He pressed her hand to his lips, and they parted-Florinda to the
regal palace of the duke, and Carlton to his humble lodgings. That
night he went to his bed without having tasted food throughout the
whole day. The next morning with the first light he rose, unable to
sleep from hunger, and sought his canvass. While he could summon his
pride, and season it with his ambition, this formed food and
stimulus enough for him-a sustaining principle equal to natural
nutriment. But in his sleep, when nature asserted her power, and the
physical system claimed precedence over the brain, then the gnawings
of hunger could not be stilled; and thus he awoke, and, as we have
said, sought his canvass to drive away the demon; for it was a
demon-a tormenting fiend to him now!

Among the collection of artists at Florence-as in all Italian
cities-there were representatives from nearly every part of the
world; and much rivalry and pride often showed itself, not only
among the students of the academy, but even among the masters or
teachers themselves. This feeling at the time to which we allude,
prevailed to an unusual extent, and its pernicious effects had been
the cause of one or two duels of fatal termination. Carlton had long
since been obliged to leave the academy from want of means, and even
while there, he labored under great disadvantage in not being able
to keep up the appearance of a gentleman among his fellow-students,
who were generally well supplied with pecuniary means.

His comrades finding that he far exceeded them in point of
application, and consequently in execution and general improvement,
naturally disliked him; and strange enough, too, the teachers
treated him with marked coolness and dislike, whether from a similar
sense of his superior ability even over themselves, or otherwise,