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Rh Our ways as well as walk them, and no friend Confirm us nobly,—‘Leave results to God, But you be clean?’ What! ‘prudent compromise Makes acceptable life,’ you say instead, You, you, Lord Howe?—in things indifferent, well. For instance, compromise the wheaten bread For rye, the meat for lentils, silk for serge, And sleep on down, if needs, for sleep on straw; But there, end compromise. I will not bate One artist-dream, on straw or down, my lord, Nor pinch my liberal soul, though I be poor, Nor cease to love high, though I live thus low.’

So speaking, with less anger in my voice Than sorrow, I rose quickly to depart; While he, thrown back upon the noble shame Of such high-stumbling natures, murmured words, The right words after wrong ones. Ah, the man Is worthy, but so given to entertain Impossible plans of superhuman life,— He sets his virtues on so raised a shelf, To keep them at the grand millennial height, He has to mount a stool to get at them; And meantime, lives on quite the common way, With everybody’s morals. As we passed, Lord Howe insisting that his friendly arm Should oar me across the sparkling brawling stream Which swept from room to room, we fell at once On Lady Waldemar. ‘Miss Leigh,’ she said,