on the future of our species, reproached him with being barren to
posterity, while knaves were propagating.

The principal characteristic of the second nephew, Adrian Harley, was
his sagacity. He was essentially the wise youth, both in counsel and in
action.

"In action," the "Pilgrim's Scrip" observes, "Wisdom goes by
majorities."

Adrian had an instinct for the majority, and, as the world invariably
found him enlisted in its ranks, his appellation of wise youth was
acquiesced in without irony.

The wise youth, then, had the world with him, but no friends. Nor did he
wish for those troublesome appendages of success. He caused himself
to be required by people who could serve him; feared by such as could
injure. Not that he went out of the way to secure his end, or risked the
expense of a plot. He did the work as easily as he ate his daily bread.
Adrian was an epicurean; one whom Epicurus would have scourged out of
his garden, certainly: an epicurean of our modern notions. To satisfy
his appetites without rashly staking his character, was the wise youth's
problem for life. He had no intimates except Gibbon and Horace, and the
society of these fine aristocrats of literature helped him to accept
humanity as it had been, and was; a supreme ironic procession, with
laughter of Gods in the background. Why not laughter of mortals also?
Adrian had his laugh in his comfortable corner. He possessed peculiar
attributes of a heathen God. He was a disposer of men: he was polished,
luxurious, and happy--at their cost. He lived in eminent self-content,
as one lying on soft cloud, lapt in sunshine. Nor Jove, nor Apollo, cast
eye upon the maids of earth with cooler fire of selection, or pursued
them in the covert with more sacred impunity. And he enjoyed his
reputation for virtue as something additional. Stolen fruits are said to
be sweet; undeserved rewards are exquisite.

The best of it was, that Adrian made no pretences. He did not solicit
the favourable judgment of the world. Nature and he attempted no other
concealment than the ordinary mask men wear. And yet the world would
proclaim him moral, as well as wise, and the pleasing converse every way
of his disgraced cousin Austin.

In a word, Adrian Harley had mastered his philosophy at the early age
of one-and-twenty. Many would be glad to say the same at that age
twice-told: they carry in their breasts a burden with which Adrian's
was not loaded. Mrs. Doria was nearly right ab