fearful odds. Admirer as you are of Lord Bacon, you may perhaps remember
a certain parable of his, called 'Memnon, or a youth too forward.' I
hope you are not going to be one of those sons of Aurora, 'who, puffed
up with the glittering show of vanity and ostentation, attempt actions
above their strength.'

"You talk to me about the peculiarly active spirit of society; if the
spirit of society be so peculiarly active, Mr. Vivian Grey should beware
lest it outstrip him. Is neglecting to mature your mind, my boy, exactly
the way to win the race? This is an age of unsettled opinions and
contested principles; in the very measures of our administration, the
speculative spirit of the present day is, to say the least, not
impalpable. Nay, don't start, my dear fellow, and look the very
Prosopopeia of Political Economy! I know exactly what you are going to
say; but, if you please, we will leave Turgot and Galileo to Mr.
Canning and the House of Commons, or your Cousin Hargrave and his
Debating Society. However, jesting apart, get your hat, and walk with me
as far as Evans's, where I have promised to look in, to see the Mazarin
Bible, and we will talk this affair over as we go along.

"I am no bigot, you know, Vivian. I am not one of those who wish to
oppose the application of refined philosophy to the common business of
life. We are, I hope, an improving race; there is room, I am sure, for
great improvement, and the perfectibility of man is certainly a pretty
dream. (How well that Union Club House comes out now, since they have
made the opening), but, although we may have steam kitchens, human
nature is, I imagine, much the same this moment that we are walking in
Pall Mall East, as it was some thousand years ago, when as wise men were
walking on the banks of the Ilyssus. When our moral powers increase in
proportion to our physical ones, then huzza, for the perfectibility of