tinctly; cling to its course
courageously; hope for its triumph sanguinely; and on its majestic
progress you sail, as in a ship, agitated indeed by the storms, but
unheeding the breeze and the surge that would appal the individual
effort. The larger public objects make us glide smoothly and unfelt
over our minor private griefs. To be happy, my dear Godolphin, you must
forget yourself. Your refining and poetical temperament preys upon your
content. Learn benevolence--it is the only cure to a morbid nature."

Godolphin was greatly struck by this answer of Radclyffe; the more so,
as he had a deep faith in the unaffected sincerity and the calculating
wisdom of his adviser. He looked hard in Radclyffe's face, and, after
a pause of some moments, replied slowly, "I believe you are right
after all; and I have learned in a few short sentences the secret of a
discontented life."

Godolphin would have sought other opportunities of conversing with
Radclyffe, but events soon parted them. Parliament was dissolved! What
an historical event is recorded in those words! The moment the king
consented to that measure, the whole series of subsequent events became,
to an ordinary prescience, clear as in a mirror. Parliament dissolved
in the heat of the popular enthusiasm, a majority, a great majority of
Reformers was sure to be returned.

Constance perceived at a glance the whole train of consequences issuing
from that one event; perceived and exulted. A glory had gone for ever
from the party she abhorred. Her father was already avenged. She heard
his scornful laugh ring forth from the depths of his forgotten grave.

London emptied itself at once. England was one election. Godolphin
remained almost alone. For the first time a sense of littleness crept
over him; a feeling of insignificance, which wounded and galled his
vain nature. In these beat struggles he was nothing. The admired--the
cultivated--spirituel--the splendid Godolphin, sank below the commonest
adventurer, the coarsest brawler--yea, the humblest freeman, who felt
his stake in the state, joined the canvass, swelled the cry, and helped
in the mighty battle between old things and new, which was so resolutely
begun. This feeling gave an impetus to the growth of the new aspirations
he had already suffered his mind to generate; and Constance marked,
with vivid delight, that he now listened to her plans with interest, and
examined the political field with a curious and searching gaz