which this man had enveloped himself.

When they had gone, Ethan Brand sat listening to the crackling of
the kindled wood, and looking at the little spirts of fire that
issued through the chinks of the door. These trifles, however,
once so familiar, had but the slightest hold of his attention,
while deep within his mind he was reviewing the gradual but
marvellous change that had been wrought upon him by the search to
which he had devoted himself. He remembered how the night dew had
fallen upon him,--how the dark forest had whispered to him,--how
the stars had gleamed upon him,--a simple and loving man,
watching his fire in the years gone by, and ever musing as it
burned. He remembered with what tenderness, with what love and
sympathy for mankind and what pity for human guilt and woe, he
had first begun to contemplate those ideas which afterwards
became the inspiration of his life; with what reverence he had
then looked into the heart of man, viewing it as a temple
originally divine, and, however desecrated, still to be held
sacred by a brother; with what awful fear he had deprecated the
success of his pursuit, and prayed that the Unpardonable Sin
might never be revealed to him. Then ensued that vast
intellectual development, which, in its progress, disturbed the
counterpoise between his mind and heart. The Idea that possessed
his life had operated as a means of education; it had gone on
cultivating his powers to the highest point of which they were
susceptible; it had raised him from the level of an unlettered
laborer to stand on a star-lit eminence, whither the philosophers
of the earth, laden with the lore of universities, might vainly
strive to clamber after him. So much for the intellect! But where
was the heart? That, indeed, had withered,--had contracted,--had