"Yes," said he, as he rose, and his sunken and small eye flashed out
with a feverish brightness, "yes, if my hand does not fail my thought,
it shall rival even--" Here the young painter stopped short, abashed
at that indiscretion of enthusiasm about to utter to another the
hoarded vanities hitherto locked in his heart of hearts as a sealed
secret, almost from himself.

"But come," said Clarence, affectionately, "your hand is feverish and
dry, and of late you have seemed more languid than you were wont,--
come, Warner, you want exercise: it is a beautiful evening, and you
shall explain your picture still further to me as we walk."

Accustomed to yield to Clarence, Warner mechanically and abstractedly
obeyed; they walked out into the open streets.

"Look around us," said Warner, pausing, "look among this toiling and
busy and sordid mass of beings who claim with us the fellowship of
clay. The poor labour; the rich feast: the only distinction between
them is that of the insect and the brute; like them they fulfil the
same end and share the same oblivion; they die, a new race springs up,
and the very grass upon their graves fades not so soon as their
memory. Who that is conscious of a higher nature would not pine and
fret himself away to be confounded with these? Who would not burn and
sicken and parch with a delirious longing to divorce himself from so
vile a herd? What have their petty pleasures and their mean aims to
atone for the abasement of grinding down our spirits to their level?
Is not the distinction from their blended and common name a sufficient
recompense for all that ambition suffers or foregoes? Oh, for one
brief hour (I ask no more) of living honour, one feeling of conscious,