please, and accept realism in conduct. For the first time in my life
I am comfortable: my mind, having worn out its walking-shoes, is now
enjoying the luxury of slippers. Who can deny the realism of
comfort?"

"Has a man a right," Kenelm said to himself, as he entered his
brougham, "to employ all the brilliancy of a rare wit, all the
acquisitions of as rare a scholarship, to the scaring of the young
generation out of the safe old roads which youth left to itself would
take,--old roads skirted by romantic rivers and bowery trees,--
directing them into new paths on long sandy flats, and then,
when they are faint and footsore, to tell them that he cares not a pin
whether they have worn out their shoes in right paths or wrong paths,
for that he has attained the /summum bonum/ of philosophy in the
comfort of easy slippers?"

Before he could answer the question he thus put to himself, his
brougham stopped at the door of the minister whom Welby had
contributed to bring into power.

That night there was a crowded muster of the fashionable world at the
great man's house. It happened to be a very critical moment for the
minister. The fate of his cabinet depended on the result of a motion
about to be made the following week in the House of Commons. The
great man stood at the entrance of the apartments to receive his
guests, and among the guests were the framers of the hostile motion
and the leaders of the opposition. His smile was not less gracious to
them than to his dearest friends and stanchest supporters.

"I suppose this is realism," said Kenelm to himself; "but it is not