pery. In this was I
violating the whole poetry of my existence. These figures were as
much out of keeping as would be a couple of Ostade's Boors in a grand
Scripture piece by Domenichino.

"And yet, Potts," thought I, "they were _really_ living creatures. They
had hearts for Joy and sorrow and hope, and the rest of it. They
were pilgrims travelling the selfsame road as you were. They were not
illusions, but flesh and blood folk, that would shiver when cold, and
die of hunger if starved. Were they not, then, as such, of more account
than all your mere imaginings? Would not the least of their daily
miseries outweigh a whole bushel of fancied sorrow? And is it not a poor
selfishness on your part, when you deem some airy conception of your
brain of more account than that poor old man and that dark-eyed girl?
Last of all, are they hot, in all their ragged finery, more 'really true
men' than you yourself, Potts, living in a maze of delusions? They only
act when the sawdust is raked and the lamps are lighted; but you are _en
scene_ from dawn to dark, and only lay down one motley to don another.
Is not this wretched? Is it not ignoble? In all these changes of
character, how much of the real man will be left behind? Will there be
one morsel of honest flesh, when all the lacquer of paint is washed off?
And was it--oh, was it for this you first adventured out on the wide
ocean of life?"

I passed the evening and a great part of the night in such
self-accusings, and then I addressed myself to action. I bethought me of
my future, and with whom and where and how it might be passed. The bag
of money intrusted to me by the Minister to pay the charges of the road
was banging where I had placed it,--on the curtain-holder. I opened it,
and found a hundred and forty gold Napoleons, and some ten or twelve
pounds in silver. I next set to count over my own especial hoard; it was
a fraction under a thousand francs! Forty pounds was truly a very small
sum wherewith to confront a world to which I brought not any art, or
trade, or means of livelihood; I say forty, because I had not the shadow
of a pretext for touching the other sum, and I resolved at once to
transmit it to the owner. Now, what could be done with so humble a
capital? I had heard of a great general who once pawned a valuable
sword--a sword of honor it was--wherewith to buy a horse, and, so
mounted, he went forth over the Alps, and conquered a kingdom. The story
had no moral for m