burst upon you."

"It reverses life, my child," said the moralizing Vane; "and the
stream flows through dulness at first, reserving its poetry for our
perseverance."

"I will not allow your doctrine," said Trevylyan, as the ambitious
ardour of his native disposition stirred within him. "Life has
always action; it is our own fault if it ever be dull: youth has its
enterprise, manhood its schemes; and even if infirmity creep upon age,
the mind, the mind still triumphs over the mortal clay, and in the quiet
hermitage, among books, and from thoughts, keeps the great wheel within
everlastingly in motion. No, the better class of spirits have always an
antidote to the insipidity of a common career, they have ever energy at
will--"

"And never happiness!" answered Vane, after a pause, as he gazed on the
proud countenance of Trevylyan, with that kind of calm, half-pitying
interest which belonged to a character deeply imbued with the philosophy
of a sad experience acting upon an unimpassioned heart. "And in truth,
Trevylyan, it would please me if I could but teach you the folly of
preferring the exercise of that energy of which you speak to the golden
luxuries of REST. What ambition can ever bring an adequate reward? Not,
surely, the ambition of letters, the desire of intellectual renown!"

"True," said Trevylyan, quietly; "that dream I have long renounced;
there is nothing palpable in literary fame,--it scarcely perhaps soothes
the vain, it assuredly chafes the proud. In my earlier years I attempted
some works which gained what the world, perhaps rightly, deemed a
sufficient need of reputation; yet it was not sufficient to recompense
myself for the fresh hours I had consumed, for the sacrifices of
pleasure I had made. The subtle aims that had inspired me were not
perceived; the thoughts that had seemed new and beautiful to me fell
flat and lustreless on the soul of others. If I was approved, it
was often for what I condemned myself; and I found that the trite
commonplace and the false wit charmed, while the truth fatigued, and
the enthusiasm revolted. For men of that genius to which I make no
pretension, who have dwelt apart in the obscurity of their own thoughts,
gazing upon stars that shine not for the dull sleepers of the world, it
must be a keen sting to find the product of their labour confounded
with a class, and to be mingled up in men's judgment with the faults
or merits of a tribe. Every great genius must deem himse