e world had rolled on for ages, and the
pilgrimage of man had passed through various states of existence, which
our dim traditionary knowledge has not preserved, yet the condition of
our race in the northern hemisphere was then what we, in our imperfect
lore, have conceived to be among the earliest.

.......

By a rude and vast pile of stones, the masonry of arts forgotten, a
lonely man sat at midnight, gazing upon the heavens. A storm had just
passed from the earth; the clouds had rolled away, and the high stars
looked down upon the rapid waters of the Rhine; and no sound save the
roar of the waves, and the dripping of the rain from the mighty trees,
was heard around the ruined pile. The white sheep lay scattered on the
plain, and slumber with them. He sat watching over the herd, lest the
foes of a neighbouring tribe seized them unawares, and thus he communed
with himself: "The king sits upon his throne, and is honoured by a
warrior race, and the warrior exults in the trophies he has won; the
step of the huntsman is bold upon the mountain-top, and his name is
sung at night round the pine-fires by the lips of the bard; and the bard
himself hath honour in the hall. But I, who belong not to the race of
kings, and whose limbs can bound not to the rapture of war, nor scale
the eyries of the eagle and the haunts of the swift stag; whose hand
cannot string the harp, and whose voice is harsh in the song,--_I_ have
neither honour nor command, and men bow not the head as I pass along;
yet do I feel within me the consciousness of a great power that should
rule my species--not obey. My eye pierces the secret hearts of men. I
see their thoughts ere their lips proclaim them; and I scorn, while I
see, the weakness and the vices which I never shared. I laugh at the
madness of the warrior; I mock within my soul at the tyranny of kings.
Surely there is something in man's nature more fitted to command, more
worthy of renown, than the sinews of the arm, or the swiftness of the
feet, or the accident of birth!"

As Morven, the son of Osslah, thus mused within himself, still looking
at the heavens, the solitary man beheld a star suddenly shooting from
its place, and speeding through the silent air, till it suddenly paused
right over the midnight river, and facing the inmate of the pile of
stones.

As he gazed upon the star, strange thoughts grew slowly over him. He
drank, as it were, from its solemn aspect the spirit of a great design.