r miseries. This man had had friends
by hundreds; good, serviceable, parliamentary, dinner-eating,
dinner-giving friends; fine, pleasant friends, as such friends go. He
had such friends by hundreds; but he had failed to prepare for stormy
times a leash or so of true hearts on which, in stress of weather, he
could throw himself with undoubting confidence. One such friend he
may have had once; but he now was among his bitterest enemies. The
horizon round him was all black, and he did despair.

How many a man lives and dies without giving any sign whether he be
an arrant coward, or a true-hearted, brave hero! One would have said
of this man, a year since, that he was brave enough. He would stand
up before a bench of judges, with the bar of England round him, and
shout forth, with brazen trumpet, things that were true, or things
that were not true; striking down a foe here to the right, and
slaughtering another there to the left, in a manner which, for so
young a man, filled beholders with admiration. He could talk by the
hour among the Commons of England, and no touch of modesty would ever
encumber his speech. He could make himself great, by making others
little, with a glance. But, for all that, he was a coward. Misfortune
had come upon him, and he was conquered at once.

Misfortune had come upon him, and he found it unendurable--yes,
utterly unendurable. The grit and substance of the man within were
not sufficient to bear the load which fate had put upon them. As does
a deal-table in similar case, they were crushed down, collapsed, and
fell in. The stuff there was not good mahogany, or sufficient hard
wood, but an unseasoned, soft, porous, deal-board, utterly unfit to
sustain such pressure. An unblushing, wordy barrister may be very
full of brass and words, and yet be no better than an unseasoned
porous deal-board, even though he have a seat in Parliament.

He rose from his chair, and again took a glass of brandy. How
impossible it is to describe the workings of a mind in such a state
of misery as that he then endured! What--what! was there no release
for him? no way, spite of this black fit, to some sort of rest--to
composure of the most ordinary kind? Was there nothing that he could
do which would produce for him, if not gratification, then at least
quiescence? To the generality of men of his age, there are resources
in misfortune. Men go to billiard-tables, or to cards, or they
seek relief in woman's society, from