becoming an astronomer had visited him
from time to time; but the paralysis of wealth had deterred him while he
was yet ostensible master of his own fate, and now the same inherent
weakness of character which had made him a slave to wealth, made him a
slave to poverty, and he regarded whatever latent ambition he had ever
cherished as a dead issue. His mind sometimes recurred to those
neglected promptings of happier days, as he went forth under the stars
after hours, and cleared his brain by a walk in the pure night air. It
was his habit to make for the hills outside the camp, and his solitary
wanderings were much cheered by the light of those heavenly lamps. At
this high altitude they had a peculiar brilliance that seemed to give
them a nearer, more urgent significance than elsewhere. He felt that it
was inconsistent in him to look at the stars and to inquire into the law
of averages. It would be more in character, he told himself,--that is,
more in the character he aspired to--if he were to embrace the
exceptional advantages Lame Gulch offered for doing something
disreputable. Yet the stars shone down, undaunted and serene, upon the
squalid camp, and into the bewildered soul of Dabney Dirke, so
fantastically pledged to do violence to its own nature. Sometimes they
twinkled shrewdly, comprehendingly; sometimes they glowed with a steady
splendor that seemed to dominate the world. There were nights when the
separate stars were blended, to his apprehension, in one great symphony
of meaning; again certain ones stood out among the others, individual
and apart. There was Jupiter up there. He did not look as if he were
revolving with lightning speed about the sun, and the moons revolving
about him were not even visible. That was the kind of roulette wheel a
man might really take an interest in! And while he dallied with the
stars and with those higher promptings which their radiance symbolized,
he yet clung persistently to the purely artificial bonds he had put upon
himself.

Poor Dabney Dirke! If he had possessed the saving grace of humor he
could not have dedicated the golden years of youth to anything so
hopelessly chimerical and absurd. He would have perceived that he was
enacting the part of an inverted Don Quixote; a character grotesque
enough when planted on its own erratic legs, but hopelessly ridiculous
when made to stand on its head and defy its windmills up-side-down. As
it was, he continued to take himself serious