"Listen," said the republican, laying his hand upon Glendower's
shoulder, "listen to me. There are in this country men whose spirits
not years of delayed hope, wearisome persecution, and, bitterer than
all, misrepresentation from some and contempt from others, have yet
quelled and tamed. We watch our opportunity; the growing distress of
the country, the increasing severity and misrule of the
administration, will soon afford it us. Your talents, your
benevolence, render you worthy to join us. Do so, and--"

"Hush!" interrupted the student; "you know not what you say: you weigh
not the folly, the madness of your design! I am a man more fallen,
more sunken, more disappointed than you. I, too, have had at my heart
the burning and lonely hope which, through years of misfortune and
want, has comforted me with the thought of serving and enlightening
mankind,--I, too, have devoted to the fulfilment of that hope, days
and nights, in which the brain grew dizzy and the heart heavy and
clogged with the intensity of my pursuits. Were the dungeon and the
scaffold my reward Heaven knows that I would not flinch eye or hand or
abate a jot of heart and hope in the thankless prosecution of my
toils. Know me, then, as one of fortunes more desperate than your
own; of an ambition more unquenchable; of a philanthropy no less
ardent; and, I will add, of a courage no less firm: and behold the
utter hopelessness of your projects with others, when to me they only
appear the visions of an enthusiast."

Wolfe sank down in the chair.

"Is it even so?" said he, slowly and musingly. "Are my hopes but
delusions? Has my life been but one idle, though convulsive dream?