"Oh swiftly passing seasons of life! There was a time when men
seemed to be sincere; when thought was nourished on friendship,
kindness, love; when dawn still kept its brilliance, and the night
its peace. _I can_, the soul said to itself, and _I will_; I will
do all that is right--all that is natural. But soon resistance,
difficulty, unforeseen, coming we know not whence, arrest us,
undeceive us, and the human yoke grows heavy on our necks;
Thenceforward we become merely sharers in the common woe. Hemmed
in on all sides, we feel our faculties only to realize their
impotence: we have time and strength to do what we _must_, never
what we will. Men go on repeating the words work, genius, success.
Fools! Will all these resounding projects, though they enable us
to cheat ourselves, enable us to cheat the icy fate which rules us
and our globe, wandering forsaken through the vast silence of the
heavens?"

Robert looked up startled, the book dropping from his hand. The
words sent a chill to the heart of one born to hope, to will, to
crave.

Suddenly Langham dashed the volume from him almost with violence.

'Forget that drivel, Elsmere. It was a crime to show it to you.
It is not sane; neither perhaps am I. But I am not going to Scotland.
They would request me to resign in a week.'

Long after Elsmere, who had stayed talking awhile on other things,
had gone, Langham sat on brooding over the empty grate.

'Corrupter of youth!' he said to himself once, bitterly. And perhaps