) standing motionless before him.

"Oh, Linden!" said the artist, "I have had so superb a dream,--a dream
which, though I have before snatched some such vision by fits and
glimpses, I never beheld so realized, so perfect as now; and--but you
shall see, you shall judge for yourself; I will sketch out the design
for you;" and, with a piece of chalk and a rapid hand, Warner conveyed
to Linden the outline of his conception. His young friend was eager in
his praise and his predictions of renown, and Warner listened to him
with a fondness which spread over his pale cheek a richer flush than
lover ever caught from the whispers of his beloved.

"Yes," said he, as he rose, and his sunken and small eye flashed out
with a feverish brightness, "yes, if my hand does not fail my thought,
it shall rival even--" Here the young painter stopped short, abashed at
that indiscretion of enthusiasm about to utter to another the hoarded
vanities hitherto locked in his heart of hearts as a sealed secret,
almost from himself.

"But come," said Clarence, affectionately, "your hand is feverish and
dry, and of late you have seemed more languid than you were wont,--come,
Warner, you want exercise: it is a beautiful evening, and you shall
explain your picture still further to me as we walk."

Accustomed to yield to Clarence, Warner mechanically and abstractedly
obeyed; they walked out into the open streets.

"Look around us," said Warner, pausing, "look among this toiling and
busy and sordid mass of beings who claim with us the fellowship of clay.
The poor labour; the rich feast: the only distinction between them is
that of the insect and the brute; like them they fulfil the same end and
share the same oblivion; they die, a new race springs up, and the very
grass upon their graves fades not so soon as their memory. Who that is
conscious of a higher nature would not pine and fret himself away to be
confounded with these? Who would not burn and sicken and parch with
a delirious longing to divorce himself from so vile a herd? What have
their petty pleasures and their mean aims to atone for the abasement of
grinding down our spirits to their level? Is not the distinction from
their blended and common name a sufficient recompense for all that
ambition suffers or foregoes? Oh, for one brief hour (I ask no more) of
living honour, one feeling of conscious, unfearing certainty that Fame
has conquered Death! and then for this humble and impotent clay, this