with
his shining dreams; and now he accepts the proof, and wins from it what
he can.

The man of the world puts on the method and measure of the world: he
studies its humors. He gives up the boyish notion of a sincerity among
men like that of youth: he lives to seem. He conquers such annoyances as
the world may thrust upon him, in the shape of grief or losses, like a
practical athlete of the ring. He studies moral sparring.

With somewhat of this strange vanity growing on you, you do not suffer
the heart to wake into life except in such fanciful dreams as tempt you
back to the sunny slopes of childhood.

In this mood you fall in with Dalton, who has just returned from a year
passed in the French capital. There is an easy suavity and graceful
indifference in his manner that chimes admirably with your humor. He is
gracious, without needing to be kind. He is a friend, without any
challenge or proffer of sincerity. He is just one of those adepts in
world tactics which match him with all men, but which link him to none.
He has made it his art to be desired and admired, but rarely to be
trusted. You could not have a better teacher!

Under such instruction you become disgusted for the time with any
effort, or pulse of affection, which does not have immediate and
practical bearing upon that success in life by which you measure your
hopes. The dreams of love, of romantic adventure, of placid joy, have
all gone out with the fantastic images to which your passionate youth
had joined them. The world is now regarded as a tournament, where the
gladiatorship of life is to be exhibited at your best endeavor. Its
honors and joys lie in a brilliant pennon and a plaudit.

Dalton is learned in those arts which make of action, not a duty, but a
conquest; and sense of duty has expired in you with those romantic hopes
to which you bound it, not as much through sympathy as ignorance. It is
a cold and a bitterly selfish work that lies before you,--to be covered
over with such borrowed show of smiles as men call affability. The heart
wears a stout, brazen screen; its inclinations grow to the habit of your
ambitious projects.

In such mood come swift dreams of wealth,--not of mere accumulation, but
of the splendor and parade which in our Western world are, alas! its
chiefest attractions. You grow observant of markets, and estimate
percentages. You fondle some speculation in your thought, until it grows
into a gigantic scheme of profit; an