after life each one had come to be the pride of his family, of his
country, of the civilized world.

Her arguments fell upon fertile soil in the worst of Lucien's nature,
and spread corruption in his heart; for him, when his desires were
hot, all means were admissible. But--failure is high treason against
society; and when the fallen conqueror has run amuck through _bourgeois_
virtues, and pulled down the pillars of society, small wonder that
society, finding Marius seated among the ruins, should drive him forth
in abhorrence. All unconsciously Lucien stood with the palm of genius
on the one hand and a shameful ending in the hulks upon the other;
and, on high upon the Sinai of the prophets, beheld no Dead Sea
covering the cities of the plain--the hideous winding-sheet of
Gomorrah.

So well did Louise loosen the swaddling-bands of provincial life that
confined the heart and brain of her poet that the said poet determined
to try an experiment upon her. He wished to feel certain that this
proud conquest was his without laying himself open to the
mortification of a rebuff. The forthcoming soiree gave him his
opportunity. Ambition blended with his love. He loved, and he meant to
rise, a double desire not unnatural in young men with a heart to
satisfy and the battle of life to fight. Society, summoning all her
children to one banquet, arouses ambition in the very morning of life.
Youth is robbed of its charm, and generous thoughts are corrupted by
mercenary scheming. The idealist would fain have it otherwise, but
intrusive fact too often gives the lie to the fiction which we should
like to believe, making it impossible to paint the young man of the
nineteenth century other than he is. Lucien imagined that his scheming
was entirely prompted by good feeling, and persuaded himself that it