the Old World, gird up my loins, and leave you, with a sigh, to the
fresh youth of the New

"Ne tibi sit duros acuisse in prcelia dentes."

Yours affectionately,

Albert Trevanion.




CHAPTER VII.


So, reader, thou art now at the secret of my heart.

Wonder not that I, a bookman's son, and at certain periods of my life a
bookman myself, though of lowly grade in that venerable class,--wonder
not that I should thus, in that transition stage between youth and
manhood, have turned impatiently from books. Most students, at one time
or other in their existence, have felt the imperious demand of that
restless principle in man's nature which calls upon each son of Adam to
contribute his share to the vast treasury of human deeds. And though
great scholars are not necessarily, nor usually, men of action, yet the
men of action whom History presents to our survey have rarely been
without a certain degree of scholarly nurture. For the ideas which
books quicken, books cannot always satisfy. And though the royal pupil
of Aristotle slept with Homer under his pillow, it was not that he might
dream of composing epics, but of conquering new Ilions in the East.