noble bearing for one so young," said the Frenchman; "and
seems to have seen the world, and both to have profited and to have
suffered by it."

"He will prove an acquisition to our society here," returned Teresa; "he
interests me; and you, Castruccio?" turning to seek for her brother; but
Cesarini had already, with his usual noiseless step, disappeared within
the house.

"Alas, my poor brother!" she said, "I cannot comprehend him. What does
he desire?"

"Fame!" replied De Montaigne, calmly. "It is a vain shadow; no wonder
that he disquiets himself in vain."

CHAPTER II.

"Alas! what boots it with incessant care
To strictly meditate the thankless Muse;
Were I not better done as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair?"
MILTON'S _Lycidas_.

THERE is nothing more salutary to active men than occasional intervals
of repose,--when we look within, instead of without, and examine almost
_insensibly_ (for I hold strict and conscious self-scrutiny a thing much
rarer than we suspect)--what we have done--what we are capable of doing.
It is settling, as it were, a debtor and creditor account with the past,
before we plunge into new speculations. Such an interval of repose
did Maltravers now enjoy. In utter solitude, so far as familiar
companionship is concerned, he had for several weeks been making himself
acquainted with his own character and mind. He read and thought much,
but without any exact or defined object. I think it is Montaigne who
says somewhere: "People talk about thinking--but for my part I never
think, except when I sit down to write." I believe this is not a very
common case, for people who don't write think as well as people who do;
but connected, severe, well-developed thought, in contradistinction to
vague meditation, must be connected with some tangible plan or object;
and therefore we must be either writing men or acting men, if we desire
to test the logic, and unfold into symmetrical design the fused colours
of our reasoning faculty. Maltravers did not yet feel this, but he was
sensible of some intellectual want. His ideas, his memories, his dreams
crowded thick and confused upon him; he wished to arrange them in order,
and he could not. He was overpowered by the unorganised affluence of his
own imagination and intellect. He had often, even as a child, fancied
that he was formed to do something in the world, but he had never
steadily cons