among my readers that may have risen on the glittering steep ("Ah, who
can tell how hard it is to climb!"*) has not been similarly attracted
towards the roof at the craggy foot of the ascent, under which golden
dreams refreshed his straining sinews?

*['Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb
The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar? BEATTIE.]

Somewhat quickening his steps, now that a bourne was assigned to them,
the man growing old in years, but, unhappily for himself, too tenacious
of youth in its grand discontent and keen susceptibilities to pain,
strode noiselessly on, under the gaslights, under the stars; gaslights
primly marshalled at equidistance; stars that seem to the naked eye
dotted over space without symmetry or method: man's order, near and
finite, is so distinct; the Maker's order remote, infinite, is so beyond
man's comprehension even of what is order!

Darrell paused hesitating. He had now gained a spot in which improvement
had altered the landmarks. The superb broad thoroughfare continued where
once it had vanished abrupt in a labyrinth of courts and alleys. But the
way was not hard to find. He turned a little towards the left,
recognizing, with admiring interest, in the gay, white, would-be Grecian
edifice, with its French grille, bronzed, gilded, the transformed Museum,
in the still libraries of which he had sometimes snatched a brief and
ghostly respite from books of law. Onwards yet through lifeless
Bloomsbury, not so far towards the last bounds of Atlas as the desolation
of Podden Place, but the solitude deepening as he passed. There it is,
a quiet street indeed! not a soul on its gloomy pavements, not even a
policeman's soul. Nought stirring save a stealthy, profligate, good-for-
nothing cat, flitting fine through yon area bars. Down that street had