hings down to mediocrity. If, as I think,
minds and metals correspond the goldsmiths of Paris foretold the French
Revolution when they substituted steel for that unserviceable gold in the
manufacture of the more expensive jewel work, and made those large, flat
steel buttons for men of fashion whereby the card players were able to
cheat by studying the reflections of the cards.

XI

No country could have more natural distaste for equality, for in every
circle there was some man ridiculous for posing as the type of some
romantic or distinguished quality. One of our friends, a man of talent
and of learning, whose ancestors had come, he believed, from Denmark in
the ninth century, looked and talked the distinguished foreigner so
perfectly that a patriotic newspaper gave particulars of his supposed
relations in contemporary Denmark! A half-mad old man who had served for a
few months in the Pope's army, many years before, still rode an old white
warhorse in all national processions, and, if their enemies were not
lying, one Town Councillor had challenged another to a duel by flinging
his glove upon the floor; while a popular Lord Mayor had boasted in a
public speech that he never went to bed at night without reading at least
twelve pages of _Sappho_. Then, too, in those conversations of the small
hours, to which O'Leary had so much objected, whenever we did not speak of
art and letters, we spoke of Parnell. We told each other that he had
admitted no man to his counsel; that when some member of his party found
himself in the same hotel by chance, that member would think to stay there
a presumption, and move to some other lodging; and, above all, we spoke of
his pride, that made him hide all emotion while before his enemy. Once he
had seemed callous and indifferent to the House of Commons, Foster had
accused him of abetting assassination, but when he came among his
followers his hands were full of blood, because he had torn them with his
nails. What excitement there would have been, what sense of mystery would
have stirred all our hearts, and stirred hearts all through the country,
where there was still, and for many years to come, but one overmastering
topic, had we known the story Mrs. Parnell tells of that scene on Brighton
Pier. He and the woman that he loved stood there upon a night of storm,
when his power was at its greatest height, and still unthreatened. He
caught her from the ground and held her at arm's length out