successful. My finest sense detected no aroma of purity and principle; but I saw only a fungus that had fattened and spread in a night. They went to the theatres to see actors upon the stage. I went to see actors in the boxes, so consummately cunning that others did not know they were acting, and they did not suspect it themselves.

"Perhaps you wonder it did not make me misanthropical. My dear friends, do not forget that I had seen myself. That made me compassionate, not cynical.

"Of course I could not value highly the ordinary standards of success and excellence. When I went to church and saw a thin, blue, artificial flower, or a great sleepy cushion expounding the beauty of holiness. to pews full of eagles, half-eagles, and threepences, however adroitly concealed they might be in broadcloth and boots; or saw an onion in an Easter bonnet weeping over the sins of Magdalen, I did

not feel as they felt who saw in all this not only propriety but piety.

"Or when at public meetings an eel stood upon end, and wriggled and squirmed lithely in every direction, and declared that, for his

part, he went in for rainbows and hot water -how could I help seeing that he was still black and loved a slimy pool?

"I could not grow misanthropical when I saw in the eyes of so many who were called old the gushing fountains of eternal youth, and the light of an immortal dawn; or, when I saw those who were esteemed unsuccessful and aimless ruling a fair realm of peace and plenty, either in their own hearts or in another's heart—a realm and princely possession for which they had well renounced a hopeless search and a belated triumph.

"I knew one man who had been for years a by-word for having sought the philosopher's stone. But I looked at him through the spectacles and saw a satisfaction in concentrated energies, and a tenacity arising from devotion to a noble dream, which were not apparent in the youths who pitied him. in the aimless effeminacy of clubs, nor in the clever gentlemen who cracked their thin jokes upon him over a gossiping dinner.

"And there was your neighbor over the way, who passes for a woman who has failed in her career, because she is an old maid. People wag solemn heads of pity, and say that she made so great a mistake in not marrying the brilliant and famous man who was for long years her suitor. It is clear

that no orange flower will ever bloom for her. The young people make their tender romances about her as they watch her, and think of her solitary hours of bitter regret and wasting longing, never to be satisfied. "When I first came to town I shared this sympathy, and pleased my imagination with fancying her hard struggle with the conviction that she had lost all that made life beautiful. I supposed that if I had looked at her through my spectacles, I should see that it was only her radiant temper which so illuminated her dress that we did not see it to be heavy sables.

“But when, one day, I did raise my glasses and glanced at her, I did not see the old maid whom we all pitied for a secret sorrow, but a woman whose nature was a tropic in which the sun shone and birds sang and flowers bloomed forever. There were no regrets, no doubts and half wishes, but a calm sweetness, a transparent peace. I saw her blush when that old lover passed by, or paused to speak to her, but it was only the sign of delicate feminine consciousness. She knew his love, and honored it, although she could not understand it nor return it. I looked closely at her, and I saw that although all the world had exclaimed at her indifference to such homage, and had declared it was astonishing she should lose

so fine a match, she would only say, simply and quietly:

66 6

"If Shakespeare loved me and I did not love him, how could I marry him?'

"Could I be misanthropical when I saw fidelity and dignity and simplicity?

"You may believe that I was especially curious to look at that old lover of hers through my glasses. He was no longer young, you know, when I came, and his fame and fortune were secure. Certainly I have heard of few men more beloved, and of none more worthy to be loved. He had the easy manner of a man of the world, the sensitive grace of a poet, and the charitable judgment of a wide traveller. He was accounted the most successful and most unspoiled of men. Handsome, brilliant, wise, tender, graceful, accomplished, rich, and famous, I looked at him without the spectacles in surprise and admiration, and wondered how your neighbor over the way had been so entirely untouched by his homage. I watched their intercourse in society. I saw her gay smile, her cordial greeting; I marked his frank address, his lofty courtesy. Their manner told no tales. The eager world was balked, and I pulled out my spectacles.

"I have seen her already, and now I saw him.

He lived only in memory, and his