pleased himself to touch, and in which he could not speak without
involuntarily instructing. Nor did he ever allure the boy to talk of his
school-days, of his friends, of his predilections, his hopes, his future.
In short, had you observed them together, you would have never supposed
they were connections, that one could and ought to influence and direct
the career of the other. You would have said the host certainly liked
the guest, as any man would like a promising, warm-hearted, high-
spirited, graceful boy, under his own roof for a short time, but who felt
that that boy was nothing to him; would soon pass from his eye; form
friends, pursuits, aims, with which he could be in no way commingled, for
which he should be wholly irresponsible. There was also this peculiarity
in Darrell's conversation; if he never spoke of his guest's past and
future, neither did he ever do more than advert in the most general terms
to his own. Of that grand stage on which he had been so brilliant an
actor he imparted no reminiscences; of those great men, the leaders of
his age, with whom he had mingled familiarly, he told no anecdotes.
Equally silent was he as to the earlier steps in his career, the modes
by which he had studied, the accidents of which he had seized advantage,
--silent there as upon the causes he had gained, or the debates he had
adorned. Never could you have supposed that this man, still in the prime
of public life, had been the theme of journals and the boast of party.
Neither did he ever, as men who talk easily at their own hearths are
prone to do, speak of projects in the future, even though the projects be
no vaster than the planting of a tree or the alteration of a parterre,--
projects with which rural life so copiously and so innocently teems. The
past seemed as if it had left to him no memory, the future as if it
stored for him no desire. But did the past leave no memory? Why then
at intervals would the book slide from his eye, the head sink upon the
breast, and a shade of unutterable dejection darken over the grand beauty
of that strong stern countenance? Still that dejection was not morbidly