is, that the necessity to write as he does is so great that a strong barrier—­a chevaux-de-frise of pen points—­must be raised against every newly minted word and hazardous coiner, or we shall be inundated.  If he can leap the barrier he and his goods must be admitted.  So it has been with our greatest, so it must be with the rest of them, or we shall have a Transatlantic literature.  By no means desirable, I think.  Yet, see:  when a piece of Transatlantic slang happens to be tellingly true—­ something coined from an absolute experience; from a fight with the elements—­we cannot resist it:  it invades us.  In the same way poetic rashness of the right quality enriches the language.  I would make it prove its quality.”

Cornelia walked on gravely.  His excuse for dilating on the theme, prompted her to say:  “You give me new views”:  while all her reflections sounded from the depths:  “And yet, the man who talks thus is a hired organ-player!”

This recurring thought, more than the cogency of the new views, kept her from combating certain fallacies in them which had struck her.

“Why do you not write yourself, Mr. Barrett?”

“I have not the habit.”

“The habit!”

“I have not heard the call.”

“Should it not come from within?”

“And how are we to know it?”

“If it calls to you loudly!”

“Then I know it to be vanity.”

“But the wish to make a name is not vanity.”

“The wish to conceal a name may exist.”

Cornelia took one of those little sly glances at his features which print them on the brain.  The melancholy of his words threw a somber hue about him, and she began to think with mournfulness of those firm thin lips fronting misfortune:  those sunken blue eyes under its shadow.

They walked up to Mr. Pole, who was standing with Wilfrid and Emilia on the lawn; giving ear to a noise in the distance.

A big drum sounded on the confines of the Brookfield estate.  Soon it was seen entering the precincts at one of the principal gates, followed by trombone, and horn, and fife.  In the rear trooped a regiment of Sunday-garmented villagers, with a rambling tail of loose-minded boys and girls.  Blue and yellow ribands dangled from broad beaver hats, and there were rosettes of the true-blue mingled with yellow at buttonholes; and there was fun on the line of march.  Jokes plumped deep into the ribs, and were answered with intelligent vivacity in the shape of hearty thwacks, delivered wherever a surface was favourable:  a mode of repartee worthy of general adoption, inasmuch as it can be passed on, and so with certainty made to strike your neighbour as forcibly as yourself:  of which felicity of propagation verbal wit cannot always boast.  In the line of procession, the hat of a member of the corps shot sheer into the sky from the compressed energy of his brain; for he and all his comrades vociferously denied having cast it up, and no other solution was possible.  This mysterious incident may tell you that beer was thus early in the morning abroad.  In fact, it was the procession day of a provincial Club-feast or celebration of the nuptials of Beef and Beer; whereof later you shall behold the illustrious offspring.