streams of civilization had poured their dregs and offal.

"You survey these," said the painter, marking each with the curious
eye of his profession: "they are a base horde, it is true; but they
have their thirst of fame, their aspirations even in the abyss of
crime or the loathsomeness of famished want. Down in yon cellar,
where a farthing rushlight glimmers upon haggard cheeks, distorted
with the idiotcy of drink; there, in that foul attic, from whose
casement you see the beggar's rags hang to dry, or rather to crumble
in the reeking and filthy air; farther on, within those walls which,
black and heavy as the hearts they hide, close our miserable
prospect,--there, even there, in the mildewed dungeon, in the felon's
cell, on the very scaffold's self, Ambition hugs her own hope or
scowls upon her own despair. Yes! the inmates of those walls had
their perilous game of honour, their 'hazard of the die,' in which
vice was triumph and infamy success. We do but share their passion,
though we direct it to a better object."

Pausing for a moment, as his thoughts flowed into a somewhat different
channel of his character, Warner continued, "We have now caught a
glimpse of the two great divisions of mankind; they who riot in
palaces, and they who make mirth hideous in rags and hovels: own that
it is but a poor survey in either. Can we be contemptible with these
or loathsome with those? Or rather have we not a nobler spark within
us, which we have but to fan into a flame that shall burn forever,
when these miserable meteors sink into the corruption from which they
rise?"

"But," observed Clarence, "these are the two extremes; the pinnacle of
civilization, too worn and bare for any more noble and vigorous fruit,