viewing the world from a lofty standpoint. Yet it is, nevertheless,
true that they grew but the more bitter and hopeless after these swift
soaring flights to the upper regions of thought, their world by right.
Lucien had read much and compared; David had thought much and deeply.
In spite of the young printer's look of robust, country-bred health,
his turn of mind was melancholy and somewhat morbid--he lacked
confidence in himself; but Lucien, on the other hand, with a boldness
little to be expected from his feminine, almost effeminate, figure,
graceful though it was, Lucien possessed the Gascon temperament to the
highest degree--rash, brave, and adventurous, prone to make the most
of the bright side, and as little as possible of the dark; his was the
nature that sticks at no crime if there is anything to be gained by
it, and laughs at the vice which serves as a stepping-stone. Just now
these tendencies of ambition were held in check, partly by the fair
illusions of youth, partly by the enthusiasm which led him to prefer
the nobler methods, which every man in love with glory tries first of
all. Lucien was struggling as yet with himself and his own desires,
and not with the difficulties of life; at strife with his own power,
and not with the baseness of other men, that fatal exemplar for
impressionable minds. The brilliancy of his intellect had a keen
attraction for David. David admired his friend, while he kept him out
of the scrapes into which he was led by the _furie francaise_.

David, with his well-balanced mind and timid nature at variance with a
strong constitution, was by no means wanting in the persistence of the
Northern temper; and if he saw all the difficulties before him, none
the less he vowed to himself to conquer, never to give way. In him the
unswerving virtue of an apostle was softened by pity that sprang from
inexhaustible indulgence. In the friendship grown old already, one was
the worshiper, and that one was David; Lucien ruled him like a woman