that ever breathed. He was, like all ambitious persons, very much
occupied with self; and yet it would have been a ludicrous misapplication
of words to call him selfish. Even the desire of fame which absorbed him
was but a part of benevolence,--a desire to promote justice and to serve
his kind.

John Ardworth's shaggy brows were bent over his open volumes when his
clerk entered noiselessly and placed on his table a letter which the
twopenny-postman had just delivered. With an impatient shrug of the
shoulders, Ardworth glanced towards the superscription; but his eye
became earnest and his interest aroused as he recognized the hand.
"Again!" he muttered. "What mystery is this? Who can feel such interest
in my fate?" He broke the seal and read as follows:--

Do you neglect my advice, or have you begun to act upon it? Are you
contented only with the slow process of mechanical application, or will
you make a triumphant effort to abridge your apprenticeship and emerge at
once into fame and power? I repeat that you fritter away your talents
and your opportunities upon this miserable task-work on a journal. I am
impatient for you. Come forward yourself, put your force and your
knowledge into some work of which the world may know the author. Day
after day I am examining into your destiny, and day after day I believe
more and more that you are not fated for the tedious drudgery to which
you doom your youth. I would have you great, but in the senate, not a
wretched casuist at the Bar. Appear in public as an individual
authority, not one of that nameless troop of shadows contemned while
dreaded as the Press. Write for renown. Go into the world, and make
friends. Soften your rugged bearing. Lift yourself above that herd whom
you call "the people." What if you are born of the noble class! What if
your career is as gentleman, not plebeian Want not for money. Use what I