KENELM.--"But I have a great reverence for poetry as a priesthood. I felt that reverence for you when you sketched and talked priesthood last evening, and placed in my heart--I hope forever while it beats--the image of the child on the sunlit hill, high above the abodes of men, tossing her flower-ball heavenward and with heavenward eyes." The singer's cheek coloured high, and his lip quivered: he was very sensitive to praise; most singers are. Kenelm resumed, "I have been educated in the Realistic school, and with realism I am discontented, because in realism as a school there is no truth. It contains but a bit of truth, and that the coldest and hardest bit of it, and he who utters a bit of truth and suppresses the rest of it tells a lie." THE MINSTREL (slyly).--"Does the critic who says to me, 'Sing of beefsteak, because the appetite for food is a real want of daily life, and don't sing of art and glory and love, because in daily life a man may do without such ideas,'--tell a lie?" KENELM.--"Thank you for that rebuke. I submit to it. No doubt I did tell a lie,--that is, if I were quite in earnest in my recommendation, and if not in earnest, why--" THE MINSTREL.--"You belied yourself." KENELM.--"Very likely. I set out on my travels to escape from shams, and begin to discover that I am a sham /par excellence/. But I suddenly come across you, as a boy dulled by his syntax and his vulgar fractions suddenly comes across a pleasant poem or a picture-book, and feels his wits brighten up. I owe you much: you have done me a world of good." "I cannot guess how." "Possibly not, but you have shown me how the realism of Nature herself takes colour and life and soul when seen on the ideal or poetic side of it. It is not exactly the words that you say or sing that do me the good, but they awaken within me new trains of thought, which I seek to follow out. The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself. Therefore, O singer! whatever be the worth in critical eyes of your songs, I am glad to remember that you would like to go through the world always singing." "Pardon me: you forget that I added, 'if life were always young, and the seasons were always summer.'"