s orbit may
describe, he holds on his course to guide or to enlighten; but the
noises below reach him not! Until the wheel is broken,--until the dark
void swallow up the star,--it makes melody, night and day, to its own
ear: thirsting for no sound from the earth it illumines, anxious for no
companionship in the path through which it rolls, conscious of its own
glory, and contented, therefore, to be alone!

But minds of this order are rare. All ages cannot produce them. They
are exceptions to the ordinary and human virtue, which is influenced
and regulated by external circumstance. At a time when even to be merely
susceptible to the voice of fame was a great pre-eminence in moral
energies over the rest of mankind, it would be impossible that any
one should ever have formed the conception of that more refined and
metaphysical sentiment, that purer excitement to high deeds--that glory
in one's own heart, which is so immeasurably above the desire of a
renown that lackeys the heels of others. In fact, before we can
dispense with the world, we must, by a long and severe novitiate--by the
probation of much thought, and much sorrow--by deep and sad conviction
of the vanity of all that the world can give us, have raised our
selves--not in the fervour of an hour, but habitually--above the world:
an abstraction--an idealism--which, in our wiser age, how few even of
the wisest, can attain! Yet, till we are thus fortunate, we know not
the true divinity of contemplation, nor the all-sufficing mightiness of
conscience; nor can we retreat with solemn footsteps into that Holy of
Holies in our own souls, wherein we know, and feel, how much our nature
is capable of the self-existence of a God!

But to return to the things and thoughts of earth. Those considerations,
and those links of circumstance, which, in a similar situation have
changed so many honest and courageous minds, changed also the mind of
Adrian. He felt in a false position. His reason and conscience shared in
the schemes of Rienzi, and his natural hardihood and love of enterprise
would have led him actively to share the danger of their execution. But
this, all his associations, his friendships, his private and household
ties, loudly forbade. Against his order, against his house, against the
companions of his youth, how could he plot secretly, or act sternly?
By the goal to which he was impelled by patriotism, stood hypocrisy and
ingratitude. Who would believe him the honest