The Valley of Decision

ough the streets of Turin were well-lit no lantern-ray r

delinquent whose fate it was to pay the other's shot. Odo knew that he would probably be followed and his movements reported to the authorities; but he was almost equally certain that there would be no active interference in his affairs. What chiefly puzzled him was Alfieri's insistence that Cantapresto should not be privy to the adventure. The soprano had long been the confidant of his p

d. Here a gate in a wall confronted them. It opened at Alfieri's tap and Odo scented wet box-borders and felt the gravel of a path under foot. The gate was at once locked behind them and they entered the ground-floor of a house as dark as the garden. Here a maid-servant of close aspect met them with a lamp and preceded them upstairs to a bare landing hung with charts and portulani. On Odo's flushed anticipations this antechamber, which seemed the approach to some pedan

in a clear voice without trace of diffidence, "has gone t

re. The dark unpowdered hair drawn back over a cushion made a severer setting for her face than the fluctuating brim of her shade-hat; and this perhaps adde

mpanion of the previous day stepped into

has done us the honour of inviting us to his house." He took the Professor's hand. "I have brought you,"

house; though I fear there is here little to interest a young gentleman of th

d, "is above his years in wit and learning, and I a

necessity that obliges me to be so private in receiving my friends; and now perhaps you will

at mystery was here? What necessity compelled an elderly professor to receive his scientific friends like a band of political conspirator

er but the young lady who was its cause; and seeing him stand apart she advanced with a

use one good feature as the palliation of a dozen deficiencies, to wed the eloquent lip with the ineffectual eye, had indeed compounded her of all fine meanings, making each grace the complement of another and every outward charm expressive of some inward quality. Here was as little of the convent-bred miss as

ild speaking to another; and she answered in the same tone, "Then we'll glance

y specimens of coral and petrified wood. Of all these rarities his daughter had a word to say, and though her explanations were brief and without affectation of pedantry, they put her companion's ignorance to the blush. It must be owned, however, that had his learning been a match for hers it would have stood him in poor stead at the

ly, she went on in a lower tone:-"You are young and the world is fair

t it was a risk any man would gladly take without considering, she turne

ri, indeed, paced the farther end of the room with the air of awaiting the despatch of some tedious business; but the other

tinued: "The physical sciences seem, indeed, less likely to appeal to the imaginative and poetical faculty in man, and, on the other hand, religion has appeared to prohibit their too close investigation; yet I question if any thoughtful mind can enter on the study of these curious phenomena without feeling, as it were, an affinity between such investigations and the most abstract forms of thought. For whether we re

intellectual curiosity was too great not to respond to such an appeal, and a

addressed the Professor, "why use such superannuated formulas in introducing a neophyte to a study designed to subvert the very foundations of the Mosaic cosmog

y an outburst from another of the learned group, a

friend's positive assertions. But if the Vulcanists are to claim the Cavaliere Valsecca, may not the Diluvials also have a hearing? How often must it be repeated that theology as well as physical

ecurity of these surroundings-the catacombs of the new faith-why keep up the forms of an obsolete creed? As long ago as Pythagoras, man was taught that all things were in a state of flux, without end as without be

his assault, "I know not on what ground you insinuate th

ed by the most scrupulous courte

irst object of these reunions is, not the special study of any one branch of modern science, but the application of physical investigation to the origin and destiny of man. In other words, we ask the study of nature to lead us to the knowledge of

t of the physical sciences had recently opened to philosophic thought. As, at the Revival of Learning, the thinker imprisoned in mediaeval dialectics suddenly felt under his feet the firm ground of classic argument, so, in the eighteenth century, philosophy, long suspended in the void of metaphysic, touched earth again and, Antaeus-like, drew fresh life from the contact. It was clear that Professor Vivaldi, whose very name h

lready braved the seas of free enquiry, yet all were at one as to the need of unhampered action and discussion. Odo's dormant curiosity woke with a start at the summons of fresh knowledge. Here were worlds to explore, or rather the actual world about him, a region then stranger and more unfamiliar than the lost Atlantis of fable. Liberty was the word on every lip, and if to some it represented the right to doubt the Diluvial origin of fossils, to others that of reforming the penal code, to a third (as to Alfieri