frame accustomed to support it, and
then, with a long, long, eager, searching, scrutinizing glance, he
surveyed the once beloved mistress of his worship. Presumption, vanity,
exaggerated self-esteem, are, in their punishment, supposed to excite
ludicrous not sympathetic emotion; but there is an excess of feeling,
produced by whatever cause it may be, into which, in spite of ourselves,
we are forced to enter. Even fear, the most contemptible of the
passions, becomes tragic the moment it becomes an agony.

"Well, well!" said Warner, at last, speaking very slowly, "it is
over,--it was a pleasant dream,--but it is over,--I ought to be thankful
for the lesson." Then suddenly changing his mood and tone, he repeated,
"Thankful! for what? that I am a wretch,--a wretch more utterly hopeless
and miserable and abandoned than a man who freights with all his wealth,
his children, his wife, the hoarded treasures and blessings of an
existence, one ship, one frail, worthless ship, and, standing himself
on the shore, sees it suddenly go down! Oh, was I not a fool,--a
right noble fool,--a vain fool,--an arrogant fool,--a very essence and
concentration of all things that make a fool, to believe such delicious
marvels of myself! What, man!" (here his eye saw in the opposite
glass his features, livid and haggard with disease, and the exhausting
feelings which preyed within him)--"what, man! would nothing serve
thee but to be a genius,--thee, whom Nature stamped with her curse!
Dwarf-like and distorted, mean in stature and in lineament, thou wert,
indeed, a glorious being to perpetuate grace and beauty, the majesties
and dreams of art! Fame for thee, indeed--ha-ha! Glory--ha-ha! a
place with Titian, Correggio, Raphael--ha--ha--ha! O, thrice modest,
thrice-reasonable fool! But this vile daub; this disfigurement of
canvas; this loathed and wretched monument of disgrace; this notable
candidate for--ha--ha--immortality! this I have, at least, in my power."
And seizing the picture, he dashed it to the ground, and trampled it
with his feet upon the dusty boards, till the moist colours presented
nothing but one confused and dingy stain.

This sight seemed to recall him for a moment. He paused, lifted up
the picture once more, and placed it on the table. "But," he
muttered, "might not this critic be envious? am I sure that he judged
rightly--fairly? The greatest masters have looked askant and jealous at
their pupils' works. And then, how slow, how