ulous
fanaticism, fling themselves as victims before that unrecompensing
Moloch which they term the Public.

Living, then, much by myself, but reflecting much upon the world,
I learned to love mankind. Philanthropy brought ambition; for I was
ambitious, not for my own aggrandisement, but for the service of
others--for the poor--the toiling--the degraded; these constituted that
part of my fellow-beings which I the most loved, for these were bound to
me by the most engaging of all human ties--misfortune! I began to enter
into the intrigues of the state; I extended my observation and inquiry
from individuals to nations; I examined into the mysteries of the
science which has arisen in these later days to give the lie to the
wisdom of the past, to reduce into the simplicity of problems the
intricacies of political knowledge, to teach us the fallacy of the
system which had governed by restriction, and imagined that the
happiness of nations depended upon the perpetual interference of its
rulers, and to prove to us that the only unerring policy of art is
to leave a free and unobstructed progress to the hidden energies and
province of Nature. But it was not only the theoretical investigation of
the state which employed me. I mixed, though in secret, with the agents
of its springs. While I seemed only intent upon pleasure, I locked in my
heart the consciousness and vanity of power. In the levity of the lip I
disguised the workings and the knowledge of the brain; and I looked,
as with a gifted eye, upon the mysteries of the hidden depths, while
I seemed to float an idler, with the herd, only on the surface of the
stream.

Why was I disgusted, when I had but to put forth my hand and grasp
whatever object my ambition might desire? Alas! there was in my heart
always something too soft for the aims and cravings of my mind. I felt
that I was wasting the young years of my life in a barren and wearisome
pursuit. What to me, who had outlived vanity, would have been the
admiration of the crowd! I sighed for the sympathy of the one! and I
shrunk in sadness from the prospect of renown to ask my heart for the
reality of love! For what purpose, too, had I devoted myself to the
service of men? As I grew more sensible of the labour of pursuing, I saw
more of the inutility of accomplishing, individual measures. There is
one great and moving order of events which we may retard, but we cannot
arrest, and to which, if we endeavour to hasten them,