no chimerical
and visionary science; a great Promethean THING, that, once matured,
would divide the Old World from the New, enter into all operations
of Labour, animate all the future affairs, colour all the practical
doctrines of active men. He paused before it, and addressed it as if
it heard and understood him: "My hair was dark, and my tread was firm,
when, one night, a THOUGHT passed into my soul,--a thought to make
Matter the gigantic slave of Mind. Out of this thought, thou, not yet
born after five-and-twenty years of travail, wert conceived. My coffers
were then full, and my name was honoured; and the rich respected and the
poor loved me. Art thou a devil, that has tempted me to ruin, or a god,
that has lifted me above the earth? I am old before my time, my hair is
blanched, my frame is bowed, my wealth is gone, my name is sullied. And
all, dumb idol of Iron and the Element, all for thee! I had a wife whom
I adored; she died,--I forgot her loss in the hope of thy life. I have
a child still--God and our Lady forgive me! she is less dear to me than
thou hast been. And now"--the old man ceased abruptly, and folding his
arms, looked at the deaf iron sternly, as on a human foe. By his side
was a huge hammer, employed in the toils of his forge; suddenly he
seized and swung it aloft. One blow, and the labour of years was
shattered into pieces! One blow!--But the heart failed him, and the
hammer fell heavily to the ground.

"Ay!" he muttered, "true, true! if thou, who hast destroyed all else,
wert destroyed too, what were left me? Is it a crime to murder Alan?--a
greater crime to murder Thought, which is the life of all men! Come, I
forgive thee!"

And all that day and all that night the Enthusiast laboured in his
chamber, and the next day the remembrance of the hooting, the pelting,
the mob, was gone,--clean gone from his breast. The Model began to move,
life hovered over its wheels; and the Martyr of Science had forgotten
the very world for which he, groaning and rejoicing, toiled!

CHAPTER VIII. MASTER MARMADUKE NEVILE MAKES LOVE, AND IS FRIGHTENED.

For two or three days Marmaduke and Sibyll were necessarily brought much
together. Such familiarity of intercourse was peculiarly rare in that
time, when, except perhaps in the dissolute court of Edward IV., the
virgins of gentle birth mixed sparingly, and with great reserve, amongst
those of opposite sex. Marmaduke, rapidly recovering from the effect
of his wo