As Clarence clasped his benefactor's hand, the tears gushed from his
eyes. Is there one being, stubborn as the rock to misfortune, whom
kindness does not affect? For my part, kindness seems to me to come
with a double grace and tenderness from the old; it seems in them the
hoarded and long purified benevolence of years; as if it had survived
and conquered the baseness and selfishness of the ordeal it had
passed; as if the winds, which had broken the form, had swept in vain
across the heart, and the frosts which had chilled the blood and
whitened the thin locks had possessed no power over the warm tide of
the affections. It is the triumph of nature over art; it is the voice
of the angel which is yet within us. Nor is this all: the tenderness
of age is twice blessed,--blessed in its trophies over the obduracy of
encrusting and withering years, blessed because it is tinged with the
sanctity of the grave; because it tells us that the heart will blossom
even upon the precincts of the tomb, and flatters us with the
inviolacy and immortality of love.




CHAPTER XXIII.

Cannot I create,
Cannot I form, cannot I fashion forth
Another world, another universe?--KEATS.

The next morning Clarence, in his way out of town, directed his
carriage (the last and not the least acceptable present from Talbot)
to stop at Warner's door. Although it was scarcely sunrise, the aged
grandmother of the artist was stirring, and opened the door to the