"Isn't it contrast? or at least I think that helps the effect here."
"What do you make the contrast?" he said, quietly.
"Isn't it," said Fleda, with another glance, "the contrast of something pure and free and upward-tending, with what is below it? I did not mean the mere painter's contrast. In the country, smoke is more picturesque, but in the city I think it has more character."
"To how many people do you suppose it ever occurred that smoke had a character?" said he, smiling.
"You are laughing at me, Mr. Carleton; perhaps I deserve it."
"You do not think that," said he, with a look that forbade her to think it. "But I see you are of Lavater's mind, that everything has a physiognomy?"
"I think he was perfectly right," said Fleda. "Don't you, Mr.
Carleton?"
"To some people, yes! But the expression is so subtle, that only very nice sensibilities, with fine training, can hope to catch it; therefore, to the mass of the world Lavater would talk nonsense."
"That is a gentle hint to me. But if I talk nonsense, I wish you would set me right, Mr. Carleton; I am very apt to amuse myself with tracing out fancied analogies in almost everything, and I may carry it too far too far to be spoken of wisely. I think it enlarges the field of pleasure very much. Where one eye is stopped, another is but invited on."
"So," said Mr. Carleton, "while that puff of smoke would lead one person's imagination only down the chimney to the kitchen fire, it would take another's where did yours go?" said he, suddenly turning round upon her.