nature. Such were the truths these artists made him feel.

Small, ill-made, without superiority of mind or settled purpose, what
chance was there for a man like that in an age when success in any
career demands that the highest qualities of the mind be furthered by
luck, or by tenacity of will which commands luck.

The revolution of 1830 stanched Godefroid's wounds. He had the courage
of hope, which is equal to that of despair. He obtained an
appointment, like other obscure journalists, to a government situation
in the provinces, where his liberal ideas, conflicting with the
necessities of the new power, made him a troublesome instrument.
Bitten with liberalism, he did not know, as cleverer men did, how to
steer a course. Obedience to ministers he regarded as sacrificing his
opinions. Besides, the government seemed to him to be disobeying the
laws of its own origin. Godefroid declared for progress, where the
object of the government was to maintain the /statu quo/. He returned
to Paris almost poor, but faithful still to the doctrines of the
Opposition.

Alarmed by the excesses of the press, more alarmed still by the
attempted outrages of the republican party, he sought in retirement
from the world the only life suitable for a being whose faculties were
incomplete, and without sufficient force to bear up against the rough
jostling of political life, the struggles and sufferings of which
confer no credit,--a being, too, who was wearied with his many
miscarriages; without friends, for friendship demands either striking
merits or striking defects, and yet possessing a sensibility of soul
more dreamy than profound. Surely a retired life was the course left
for a young man whom pleasure had more than once misled,--whose heart