orrect answers they received from Nature. It is the
supernatural within us,--namely, Mind,--which can alone guess at the
mechanism of the natural, namely, Matter. A stone cannot question a
stone."

The minstrel made no reply. And there was a long silence, broken but by
the hum of the insects, the ripple of onward waves, and the sigh of the
wind through reeds.

CHAPTER XVII.

SAID Kenelm, at last breaking silence--

"'Rapiamus, amici,
Occasionem de die, dumque virent genua,
Et decet, obducta solvatur fronte senectus!'"

"Is not that quotation from Horace?" asked the minstrel.

"Yes; and I made it insidiously, in order to see if you had not acquired
what is called a classical education."

"I might have received such education, if my tastes and my destinies
had not withdrawn me in boyhood from studies of which I did not then
comprehend the full value. But I did pick up a smattering of Latin at
school; and from time to time since I left school I have endeavoured to
gain some little knowledge of the most popular Latin poets; chiefly, I
own to my shame, by the help of literal English translations."

"As a poet yourself, I am not sure that it would be an advantage to know
a dead language so well that its forms and modes of thought ran,
though perhaps unconsciously, into those of the living one in which you
compose. Horace might have been a still better poet if he had not known
Greek better than you know Latin."

"It is at least courteous in you to say so," answered the singer, with a
pleased smile.

"You would be still more courteous," said Kenelm, "if you would pardon
an impertinent question, and tell me whether it is for a wager that you
wander through the land, Homer-like, as a wandering minstrel, and allow
that intelligent quadruped your companion to carry a tray in his mouth
for the reception of pennies?"

"No, it is not for a wager; it is a whim of mine, which I fancy from
the tone of your conversation you could understand, being apparently
somewhat whimsical yourself."

"So far as whim goes, be assured of my sympathy."

"Well, then, though I follow a calling by the exercise of which I secure
a modest income, my passion is verse. If the seasons were always summer,
and life were always youth, I should like to pass through the world
singing. But I have never ventured to publish any verses of mine. If
they fell still-born it would give me more pain than such wounds to
vanity ought to giv