rs who praised them.

Just as misanthropy with some persons grows out of benevolence
disappointed, so there are certain natures--and Kenelm Chillingly's was
perhaps one of them--in which indifferentism grows out of earnestness
baffled.

He had promised himself pleasure in renewing acquaintance with his old
tutor, Mr. Welby,--pleasure in refreshing his own taste for metaphysics
and casuistry and criticism. But that accomplished professor of realism
had retired from philosophy altogether, and was now enjoying a holiday
for life in the business of a public office. A minister in favour of
whom, when in opposition, Mr. Welby, in a moment of whim, wrote some
very able articles in a leading journal, had, on acceding to power,
presented the realist with one of those few good things still left to
ministerial patronage,--a place worth about L1,200 a year. His mornings
thus engaged in routine work, Mr. Welby enjoyed his evenings in a
convivial way.

"_Inveni portum_," he said to Kenelm; "I plunge into no troubled waters
now. But come and dine with me to-morrow, tete-a-tete. My wife is at
St. Leonard's with my youngest born for the benefit of sea-air." Kenelm
accepted the invitation.

The dinner would have contented a Brillat-Savarin: it was faultless; and
the claret was that rare nectar, the Lafitte of 1848.

"I never share this," said Welby, "with more than one friend at a time."

Kenelm sought to engage his host in discussion on certain new works in
vogue, and which were composed according to purely realistic canons of
criticism. "The more realistic; these books pretend to be, the less
real they are," said Kenelm. "I am half inclined to think that the whole
school you so systematically sought to build up is a mistake, and that
realism in art is a thing impossible."

"I dare say you are right. I took up that school in earnest because I
was in a passion with pretenders to the Idealistic school; and whatever
one takes up in earnest is generally a mistake, especially if one is in
a passion. I was not in earnest and I was not in a passion when I wrote
those articles to which I am indebted for my office." Mr. Welby here
luxuriously stretched his limbs, and lifting his glass to his lips,
voluptuously inhaled its bouquet.

"You sadden me," returned Kenelm. "It is a melancholy thing to find that
one's mind was influenced in youth by a teacher who mocks at his own
teachings."

Welby shrugged his shoulders. "Life consists in the