Cashel Byron's Profession

"I presume she had sense enough to know that she could not afford to

choose," said Alice, complacently. "She is very ugly."

"Do you think so? She has many admirers, and was, I am told, engaged

to Mr. Herbert, the artist, before she met Mr. Hoskyn. We shall meet

Mr. Herbert there to-morrow, and a number of celebrated persons

besides--his wife, Madame Szczymplica the pianiste, Owen Jack the

composer, Hawkshaw the poet, Conolly the inventor, and others. The

occasion will be a special one, as Herr Abendgasse, a remarkable

German socialist and art critic, is to deliver a lecture on 'The

True in Art.' Be careful, in speaking of him in society, to refer to

him as a sociologist, and not as a socialist. Are you particularly

anxious to hear him lecture?"

"No doubt it will be very interesting," said Alice. "I should not

like to miss the opportunity of going to Mrs. Hoskyn's. People so

often ask me whether I have been there, and whether I know this,

that, and the other celebrated person, that I feel quite embarrassed

by my rustic ignorance."

"Because," pursued Lydia, "I had intended not to go until after the

lecture. Herr Abendgasse is enthusiastic and eloquent, but not

original; and as I have imbibed all his ideas direct from their

inventors, I do not feel called upon to listen to his exposition of

them. So that, unless you are specially interested--"

"Not at all. If he is a socialist I should much rather not listen to

him, particularly on Sunday evening."

So it was arranged that they should go to Mrs. Hoskyn's after the

lecture. Meanwhile they went to Sydenham, where Alice went through

the Crystal Palace with provincial curiosity, and Lydia answered her

questions encyclopedically. In the afternoon there was a concert, at

which a band played several long pieces of music, which Lydia seemed

to enjoy, though she found fault with the performers. Alice, able to

detect neither the faults in the execution nor the beauty of the

music, did as she saw the others do--pretended to be pleased and

applauded decorously. Madame Szczymplica, whom she expected to meet

at Mrs. Hoskyn's, appeared, and played a fantasia for pianoforte and

orchestra by the famous Jack, another of Mrs. Hoskyn's circle. There

was in the programme an analysis of this composition from which

Alice learned that by attentively listening to the adagio she could

hear the angels singing therein. She listened as attentively as she

could, but heard no angels, and was astonished when, at the

conclusion of the fantasia, the audience applauded Madame

Szczymplica as if she had made them hear the music of the spheres.

Even Lydia seemed moved, and said, "Strange, that she is only a woman like the rest of us, with just

the same narrow bounds to her existence, and just the same prosaic

cares--that she will go by train to Victoria, and from thence home

in a common vehicle instead of embarking in a great shell and being

drawn by swans to some enchanted island. Her playing reminds me of

myself as I was when I believed in fairyland, and indeed knew little

about any other land."