bula. So,
to please his hostess and distract his own solitary thoughts, he had
condescended (just before Leonard found him out) to peruse the memorials
of a life obscure to the world, and new to his own experience of coarse
joys and woes. "I have been making a romance, to amuse myself, from
their contents," said he. "They maybe of use to you, brother author. I
have told Mrs. Goodyer to place them in your room. Amongst those papers
is a sort of journal,--a woman's journal; it moved me greatly. A man
gets into another world, strange to him as the orb of Sirius, if he can
transport himself into the centre of a woman's heart, and see the
life there, so wholly unlike our own. Things of moment to us, to it so
trivial; things trifling to us, to it so vast. There was this journal,
in its dates reminding me of stormy events in my own existence, and
grand doings in the world's. And those dates there, chronicling but the
mysterious, unrevealed record of some obscure, loving heart! And in
that chronicle, O Sir Poet, there was as much genius, vigour of thought,
vitality of being, poured and wasted, as ever kind friend will say was
lavished on the rude outer world by big John Burley! Genius, genius! are
we all alike, then, save when we leash ourselves to some matter-of-fact
material, and float over the roaring seas on a wooden plank or a herring
tub?" And after he had uttered that cry of a secret anguish, John Burley
had begun to show symptoms of growing fever and disturbed brain; and
when they had got him into bed, he lay there muttering to himself,
until, towards midnight, he had asked Leonard to bring the light nearer
to him.

So now he again was quiet, with his face turned towards the wall; and
Leonard stood by the bedside sorrowfully, and Mrs. Goodyer, who did not
heed Burley's talk, and thought only of his physical state, was dipping
cloths into iced water to apply to his forehead. But as she approached
with these, and addressed him soothingly, Burley raised himself on his
arm, and waved aside the bandages. "I do not need them," said he, in a
collected voice. "I am better now. I and that pleasant light understand
one another, and I believe all it tells me. Pooh, pooh, I do not rave."
He looked so smilingly and so kindly into her face, that the poor woman,
who loved him as her own son, fairly burst into tears. He drew her
towards him, and kissed her forehead.

"Peace, old fool," said he, fondly. "You shall tell anglers hereafte