ause I knew it too acutely.

CHAPTER XXVIII. OTTILIA

She was on horseback; I on foot, Schwartz for sole witness, and a wide
space of rolling silent white country around us.

We had met in the fall of the winter noon by accident. 'You like my
Professor?' said Ottilia.

'I do: I respect him for his learning.'

'You forgive him his irony? It is not meant to be personal to you.
England is the object; and partly, I may tell you, it springs from
jealousy. You have such wealth! You embrace half the world: you are such
a little island! All this is wonderful. The bitterness is, you are
such a mindless people--I do but quote to explain my Professor's ideas.
"Mindless," he says, "and arrogant, and neither in the material nor in
the spiritual kingdom of noble or gracious stature, and ceasing to have
a brave aspect." He calls you squat Goths. Can you bear to hear me?'

'Princess!'

'And to his conception, you, who were pioneers when the earth had to be
shaped for implements and dug for gold, will turn upon us and stop our
march; you are to be overthrown and left behind, there to gain humility
from the only teacher you can understand--from poverty. Will you defend
yourself?'

'Well, no, frankly, I will not. The proper defence for a nation is its
history.'

'For an individual?'

'For a man, his readiness to abide by his word.'

'For a woman--what?'

'For a princess, her ancestry.'

'Ah! but I spoke of women. There, there is my ground of love for my
Professor! I meet my equals, princes, princesses, and the man, the
woman, is out of them, gone, flown! They are out of the tide of
humanity; they are walking titles, "Now," says my Professor, "that tide
is the blood of our being; the blood is the life-giver; and to be cut
off from it is to perish." Our princely houses he esteems as dead wood.
Not near so much say I: yet I hear my equals talk, and I think, "Oh! my
Professor, they testify to your wisdom." I love him because he has
given my every sense a face-forward attitude (you will complain of my
feebleness of speech) to exterior existence. There is a princely view of
life which is a true one; but it is a false one if it is the sole one.
In your Parliament your House of Commons shows us real princes, your
Throne merely titled ones. I speak what everybody knows, and you, I am
sure, are astonished to hear me.'

'I am,' said I.

'It is owing to my Professor, my mind's father and mother. They say it
is the pleasure