Say that they were precious examples of an accomplished civilization; and perhaps they did offer a visible ideal of grace for the rough world to aim at.  They might in the abstract address a bit of a monition to the uncultivated, and encourage the soul to strive toward perfection, in beauty:  and there is no contesting the value of beauty when the soul is taken into account.  But were they not in too great a profusion in proportion to their utility?  That was the question for Nevil Beauchamp.  The democratic spirit inhabiting him, temporarily or permanently, asked whether they were not increasing to numbers which were oppressive?  And further, whether it was good, for the country, the race, ay, the species, that they should be so distinctly removed from the thousands who fought the grand, and the grisly, old battle with nature for bread of life.  Those grimy sails of the colliers and fishing-smacks, set them in a great sea, would have beauty for eyes and soul beyond that of elegance and refinement.  And do but look on them thoughtfully, the poor are everlastingly, unrelievedly, in the abysses of the great sea . . . .

One cannot pursue to conclusions a line of meditation that is half-built on the sensations as well as on the mind.  Did Beauchamp at all desire to have those idly lovely adornments of riches, the Yacht and the Lady, swept away?  Oh, dear, no.  He admired them, he was at home with them.  They were much to his taste.  Standing on a point of the beach for a last look at them before he set his face to the town, he prolonged the look in a manner to indicate that the place where business called him was not in comparison at all so pleasing:  and just as little enjoyable were his meditations opposed to predilections.  Beauty plucked the heart from his breast.  But he had taken up arms; he had drunk of the questioning cup, that which denieth peace to us, and which projects us upon the missionary search of the How, the Wherefore, and the Why not, ever afterward.  He questioned his justification, and yours, for gratifying tastes in an ill-regulated world of wrong-doing, suffering, sin, and bounties unrighteously dispensed—­not sufficiently dispersed.  He said by-and-by to pleasure, battle to-day.  From his point of observation, and with the store of ideas and images his fiery yet reflective youth had gathered, he presented himself as it were saddled to that hard-riding force known as the logical impetus, which spying its quarry over precipices, across oceans and deserts, and through systems and webs, and into shops and cabinets of costliest china, will come at it, will not be refused, let the distances and the breakages be what they may.  He went like the meteoric man with the mechanical legs in the song, too quick for a cry of protestation, and reached results amazing to his instincts, his tastes, and his training, not less rapidly and naturally than tremendous Ergo is shot forth from the clash of a syllogism.

CHAPTER XVI