"Who were the writers?" Mr. Lind asked.

Brand named two or three, and instantly the attention of the others
seemed arrested.

"Oh, that is the sort of literature you have been reading?" he said,
with a quick glance.

"I have had some days' idleness."

"Excuse me," said the other, with a smile; "but I think you might have
spent it better. That kind of literature only leads to disorder and
anarchy. It may have been useful at one time; it is useful no longer.
Enough of ploughing has been done: we want sowing done now--we want
writers who will build up instead of pulling down. Those Nihilists," he
added, almost with a sigh, "are becoming more and more impracticable.
They aim at scarcely anything beyond destruction."

Here Natalie changed the conversation. This was too bright and
beautiful a day to admit of despondency.

"I suppose you love the sea, Mr. Brand?" she said. "All Englishmen do.
And yachting--I suppose you go yachting?"

"I have tried it; but it is too tedious for me," said Brand. "The sort
of yachting I like is in a vessel of five thousand tons, going three
hundred and eighty miles a day. With half a gale of wind in your teeth
in the 'rolling Forties,' then there is some fun."