uppose him engaging to supreme excess in the fashionable
extravagances of his time--or busying himself with political
intrigue--or aiming at ministerial power--or purchasing increase
of nobility--or collecting large museums of virtu--or playing the
munificent patron of letters, of science, of art--or endowing, and
bestowing his name upon extensive institutions of charity. But for the
inconceivable wealth in the actual possession of the heir, these objects
and all ordinary objects were felt to afford too limited a field.
Recourse was had to figures, and these but sufficed to confound. It was
seen that, even at three per cent., the annual income of the inheritance
amounted to no less than thirteen millions and five hundred thousand
dollars; which was one million and one hundred and twenty-five thousand
per month; or thirty-six thousand nine hundred and eighty-six per day;
or one thousand five hundred and forty-one per hour; or six and twenty
dollars for every minute that flew. Thus the usual track of supposition
was thoroughly broken up. Men knew not what to imagine. There were some
who even conceived that Mr. Ellison would divest himself of at least
one-half of his fortune, as of utterly superfluous opulence--enriching
whole troops of his relatives by division of his superabundance. To the
nearest of these he did, in fact, abandon the very unusual wealth which
was his own before the inheritance.

I was not surprised, however, to perceive that he had long made up his
mind on a point which had occasioned so much discussion to his friends.
Nor was I greatly astonished at the nature of his decision. In regard to
individual charities he had satisfied his conscience. In the possibility
of any improvement, properly so called, being effected by man himself in
the general condition of man, he had (I am sorry to confess it) little
faith. Upon the whole, whether happily or unhappily, he was thrown back,
in very great measure, upon self.

In the widest and noblest sense he was a poet. He comprehended,
moreover, the true character, the august aims, the supreme majesty and
dignity of the poetic sentiment. The fullest, if not the sole proper
satisfaction of this sentiment he instinctively felt to lie in the
creation of novel forms of beauty. Some peculiarities, either in his
early education, or in the nature of his intellect, had tinged with
what is termed materialism all his ethical speculations; and it was this
bias, perhaps, which