With slow step and folded arms Godolphin moved along. The well-remembered
scenes of his childhood were all before him; the wild verdure of the fern,
the broken ground, with its thousand mimic mounts and valleys, the deep
dell overgrown with matted shrubs and dark as a wizard's cave; the remains
of many a stately vista, where the tender green of the lime showed forth,
even in that dusky light, beneath the richer leaves of the chestnut; all
was familiar and home-breathing to his mind. Fragments of boyish verse,
forgotten for years, rose hauntingly to his remembrance, telling of wild
thoughts, unsatisfied dreams, disappointed hopes.

"But I am happy at last," said he aloud; "yes, happy. I have passed that
bridge of life which divides us from the follies of youth; and better
prospects, and nobler desires, extend before me. What a world of wisdom
in that one saying of Radclyffe's, 'Benevolence is the sole cure to
idealism;' to live for others draws us from demanding miracles for
ourselves. What duty as yet have I fulfilled? I renounced ambition as
unwise, and with it I renounced wisdom itself. I lived for pleasure--I
lived the life of disappointment. Without one vicious disposition, I have
fallen into a hundred vices; I have never been actively selfish, yet
always selfish. I nursed high thoughts--for what end? A poet in heart, a
voluptuary in life. If mine own interest came into clear collision with
that of another, mine I would have sacrificed, but I never asked if the
whole course of my existence was not that of a war with the universal
interest. Too thoughtful to be without a leading principle in life, the
one principle I adopted has been one error. I have tasted all that
imagination can give to earthly possession: youth, health, liberty,
knowledge, love, luxury, pomp. Woman was my first passion,--what woman
have I wooed in vain? I imagined that my career hung upon Constance's
breath--Constance loved and refused me. I attributed my errors to that
refusal; Constance became mine--how have I retrieved them? A vague, a