Professor Orazio Vivaldi, after filling with distinction the chair ofPhilosophy at the University of Turin, had lately resigned his officethat he might have leisure to complete a long-contemplated work on theOrigin of Civilisation. His house was the meeting-place of a societycalling itself of the Honey-Bees and ostensibly devoted to the study ofthe classical poets, from whose pages the members were supposed to cullmellifluous nourishment; but under this guise the so-called literati hadfor some time indulged in free discussion of religious and scientificquestions. The Academy of the Honey-Bees comprised among its members allthe independent thinkers of Turin: doctors of law, of philosophy andmedicine, chemists, philologists and naturalists, with one or twomembers of the nobility, who, like Alfieri, felt, or affected, aninterest in the graver problems of life, and could be trusted not tobetray the true character of the association.

　　These details Odo learned the next day from Alfieri; who went on to saythat, owing to the increased vigilance of the government, and to thebanishment of several distinguished men accused by the Church ofheretical or seditious opinions, the Honey-Bees had of late been obligedto hold their meetings secretly, it being even rumoured that Vivaldi,who was their president, had resigned his professorship and withdrawnbehind the shelter of literary employment in order to elude theobservation of the authorities. Men had not yet forgotten the fate ofthe Neapolitan historian, Pietro Giannone, who for daring to attack thecensorship and the growth of the temporal power had been driven fromNaples to Vienna, from Vienna back to Venice, and at length, at theprompting of the Holy See, lured across the Piedmontese frontier byCharles Emmanuel of Savoy, and imprisoned for life in the citadel ofTurin. The memory of his tragic history--most of all, perhaps, of hisrecantation and the "devout ending" to which solitude and persecutionhad forced the freest spirit of his day--hovered like a warning on thehorizon of thought and constrained political speculation to hide itselfbehind the study of fashionable trifles. Alfieri had lately joined theassociation of the Honey-Bees, and the Professor, at his suggestion, hadinvited Odo, for whose discretion his friend declared himself ready toanswer. The Honey-Bees were in fact desirous of attracting young men ofrank who felt an interest in scientific or economic problems; for it washoped that in this manner the new ideas might imperceptibly permeate theclass whose privileges and traditions presented the chief obstacle toreform. In France, it was whispered, free-thinkers and politicalagitators were the honoured guests of the nobility, who eagerly embracedtheir theories and applied them to the remedy of social abuses. Only bysimilar means could the ideals of the Piedmontese reformers be realised;and in those early days of universal illusion none appeared to suspectthe danger of arming inexperienced hands with untried weapons. Utopiawas already in sight; and all the world was setting out for it as forsome heavenly picnic ground.

　　Of Vivaldi himself, Alfieri spoke with extravagant admiration. Hisaffable exterior was said to conceal the moral courage of one ofPlutarch's heroes. He was a man after the antique pattern, ready to laydown fortune, credit and freedom in the defence of his convictions. "AnAgamemnon," Alfieri exclaimed, "who would not hesitate to sacrifice hisdaughter to obtain a favourable wind for his enterprise!"The metaphor was perhaps scarcely to Odo's taste; but at least it gavehim the chance for which he had waited. "And the daughter?" he asked.

　　"The lovely doctoress?" said Alfieri carelessly. "Oh, she's one of yourprodigies of female learning, such as our topsy-turvy land produces: anincipient Laura Bassi or Gaetana Agnesi, to name the most distinguishedof their tribe; though I believe that hitherto her father's good senseor her own has kept her from aspiring to academic honours. The beautifulFulvia is a good daughter, and devotes herself, I'm told, to helpingVivaldi in his work; a far more becoming employment for one of her ageand sex than defending Latin theses before a crew of ribald students."In this Odo was of one mind with him; for though Italy was used to thespectacle of the Improvisatrice and the female doctor of philosophy, itis doubtful if the character was one in which any admirer cared to seehis divinity figure. Odo, at any rate, felt a distinct satisfaction inlearning that Fulvia Vivaldi had thus far made no public display of herlearning. How much pleasanter to picture her as her father's aid,perhaps a sharer in his dreams: a vestal cherishing the flame of Libertyin the secret sanctuary of the goddess! He scarce knew as yet of whathis feeling for the girl was compounded. The sentiment she had rousedwas one for which his experience had no name: an emotion in which awemingled with an almost boyish sense of fellowship, sex as yet lurkingout of sight as in some hidden ambush. It was perhaps her associationwith a world so unfamiliar and alluring that lent her for the moment hergreatest charm. Odo's imagination had been profoundly stirred by what hehad heard and seen at the meeting of the Honey-Bees. That impatiencewith the vanity of his own pursuits and with the injustice of existingconditions, which hovered like a phantom at the feast of life, had atlast found form and utterance. Parini's satires and the bitter mockeryof the "Frusta Letteraria" were but instruments of demolition; but thearguments of the Professor's friends had that constructive quality soappealing to the urgent temper of youth. Was the world in ruins? Thenhere was a plan to rebuild it. Was humanity in chains? Behold the angelon the threshold of the prison!

　　Odo, too impatient to await the next reunion of the Honey-Bees, soughtout and frequented those among the members whose conversation hadchiefly attracted him. They were grave men, of studious and retiringhabit, leading the frugal life of the Italian middle-class, a life indignified contrast to the wasteful and aimless existence of thenobility. Odo's sensitiveness to outward impressions made him peculiarlyalive to this contrast. None was more open than he to the seducements ofluxurious living, the polish of manners, the tacit exclusion of all thatis ugly or distressing; but it seemed to him that fine living should bebut the flower of fine feeling, and that such external graces, when theyadorned a dull and vapid society, were as incongruous as the royalpurple on a clown. Among certain of his new friends he found aclumsiness of manner somewhat absurdly allied with an attempt at Romanausterity; but he was fair-minded enough to see that the middle-classdoctor or lawyer who tries to play the Cicero is, after all, a morerespectable figure than the Marquess who apes Caligula or Commodus.

　　Still, his lurking dilettantism made him doubly alive to the elegance ofthe Palazzo Tournanches when he went thither from a coarse meal in thestuffy dining-parlour of one of his new acquaintances; as he neverrelished the discourse of the latter more than after an afternoon in thesociety of the Countess's parasites.

　　Alfieri's allusions to the learned ladies for whom Italy was noted madeOdo curious to meet the wives and daughters of his new friends; for heknew it was only in their class that women received something more thanthe ordinary conventual education; and he felt a secret desire tocompare Fulvia Vivaldi with other young girls of her kind. Learnedladies he met, indeed; for though the women-folk of some of thephilosophers were content to cook and darn for them (and perhapssecretly burn a candle in their behalf to Saint Thomas Aquinas or SaintDominick, refuters of heresy), there were others who aspired to all thehonours of scholarship, and would order about their servant-girls inTuscan, and scold their babies in Ciceronian Latin. Among these fairgrammarians, however, he met none that wore her learning lightly. Theywere forever tripping in the folds of their doctors' gowns, anddelivering their most trivial views ex cathedra; and too often the poorphilosophers, their lords and fathers, cowered under their harangueslike frightened boys under the tongue of a schoolmaster.

　　It was in fact only in the household of Orazio Vivaldi that Odo foundthe simplicity and grace of living for which he longed. Alfieri hadwarned him not to visit the Professor too often, since the latter, beingunder observation, might be compromised by the assiduity of his friends.

　　Odo therefore waited for some days before presenting himself, and whenhe did so it was at the angelus, when the streets were crowded and aman's comings and goings the less likely to be marked. He found Vivaldireading with his daughter in the long library where the Honey-Bees heldtheir meetings; but Fulvia at once withdrew, nor did she show herselfagain during Odo's visit. It was clear that, proud of her as Vivaldiwas, he had no wish to parade her attainments, and that in her dailylife she maintained the Italian habit of seclusion; but to Odo she waseverywhere present in the quiet room with its well-ordered books andcuriosities, and the scent of flowers rising through the shutteredwindows. He was sensible of an influence permeating even the inanimateobjects about him, so that they seemed to reflect the spirit of thosewho dwelt there. No room had given him this sense of companionship sincehe had spent his boyish holidays in the old Count Benedetto'sapartments; but it was of another, intangible world that his presentsurroundings spoke. Vivaldi received him kindly and asked him to repeathis visit; and Odo returned as often as he thought prudent.

　　The Professor's conversation engaged him deeply. Vivaldi's familiaritywith French speculative literature, and with its sources in theexperiential philosophy of the English school, gave Odo his first clearconception of the origin and tendency of the new movement. Thiscoordination of scattered ideas was aided by his readings in theEncyclopaedia, which, though placed on the Index in Piedmont, was to befound behind the concealed panels of more than one private library. Fromhis talks with Alfieri, and from the pages of Plutarch, he had gained acertain insight into the Stoical view of reason as the measure ofconduct, and of the inherent sufficiency of virtue as its own end. Henow learned that all about him men were endeavouring to restore thehuman spirit to that lost conception of its dignity; and he longed tojoin the band of new crusaders who had set out to recover the tomb oftruth from the forces of superstition. The distinguishing mark ofeighteenth-century philosophy was its eagerness to convert itsacquisitions in every branch of knowledge into instruments of practicalbeneficence; and this quality appealed peculiarly to Odo, who had everbeen moved by abstract theories only as they explained or modified thedestiny of man. Vivaldi, pleased by his new pupil's eagerness to learn,took pains to set before him this aspect of the struggle.

　　"You will now see," he said, after one of their long talks about theEncyclopaedists, "why we who have at heart the mental and socialregeneration of our countrymen are so desirous of making a concertedeffort against the established system. It is only by united action thatwe can prevail. The bravest mob of independent fighters has littlechance against a handful of disciplined soldiers, and the Church isperfectly logical in seeing her chief danger in the Encyclopaedia'ssystematised marshalling of scattered truths. As long as the attacks onher authority were isolated, and as it were sporadic, she had little tofear even from the assaults of genius; but the most ordinary intellectmay find a use and become a power in the ranks of an organisedopposition. Seneca tells us the slaves in ancient Rome were at one timeso numerous that the government prohibited their wearing a distinctivedress lest they should learn their strength and discover that the citywas in their power; and the Church knows that when the countless spiritsshe has enslaved without subduing have once learned their number andefficiency they will hold her doctrines at their mercy.--The Churchagain," he continued, "has proved her astuteness in making faith thegift of grace and not the result of reason. By so doing she placedherself in a position which was well-nigh impregnable till the school ofNewton substituted observation for intuition and his followers showedwith increasing clearness the inability of the human mind to apprehendanything outside the range of experienc............