"It is what I have always told you," cried Paul; "human nature is a grand thing spoiled, but it is a grand thing still."
"But human nature must not be taken in the aggregate," said Edgar, playing with his empty wine-glass; "masses always represent their lowest component parts. It is only when you deal with men and women individually, that you discover the underlying beauty of their characters. I hate to hear classes condemned wholesale, whether it be the frivolity of the rich or the brutality of the poor that is held up to scorn."
"So do I," added Mr. Seaton; "there are frivolous poor and brutal rich; and likewise there are saints to be found equally in both classes, and more of them than we any of us dream."
"It seems to me," remarked Isabel, "that love is the leaven that leavens the whole lump. It is only when people begin to care for each other that the fineness of human nature is seen. I was horribly selfish myself till I really cared for somebody, and then I gradually became quite nice."
Mr. Madderley smiled, as he peeled a peach for his hostess; he had watched Isabel's development with much interest, and he perceived that she displayed wonderful accuracy in diagnosing her own case.
"As long as you don't love anybody much, your character is like a garden in winter," she continued; "one virtue is under a glass shade, and another is covered over with straw, and all of them are dreadfully pinched and sickly. Then love comes by, and it is summer; and your garden rejoices and blossoms like the rose, without your bothering about it at all."
"Nevertheless," said Madderley, "I think that love, though admirable as a pastime, is a little too flimsy to be designated an underlying principle."
Isabel tossed her head. Madderley's cynicism always irritated her.
"I suppose you would say," she replied, "that there is no more ennobling influence than beauty."
"Exactly," rejoined the artist, serious for once in his life, "what you call art, is the worship of beauty by the human mind; what you call love, is the worship of beauty by the human heart; and what you call religion, is the worship of beauty by the human soul."