nd softening
beauty over a spot which else had, indeed, been desolate and cheerless,
and kissed into light the long and unwaving herbage which rose at
intervals from the ruins, like the false parasites of fallen greatness.
But for Falkland the scene had no interest or charm, and he turned with
a careless and unheeding eye to his customary apartment. It was the
only one in the house furnished with luxury, or even comfort. Large
bookcases, inlaid with curious carvings in ivory; busts of the few
public characters the world had ever produced worthy, in Falkland's
estimation, of the homage of posterity; elaborately-wrought hangings
from Flemish looms; and French fauteuils and sofas of rich damask,
and massy gilding (relics of the magnificent days of Louis Quatorze),
bespoke a costliness of design suited rather to Falkland's wealth than
to the ordinary simplicity of his tastes.

A large writing-table was overspread with books in various languages,
and upon the most opposite subjects. Letters and papers were scattered
amongst them; Falkland turned carelessly over the latter. One of the
epistolary communications was from Lord ------, the --. He smiled
bitterly, as he read the exaggerated compliments it contained, and saw
to the bottom of the shallow artifice they were meant to conceal. He
tossed the letter from him, and opened the scattered volumes, one after
another, with that languid and sated feeling common to all men who have
read deeply enough to feel how much they have learned, and how little
they know. "We pass our lives," thought he, "in sowing what we are never
to reap! We endeavour to erect a tower, which shall reach the heavens,
in order to escape one curse, and lo! we are smitten by another! We
would soar from a common evil, and from that moment we are divided by
a separate language from our race! Learning, science, philosophy, the
world of men and of imagination, I ransacked--and for what? I centred
my happiness in wisdom. I looked upon the aims of others with a scornful
and loathing eye. I held commune with those who have gone before me;
I dwelt among the monuments of their minds, and made their records
familiar to me as friends: I penetrated the womb of nature, and went
with the secret elements to their home: I arraigned the stars before
me, and learned the method and the mystery of their courses: I asked the
tempest its bourn, and questioned the winds of their path. This was not
sufficient to satisfy my thirst f