"Accepted ideals are generally mistaken ones,"--he observed, watching me narrowly--"An accepted ideal of Divinity in some church pictures is an old man's face set in a triangle. The accepted ideal of the devil is a nondescript creature, with horns, hoofs (one of them cloven) and a tail, as Miss Clare just now remarked. The accepted ideal of beauty is the Venus de Medicis,--whereas your Lady Sibyl entirely transcends that much over-rated statue. The accepted ideal of a poet is Apollo,--he was a god,--and no poet in the flesh ever approaches the god-like! And the accepted ideal of the female novelist, is an elderly, dowdy, spectacled, frowsy fright,--Mavis Clare does not fulfil this description, yet she is the author of 'Differences.' Now McWhing, who thrashes her continually in all the papers he can command, _is_ elderly, ugly, spectacled and frowsy,--and he is the author of--nothing! Women-authors are invariably supposed to be hideous,--men-authors for the most part _are_ hideous. But their hideousness is not noted or insisted upon,--whereas, no matter how good-looking women-writers may be, they still pass under press-comment as frights, because the fiat of press-opinion considers they ought to be frights, even if they are not. A pretty authoress is an offence,--an incongruity,--a something that neither men nor women care about. Men don't care about her, because being clever and independent, she does not often care about them,--women don't care about her, because she has the effrontery to combine attractive looks with intelligence, and she makes an awkward rival to those who have only attractive looks without intelligence. So wags the world!-- O wild world!--circling through æons untold,-- 'Mid fires of sunrise and sunset,--through flashes of silver and gold,-- Grain of dust in a storm,--atom of sand by the sea,-- What is your worth, O world, to the Angels of God and me! He sang this quite suddenly, his rich baritone pealing out musically on the warm silent air. I listened entranced. "What a voice you have!" I exclaimed--"What a glorious gift!" He smiled, and sang on, his dark eyes flashing-- O wild world! Mote in a burning ray Flung from the spherical Heavens millions of spaces away-- Sink in the ether or soar! Live with the planets or die!-- What should I care for your fate, who am one with the Infinite Sky! "What strange song is that?" I asked, startled and thrilled by the passion of his voice--"It seems to mean nothing!" He laughed, and took my arm. "It does mean nothing!" he said--"All drawing-room songs mean nothing. Mine is a drawing-room song--calculated to waken emotional impulses in the unloved spinster religiously inclined!" "Nonsense!" I said, smiling. "Exactly! That is what I say. It _is_ nonsense!" Here we came up to the carriage which waited for us--"Just twenty minutes to catch the train, Geoffrey! Off we go!"