devotion. Unable to bear the sight of suffering, he was yet careless of
causing it where he would not see it; incapable of thwarting himself, he
was full of weak indignation at being thwarted; supremely conceited, he
had yet a regard for the habits and judgments of men of a certain stamp
which towards a great man would have been veneration, and would have
elevated his being. But the sole essentials of life as yet discovered by
Cornelius were a good carriage, good manners, self-confidence, and
seeming carelessness in spending. That the spender was greedy after the
money he yet scorned to work for, made no important difference in
Cornelius's estimate of him. In a word, he fashioned a fine
gentleman-god in his foolish brain, and then fell down and worshipped
him with what worship was possible between them. To all home-excellence
he was so far blind that he looked down upon it; the opinion of father
or mother, though they had reared such a son as himself, was not to be
compared in authority with that of Reginald Vavasor, who, though so poor
as to be one of his fellow-clerks, was heir apparent to an earldom.




CHAPTER III.

THE MAGIC LANTERN.


Cornelius, leaving his mother, took refuge with his anger in his own
room. Although he had occupied it but a fortnight the top of its chest
of drawers was covered with yellow novels--the sole kind of literature
for which Cornelius cared. Of this he read largely, if indeed his mode
of swallowing could be called reading; his father would have got more