness; afterwards you begot a nervous oppression of the breathing apparatus, referable to the obscure phenomena of sympathetic affections. For my own part, the kind of conscientious self-complacency of which I considered this idiosyncrasy of my friend to be a symptom tended to arouse in me all my caustic and combative instincts; and, inasmuch as the young poet was fertile in 'notions' and resolute in upholding the same, our conversations were apt to become discussions, and our discussions disputes. Our disputes had never deepened into quarrels--we were too dissimilar for that--though a listener might sometimes have found it difficult to make the distinction. But to resume. 'Why strange?' was my enquiry. 'Why, that we shouldn't have encountered previously.' 'On the contrary, the strangeness is in our meeting at all. I came here to make studies, and you, I suppose, to make conquests. How many so far?' 'Oh, you old cynic! I don't know a soul in the place. It was an accident my being here at all, and I've been doing nothing but admire these lovely cliffs and the poetic scenery.' 'Poetic? That reminds me. Pardon my thoughtlessness, Jeff. You have been wooing the muse, of course?' 'Well, I confess I have been attempting something; it's unfinished as yet, but I hope it is fresh and strong; and I believe it to be original in treatment as well as in idea. It will be my most ambitious effort so far. A pagan maid falls in love with the Spirit of the Ocean, and a poet is in love with her, and between these two loves----' 'She comes to the ground, or into the water. Which is it?' 'You are always so ready to mock, Campbell. But of course it doesn't come from the heart; it's only your badinage. And really, don't you think the conception fine? I should like to read you my description of the pagan maid.' 'Portrait of anybody in particular?' 'Well, between you and me, Campbell, there _is_ a young lady here--I don't know who she is, but she really does seem to be almost the type I need--for my poem, I mean. A noble creature--the true grand pagan style. You would like her; she would charm the artist equally with the poet.' 'So you have been trotting up hill and down dale after a pagan, and call it writing a poem on metaphysical abstractions! Do you never mean to give up this sort of thing, my dear boy?' 'Really, what do you mean?' 'Dangling after women the way you do.' 'What an expression! Every cultivated man feels it his duty to love woman and to frequent her society.' 'But why not choose out a representative woman and frequent the whole sex in her person?'