the damps of a bitter sorrow. Perhaps the tender, maternal fingers of
my wife soothed his weary head with the conviction that he felt the
hand of his mother playing with the long hair of her boy in the soft
West India morning. Perhaps it was only the natural relief of
expressing a pent-up sorrow.

When he spoke again, it was with the old subdued tone, and the air of
quaint solemnity.

"These things were matters of long, long ago, and I came to this
country soon after. I brought with me, premature age, a past of
melancholy memories, and the magic spectacles. I had become their
slave. I had nothing more to fear. Having seen myself, I was compelled
to see others, properly to understand my relations to them. The lights
that cheer the future of other men had gone out for me; my eyes were
those of an exile turned backwards upon the receding shore, and not
forwards with hope upon the ocean.

"I mingled with men, but with little pleasure. There are but many
varieties of a few types. I did not find those I came to
clearer-sighted than those I had left behind. I heard men called
shrewd and wise, and report said they were highly intelligent and
successful. My finest sense detected no aroma of purity and principle;
but I saw only a fungus that had fattened and spread in a night. They
went to the theatres to see actors upon the stage. I went to see
actors in the boxes, so consummately cunning, that others did not know
they were acting, and they did not suspect it themselves.

"Perhaps you wonder it did not make me misanthropical. My dear
friends, do not forget that I had seen myself. That made me