they are voted trite, humdrum, commonplace, and live no longer than their contemporaries.  If they venture a step in advance, and attempt to lead, to lift up the masses, or to elevate the standard of thought and extend its range, they are scoffed at as pedants, and die unhonored prophets; and just as the tomb is sealed above them, people peer more closely into their books, and whisper, ’There is something here after all; great men have been among us.’  The next generation chants paeans, and casts chaplets on the graves, and so the world rings with the names of ghosts, and fame pours generous libations to appease the manes of genius slaughtered on the altar of criticism.  Once Schiller said, ‘Against public stupidity the gods themselves are powerless.’  Since then, that same public lifted him to the pedestal of a demi-god; now all Germany proudly claims him; and who shall tell us where sleep his long-forgotten critics?  Such has been the history of the race since Homer groped through vine-clad Chios, and poor Dante was hunted from city to city.  If the great hierarchs of literature are sometimes stabbed while ministering at the shrine, what can we humble acolytes expect but to be scourged entirely out of the temple?  We all get our dues at last; for yonder, among the stars, Astraea laughs at man’s valuations, and shakes her infallible balance and re-weighs us.”

She had crossed her arms on the low stone wall that enclosed the lawn, and bending forward, the moon shone full on her face, and her eyes and her thoughts went out to sea.  Her companion stood watching her countenance, and some strange expression there recalled to his mind that vivid description: 

  “And then she raised her head, and upward cast
   Wild looks from homeless eyes, whose liquid light
   Gleamed out between the folds of blue-black hair,
   As gleam twin lakes between the purple peaks
   Of deep Parnassus, at the mournful moon.”

After a short silence, Sir Roger said: 

“Miss Earl, I can find no triumph written on your features, and I doubt whether you realize how very proud your friends are of your success.”

“As yet, sir, it is not assured.  My next book will determine my status in literature; and I have too much to accomplish—­I have achieved too little, to pause and look back, and pat my own shoulder, and cry, Io triumphe!  I am not so indifferent as you seem to imagine.  Praise gratifies, and censure pains me; but I value both as mere gauges of my work, indexing the amount of good I may or may not hope to effect.  I wish to be popular—­that is natural, and, surely, pardonable; but I desire it not as an end, but as a means to an end—­usefulness to my fellow-creatures;

  ’And whether crowned or crownless, when I fall,
   It matters not, so as God’s work is done.’