all advance in civilized organizations,--Unification of
Races--development of our vast and peculiar areas. Education, too,
Foreign Trade, Land, the Classes--press upon our attention."

"You would have us awake to some such new sense of our situation as
Germany did in Goethe's day?"

"I pray for no long-haired enthusiasts. We have business different from
altering the names of the Latin divinities into Teutonic gutturals."

"The country itself will see to that. We have the fear of the nations
round about in our eyes," grimly said Chrysler; then he added: "I have
never known you as well as I wish, Haviland. You speak of this work as
if you had some definite system of it, while all the notions I have ever
met or formed of such a thing have been partial or vague."

Chamilly stood up and the firelight shone brightly and softly upon his
flushed cheek; the dark portraits on the walls seemed to look out upon
him as if they lived, and the statue of Apollo to rise and associate its
dignity with his.

"I _have_ a system," he said. "I almost feel like saying a commission of
revelation. The reason, sir, why I asked you here was that you, my
venerated friend, might understand my ideas and sympathize with them,
and help me."

He hesitated.

"I will ask you to read a manuscript, of which you will find the first
half in your room. The remainder is not written yet"