My visitor suddenly stopped, and started to rise from his chair. Turning to investigate the cause of the interruption, I encountered my wife, Josephine, armed with a tray containing a brazier and the essentials for a midnight repast.
"You will be able to talk better if you have something to eat," she exclaimed, affably.
The ceremony of introduction having been performed successfully without causing our guest to notice that we did not know his name, I begged him to continue his address.
"Yes, do," said Josephine, "while I cook the oysters. I could not help overhearing a little of your conversation, so I know the general drift."
[Note.—That means she had been leaning over the banisters, listening.]
"A lunch will taste very good," said the reporter.
[Note.—Here he ran up against one of my pet prejudices, and for a moment I almost forgot that I was doing the honors of my own house. I almost said: "Speaking of democracy and culture, my dear sir, I should like to inquire if you have any authority for your use of the word 'lunch'? As employed by the appropriating and the arrogant it has long meant a meal or a bite between breakfast and dinner; but, as used by democracy, it seems to apply to afternoon tea or late supper equally well.">[
"We were speaking of the ideal," he continued, addressing my wife, "and I was just saying that only recently had the world of noblest thought and aims begun to recognize that an ideal life must necessarily include interest in and sympathy for common humanity, and that the mere aristocrat of religion, of culture, or of manners, has ceased to be the Sir Galahad of civilization."
"Indeed it must be so," said Josephine, "and the idea is rapidly gaining ground. People used to be satisfied with making charitable donations; now they investigate facts and conditions and give themselves. But it isn't always easy for those who love beauty to avoid shrinking from people and things not beautiful. There is nothing which freezes a sensitive, artistic nature more quickly than dirt and ugliness, and yet the ideal modern soul does not turn away, but seeks to sympathize and to share. Might you not, dear (Josephine was now addressing me, not the reporter), say that the key-note of the ideal life is refined sympathy?"
"It certainly is an indispensable attribute of it," I answered.