How did you like Alfieri ?" "His language is a kind of Spartan French," answered Evelyn, in one of those happy expressions which every now and then showed the quickness of her natural talent.
"Yes," said Maltravers, smiling, "the criticism is acute.

Poor Alfieri! in his wild life and his stormy passions he threw out all the redundance of his genius; and his poetry is but the representative of his thoughts, not his emotions.

Happier the man of genius who lives upon his reason, and wastes feeling only on his verse!" "You do not think that we _waste_ feeling upon human beings ?" said Evelyn, with a pretty laugh.
"Ask me that question when you have reached my years, and can look upon fields on which you have lavished your warmest hopes, your noblest aspirations, your tenderest affections, and see the soil all profitless and barren.

'Set not your heart on the things of earth,' saith the Preacher." Evelyn was affected by the tone, the words, and the melancholy countenance of the speaker.

"You, of all men, ought not to think thus," said she, with a sweet eagerness; "you who have done so much to awaken and to soften the heart in others; you--who--" she stopped short, and added, more gravely.