a change from
tranquillity to agitation. The objects of the great world are to be
pursued only by the excitement of the passions. The passions are at
once our masters and our deceivers;--they urge us onward, yet present no
limit to our progress. The farther we proceed, the more dim and shadowy
grows the goal. It is impossible for a man who leads the life of the
world, the life of the passions, ever to experience content. For the
life of the passions is that of a perpetual desire; but a state of
content is the absence of all desire. Thus philosophy has become
another name for mental quietude; and all wisdom points to a life of
intellectual indifference, as the happiest which earth can bestow."

"This may be true enough," said Lester, reluctantly; "but--"

"But what?"

"A something at our hearts--a secret voice--an involuntary
impulse--rebels against it, and points to action--action, as the true
sphere of man."

A slight smile curved the lip of the Student; he avoided, however, the
argument, and remarked,

"Yet, if you think so, the world lies before you; why not return to it?"

"Because constant habit is stronger than occasional impulse; and my
seclusion, after all, has its sphere of action--has its object."

"All seclusion has."

"All? Scarcely so; for me, I have my object of interest in my children."

"And mine is in my books."

"And engaged in your object, does not the whisper of Fame ever animate
you with the desire to go forth into the world, and receive the homage
that would await you?"

"Listen to me," replied Aram. "When I was a boy, I went once to a
theatre. The tragedy of Hamlet was performed: a play full of the
noblest thoughts, the subtlest morality, that exists upon the stage. The
audience listened with attention, with admiration, with applause. I said
to myself, when the curtain fell, 'It must be a glorious thing to obtain
this empire over men's intellects and emotions.' But now an Italian
mountebank appeared on the stage,--a man of extraordinary personal
strength and slight of hand. He performed a variety of juggling
tricks, and distorted his body into a thousand surprising and unnatural
postures. The audience were transported beyond themselves: if they had
felt delight in Hamlet, they glowed with rapture at the mountebank: they
had listened with attention to the lofty thought, but they were snatched
from themselves by the marvel of the strange posture. 'Enough,' said I;
'I correct my former