he, Lucien, had
reached through ambition? The aspirant for love and honors felt that the
way had been made smooth for him; the young man and the comrade felt all
his heart go out towards his friend.

It was one of those moments that come very seldom in our lives, when all
the forces in us are sweetly strung, and every chord vibrating gives out
full resonance.

And yet, this goodness of a noble nature increased Lucien's human
tendency to take himself as the centre of things. Do not all of us
say more or less, "_L'Etat, c'est moi!_" with Louis Quatorze? Lucien's
mother and sister had concentrated all their tenderness on him, David
was his devoted friend; he was accustomed to see the three making every
effort for him in secret, and consequently he had all the faults of a
spoiled eldest son. The noble is eaten up with the egoism which their
unselfishness was fostering in Lucien; and Mme. de Bargeton was doing
her best to develop the same fault by inciting him to forget all that he
owed to his sister, and mother, and David. He was far from doing so
as yet; but was there not ground for the fear that as his sphere of
ambition widened, his whole thought perforce would be how he might
maintain himself in it?

When emotion had subsided, David had a suggestion to make. He thought
that Lucien's poem, _Saint John in Patmos_, was possibly too biblical to
be read before an audience but little familiar with apocalyptic poetry.
Lucien, making his first appearance before the most exacting public in
the Charente, seemed to be nervous. David advised him to take Andre de
Chenier and substitute certain pleasure for a dubious delight. Lucien
was a perfect reader, the listeners would enjoy listening to him, and
his modesty would doubtless serve him well. Like most young people, the
pair were endowing the rest of the world with their own intelligence and
virtues; for if youth that has not yet gone astray is pitiless for the
sins of others, it is ready, on the other hand, to put a magnificent
faith in them. It is only, in fact, after a good deal of experience
of life that we recognize the truth of Raphael's great saying--"To
comprehend is to equal."

The power of appreciating poetry is rare, generally speaking, in France;
_esprit_ soon dries up the source of the sacred tears of ecstasy; nobody
cares to be at the trouble of deciphering the sublime, of plumbing the
depths to discover the infinite. Lucien was about to have his first
experienc