In London once more, the need of an occupation, an aim, a purpose, tormented her. She had tried the ignoble and found it bitter. She craved the higher plane of devotion to a cause, something elevated, impersonal. The ordinary pursuits that call forth a woman's self-sacrifice did not appeal to the unrest of her imagination. Besides, her young blood rebelled against self-suppression. In the stress and storm she caught at the first thing to her hand: Roderick Usher's Utopian scheme for the regeneration of art and the consequent purification of society. She was carried away like a straw on the crest of his vehement pro-pagandism. From an occasional attendant at her aunt's receptions, he became a regular visitor. Together they elaborated the scheme, discussed the details. She worked with him in obtaining supporters and canvassing for subscriptions. At first the correspondence, the interviewing, the plotting and intriguing, kept her enthusiastically occupied. She made converts among the young artists and poets who came to the house, inveighing against the tame formalism on the one hand and the morbid exaggeration on the other that were the curses of modern art. She attended meetings in fashionable drawing-rooms and expounded her theories. Notoriety followed her doings. A weekly paper published an illustrated interview with the priestess of the new gospel. She believed in the scheme. It was audacious, but practical. It was impossible for convincing art to flourish in the midst of the social insincerity and commercialism of the day. The teachers of men must lead a higher life than the taught; to have authority, must dwell aloof from the world; to have inspiration, must draw it from the pure wells of nature and their own hearts. These postulates being allowed, the logical consequence was the conception of a colony of earnest and devoted artists in some sequestered spot where the world's Babel came but as an echo. Such a spot was readily obtainable in California. A large ranch, in one of the loveliest valleys of the Sierra Nevada, was for sale. Extensions could be built indefinitely at a comparatively trifling cost. Thither the band of youths and maidens, uncorrupted as yet by the deadening influences around them, would proceed, and settling down would allow to flow unchecked the genuine founts of their genius. They would be in Arcadian ignorance of the arch destroyer of art, the public taste, and thus be beyond the reach of the temptation to pander to it. They would reveal the truth as it came crystallised in song or poem or picture from their own souls. The lack of pence would not disturb their serenity. Those who could afford it would pay a modest monthly contribution to the general fund. The penniless children of genius would obtain free food, shelter, and all the privileges of the Colony. The subscriptions of the supporters of the movement in England would defray their expenses. A commission would be levied on the profits of any work