’A diamond from the lapidary!—­Your sentences have many facets.  Well, you are conversing with a demagogue, an avowed one:  a demagogue and a Jew.  You take it as a matter of course:  you should exhibit some sparkling incredulity.  The Christian is like the politician in supposing the original obverse of him everlastingly the same, after the pattern of the monster he was originally taught to hate.  But the Jew has been a little christianized, and we have a little bejewed the Christian.  So with demagogues:  as we see the conservative crumbling, we grow conservatived.  Try to think individually upon what you have to learn collectively—­that is your task.  You are of the few who will be equal to it.  We are not men of blood, believe me.  I am not.  For example, I detest and I decline the duel.  I have done it, and proved myself a man of metal notwithstanding.  To say nothing of the inhumanity, the senselessness of duelling revolts me.  ’Tis a folly, so your nobles practise it, and your royal wiseacre sanctions.  No blood for me:  and yet I tell you that whatever opposes me, I will sweep away.  How?  With the brain.  If we descend to poor brute strength or brutal craft, it is from failing in the brain:  we quit the leadership of our forces, and the descent is the beast’s confession.  Do I say how?  Perhaps by your aid.—­You do not start and cry:  “Mine!” That is well.  I have not much esteem for non-professional actresses.  They are numerous and not entertaining.—­You leave it to me to talk.’

‘Could I do better?’

‘You listen sweetly.’

‘It is because I like to hear.’

‘You have the pearly little ear of a shell on the sand.’

‘With the great sea sounding near it!’

Alvan drew closer to her.

’I look into your eyes and perceive that one may listen to you and speak to you.  Heart to heart, then!  Yes, a sea to lull you, a sea to win you—­temperately, let us hope; by storm, if need be.  My prize is found!  The good friend who did the part of Iris for us came bounding to me:  “I have discovered the wife for you, Alvan.”  I had previously heard of her from another as having touched the islet of Capri.  “But,” said Kollin, “she is a gold-crested serpent—­slippery!” Is she?  That only tells me of a little more to be mastered.  I feel my future now.  Hitherto it has been a land without sunlight.  Do you know how the look of sunlight on a land calms one?  It signifies to the eye possession and repose, the end gained—­not the end to labour, just heaven! but peace to the heart’s craving, which is the renewal of strength for work, the fresh dip in the waters of life.  Conjure up your vision of Italy.  Remember the meaning of Italian light and colour:  the clearness, the luminous fulness, the thoughtful shadows.  Mountain and wooded headland are solid, deep to the eye, spirit-speaking to the mind.  They throb.  You carve shapes of Gods out of that sky, the sea, those peaks.  They live with you.  How they satiate the vacant