works, because they were dissatisfied with the author. But Maltravers
had based his experiments upon the vast masses of the general Public.
He had called the PEOPLE of his own and other countries to be his
audience and his judges; and all the coteries in the world could have
not injured him. He was like the member for an immense constituency,
who may offend individuals, so long as he keep his footing with the body
at large. But while he withdrew himself from the insipid and the idle,
he took care not to become separated from the world. He formed his own
society according to his tastes: took pleasure in the manly and exciting
topics of the day; and sharpened his observation and widened his sphere
as an author, by mixing freely and boldly with all classes as a citizen.
But literature became to him as art to the artist--as his mistress to
the lover--an engrossing and passionate delight. He made it his
glorious and divine profession--he loved it as a profession--he devoted
to its pursuits and honours his youth, cares, dreams--his mind, and his
heart, and his soul. He was a silent but intense enthusiast in the
priesthood he had entered. From LITERATURE he imagined had come all
that makes nations enlightened and men humane. And he loved Literature
the more, because her distinctions were not those of the world--because
she had neither ribbands, nor stars, nor high places at her command. A
name in the deep gratitude and hereditary delight of men--this was the
title she bestowed. Hers was the Great Primitive Church of the world,
without Popes or Muftis--sinecures, pluralities and hierarchies. Her
servants spoke to the earth as the prophets of old, anxious only to be
heard and believed. Full of this fanaticism, Ernest Maltravers pursued
his way in the great procession of the myrtle-bearers to the sacred
shrine. He carried the thyrsus, and he believed in the god. By degrees
his fanaticism worked in him the philosophy which De Montaigne would
have derived from sober calculation; it made him indifferent to the
thorns in the path, to the storms in the sky. He learned to despise the