“Between the fiftieth and sixtieth years; a man’s position is made by then, and he has nothing to do but enjoy his existence.” “Baron, you can question Wood himself. He is coming towards us.” The applause, this time rising to a furious pitch like the fall of a heavy body or the banging of doors, announced the close of the performance. The black-coated contingent leaving the doorways clear overflowed into the smaller _salon_, and as the company made their way in couples in the direction of the buffet, Leslie Wood approached us. He shook hands with undemonstrative cordiality. “An apparition! an apparition!” exclaimed Baron Moïse. “Oh!” rejoined Wood, “one can’t reappear from any very remote quarter. The world is small.” “Do you know what the Princess is saying about you, my dear Wood? She declares that you are nothing but a mystic. Now is that true?” “Well it depends on what you mean by mystic.” “The word is self-explanatory. A mystic is one who is preoccupied with the concerns of the next world. Now you are too well acquainted with the affairs of this world to trouble yourself about the next.” At these words Wood slightly contracted his eyebrows. “You are quite in the wrong, Moïse. The affairs of the other world are of far, far greater importance than those of the world we live in, Moïse.” “What a man he is, this good Wood of ours!” exclaimed the Baron, with a sneer. “He is positively witty!” The Princess replied very seriously— “Mr. Wood, tell me that you are not witty. I thoroughly detest witty men.” Upon this she rose, and said— “Mr. Wood, will you take me to the buffet?” An hour later, when Monsieur G—— was holding both men and women spell-bound with his songs, I came across Leslie Wood and the Princess Zévorine again, alone in front of the deserted buffet. The Princess was speaking with almost vehement enthusiasm of Count Tolstoi, whose friend she was. She described this great man who had descended to the lowliest life, donning the dress, and with it the spirit, of the moujik, and using the hands which had indited literary masterpieces in the manufacture of shoes for the poor. To my great surprise, Wood was expressing approbation of a kind of life so completely opposed to common sense. In his slightly panting voice, to which the beginnings of asthma had given a singular sweetness, he said— “Yes, Tolstoi is right. The whole of philosophy is contained in that phrase: ‘May the will of God be done!’ He has realized that all the woes of humanity are the outcome of the exercise of human will as distinct from the will divine. My only fear is that he may impair so noble a doctrine by fantastic and extravagant additions.”