save to smell? I used to
torment myself once by asking them all what they meant. Now, I am
content to have done with symbolisms, and say, 'What you all mean, I
care not, all I know is, that I can draw pleasure from the mere sight of
you, as, perhaps, you do from the mere sight of me; so let us sit
together, Nature and I, and stare into each other's eyes like two young
lovers, careless of the morrow and its griefs.' I will not even take the
trouble to paint her. Why make ugly copies of perfect pictures? Let
those who wish to see her take a railway ticket, and save us
academicians colours and canvas. _Quant a moi_, the public must go to
the mountains, as Mahomet had to do; for the mountains shall not come to
the public."

"One of your wilful paradoxes, Mr. Mellot; why, you are photographing
them all day long."

"Not quite all day long, madam. And after all, _il faut vivre:_ I want a
few luxuries; I have no capacity for keeping a shop; photographing pays
better than painting, considering the time it takes; and it is only
Nature reproducing herself, not caricaturing her. But if any one will
ensure me a poor two thousand a year, I will promise to photograph no
more, but vanish to Sicily or Calabria, and sit with Sabina in an
orchard all my days, twining rose garlands for her pretty head, like
Theocritus and his friends, while the 'pears drop on our shoulders, and
the apples by our side.'"

"What do you think of all this?" asked Valencia of Frank.

"That I am too like the Emersonian oyster here, very happy, and very
useless; and, therefore, very anxious to be gone."

"Surely you have earned the right to be idle awhile?"

"No one has a right to be idle."

"Oh!" groaned Claude; "where did you find that eleventh commandment?"

"I have done with all eleventh commandments; for I find it quite hard
work enough to keep the ancient ten. But I find it, Mellot, in the
deepest abyss of all; in the very depth from which the commandments
sprang. But we will not talk about it here."

"Why not?" asked Valencia, looking up. "Are we so very naughty as to be
unworthy to listen?"

"And are these mountains," asked Claude, "so ugly and ill-made, that
they are an unfit pulpit for a sermon? No; tell me what you mean. After
all, I am half in jest"

"Do not courtesy, pity, chivalry, generosity, self-sacrifice,--in
short, being of use,--do not our hearts tell us that they are the most
beautiful, noble, lovely things in the world?"

"I