want to have a long and elaborate dinner; it should
be _simplex munditiis_, as Horace said. And beautiful pictures and
furniture are more beautiful if there is not too much of them. One
felt, in this warm, fragrant house, with every room and wall crammed
with charming objects, with every desire anticipated, the dinner-table
bright with flowers and silver, with "orient liquor in a crystal
glass," as if one stifled under a load of delights; I yearned for
plainer rooms and simpler fare, and for freer and more genuine talk.
One felt that the aim of the circle was satisfaction rather than
beauty; to be sheltered and caressed rather than to be invigorated and
tranquillised.

I was standing in a drawing-room one night before dinner, already sated
with the food, the talk, the music, and the art of the day, as the
guests began to arrive: such clean, brilliant men, faultlessly
appointed; such beautiful and delicate women, with a vague sense of
fragrance and jewels, came stealing in. Suddenly among the company
there came stalking in a great literary man, an old friend of my own;
handsome, too, and well-appointed enough, but with a touch of roughness
and vigour that made him, I thought, like a chieftain among courtiers;
and wearing the haggard air of the man who toils at his art, and cannot
achieve his incommunicable hopes or capture his divine dreams. He came
up to me, smiling, in a secluded corner. "Hullo," he said, "_mon
vieux!_ who would have thought of finding you here in the island of
Circe?"

"I might ask the same question," I said. "But perhaps I have the sacred
herb, _moly_, the 'small unsightly root' in my bosom, to guard me
against the spells."

"The leaf has prickles on it," he said, with a smile; "there is nothing
prickly about our friends here."

This was mere sword-play, of course, not real talk; and then we had
five minutes' talk which I will not put down, because I should betray
secrets, and secrets too in their rough, uncut form, the gems of art,
which must be cut before they are presented. But I got more out of
those five minutes than I did out of the rest of my visit.

Presently we went in to dinner, and the performance began. How
skilfully it was all guided and modulated by our host, who was in his
best form. What delicate flies he threw over his fish; how softly they
rose to them. The talk flashed to and fro; the groups formed, broke,
re-formed. But it was a shallow stream; there was no zeal or vehemenc