On entering his home, Warner pushed aside, for the first time in his
life with disrespect, his aged and kindly relation, who, as if in
mockery of the unfortunate artist stood prepared to welcome and
congratulate his return. Bearing his picture in his arms, he rushed
upstairs, hurried into his room, and locked the door. Hastily he tore
aside the cloth which had been drawn over the picture; hastily and
tremblingly he placed it upon the frame accustomed to support it, and
then, with a long, long, eager, searching, scrutinizing glance, he
surveyed the once beloved mistress of his worship. Presumption,
vanity, exaggerated self-esteem, are, in their punishment, supposed to
excite ludicrous not sympathetic emotion; but there is an excess of
feeling, produced by whatever cause it may be, into which, in spite of
ourselves, we are forced to enter. Even fear, the most contemptible
of the passions, becomes tragic the moment it becomes an agony.

"Well, well!" said Warner, at last, speaking very slowly, "it is
over,--it was a pleasant dream,--but it is over,--I ought to be
thankful for the lesson." Then suddenly changing his mood and tone,
he repeated, "Thankful! for what? that I am a wretch,--a wretch more
utterly hopeless and miserable and abandoned than a man who freights
with all his wealth, his children, his wife, the hoarded treasures and
blessings of an existence, one ship, one frail, worthless ship, and,
standing himself on the shore, sees it suddenly go down! Oh, was I
not a fool,--a right noble fool,--a vain fool,--an arrogant fool,--a
very essence and concentration of all things that make a fool, to
believe such delicious marvels of myself! What, man!" (here his eye
saw in the opposite glass his features, livid and haggard with
disease, and the exhausting feelings which preyed within him)--"what,
man! would nothing serve thee but to be a genius,--thee, whom Nature