The consciousness of how little individual genius can do to relieve the
mass, grinds out, as with a stone, all that is generous in ambition; and
to aspire from the level of life is but to be more graspingly selfish."

"Can legislators, or the moralists that instruct legislators, do so
little, then, towards universal good?" said Lester, doubtingly.

"Why? what can they do but forward civilization? And what is
civilization, but an increase of human disparities? The more the luxury
of the few, the more startling the wants, and the more galling the sense,
of poverty. Even the dreams of the philanthropist only tend towards
equality; and where is equality to be found, but in the state of the
savage? No; I thought otherwise once; but I now regard the vast lazar-
house around us without hope of relief:--Death is the sole Physician!"

"Ah, no!" said the high-souled Madeline, eagerly; "do not take away from
us the best feeling and the highest desire we can cherish. How poor, even
in this beautiful world, with the warm sun and fresh air about us, that
alone are sufficient to make us glad, would be life, if we could not make
the happiness of others!"

Aram looked at the beautiful speaker with a soft and half-mournful smile.
There is one very peculiar pleasure that we feel as we grow older,--it
is to see embodied in another and a more lovely shape the thoughts and
sentiments we once nursed ourselves; it is as if we viewed before us the
incarnation of our own youth; and it is no wonder that we are warmed
towards the object, that thus seems the living apparition of all that was
brightest in ourselves! It was with this sentiment that Aram now gazed on
Madeline. She felt the gaze, and her heart beat delightedly, but she sunk
at once into a silence, which she did not break during the rest of their