lodging in Maida Hill. The walk had been very long; Leonard was not
fatigued. He listened with a livelier attention than before to Burley's
talk. And when they reached the apartments of the latter, and Mr. Burley
sent to the cookshop, and their joint supper was taken out of the golden
sovereign, Leonard felt proud, and for the first time for weeks he
laughed the heart's laugh. The two writers grew more and more intimate
and cordial. And there was a vast deal in Burley by which any young man
might be made the wiser. There was no apparent evidence of poverty in
the apartments,--clean, new, well-furnished; but all things in the most
horrible litter,--all speaking of the huge literary sloven.

For several days Leonard almost lived in those rooms. He wrote
continuously, save when Burley's conversation fascinated him into
idleness. Nay, it was not idleness,--his knowledge grew larger as he
listened; but the cynicism of the talker began slowly to work its way.
That cynicism in which there was no faith, no hope, no vivifying breath
from Glory, from Religion,--the cynicism of the Epicurean, more degraded
in his sty than ever was Diogenes in his tub; and yet presented with such
ease and such eloquence, with such art and such mirth, so adorned with
illustration and anecdote, so unconscious of debasement!

Strange and dread philosophy, that made it a maxim to squander the gifts
of mind on the mere care for matter, and fit the soul to live but as from
day to day, with its scornful cry, "A fig for immortality and laurels!"
An author for bread! Oh, miserable calling! was there something grand
and holy, after all, even in Chatterton's despair?