Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/159

 substitutes for those, stimulants and stagnation."

He made her think—he influenced her more than she knew. Under the caressing subserviency to her as of a courtier, she felt the power of a man who discerned life more clearly and more wisely than herself.

The chief evil of society lies in the enormous importance which it gives to trifles. She began to feel that with all her splendour she had been only occupied with trifles. Nature had been a sealed book to her, and she began to doubt that she had even understood Art.

"If you can be pleased with this," says a great art-critic, 'this' being a little fresco of St. Anne, "you can see Floralia. But if not,—by all means amuse yourself there, if you find it amusing, as long as you like; you can never see it."

The test may be a little exaggerated, but the general meaning of his words is correct. Cosmopolitan and Anglo-American Floralia, for the main part, do not see the city they come to winter in; see nothing of its glories, of its