ve taken. The shores
they have relinquished shrink to an infinite remoteness. There they have
dreamed: here they must act. There lie youth and irresolution: here
manhood and purpose. They are veritably in another land: a moral Acheron
divides their life. Their memories scarce seem their own! The
Philosophical Geography (about to be published) observes that each man
has, one time or other, a little Rubicon--a clear or a foul water to
cross. It is asked him: "Wilt thou wed this Fate, and give up all behind
thee?" And "I will," firmly pronounced, speeds him over. The above-named
manuscript authority informs us, that by far the greater number of
caresses rolled by this heroic flood to its sister stream below, are
those of fellows who have repented their pledge, and have tried to swim
back to the bank they have blotted out. For though every man of us may be
a hero for one fatal minute, very few remain so after a day's march even:
and who wonders that Madam Fate is indignant, and wears the features of
the terrible Universal Fate to him? Fail before her, either in heart or
in act, and lo, how the alluring loves in her visage wither and sicken to
what it is modelled on! Be your Rubicon big or small, clear or foul, it
is the same: you shall not return. On--or to Acheron!--I subscribe to
that saying of The Pilgrim's Scrip:

"The danger of a little knowledge of things is disputable: but beware the
little knowledge of one's self!"

Richard Feverel was now crossing the River of his Ordeal. Already the
mists were stealing over the land he had left: his life was cut in two,
and he breathed but the air that met his nostrils. His father, his
father's love, his boyhood and ambition, were shadowy. His poetic dreams
had taken a living attainable shape. He had a distincter impression of
the Autumnal Berry and her household than of anything at Raynham. And yet
the young man loved his father, loved his home: and I daresay Caesar
loved Rome: but whether he did or no, Caesar when he killed the Republic
was quite bald, and the hero we are dealing with is scarce beginning to
feel his despotic moustache. Did he know what he was made of? Doubtless,
nothing at all. But honest passion has an instinct that can be safer than
conscious wisdom. He was an arrow drawn to the head, flying from the bow.
His audacious mendacities and subterfuges did not strike him as in any
way criminal; for he was perfectly sure that the winning and securing of
Lucy would i