at last into egotism clear and unalloyed.
Nevertheless, it is a strange truth that, to a man of cultivated mind,
however perverted and vicious, there are vouchsafed gleams of brighter
sentiments, irregular perceptions of moral beauty, denied to the brutal
unreasoning wickedness of uneducated villany--which, perhaps ultimately
serve as his punishment--according to the old thought of the satirist,
that there is no greater curse than to perceive virtue, yet adopt
vice. And as the solitary schemer walked slowly on, and his
childhood--innocent at least of deed--came distinct before him through
the halo of bygone dreams--dreams far purer than those from which he now
rose each morning to the active world of man--a profound melancholy
crept over him, and suddenly he exclaimed aloud, "_Then_ I aspired to be
renowned and great--_now_, how is it that, so advanced in my career, all
that seemed lofty in the means has vanished from me, and the only means
that I contemplate are those which my childhood would have called poor
and vile? Ah! is it that I then read but books, and now my knowledge has
passed onward, and men contaminate more than books? But," he continued
in a lower voice, as if arguing with himself, "if power is only so to be
won--and of what use is knowledge if it be not power--does not success
in life justify all things? And who prizes the wise man if he fails?" He
continued his way, but still the soft tranquillity around rebuked him,
and still his reason was dissatisfied, as well as his conscience. There
are times when Nature, like a bath of youth, seems to restore to the
jaded soul its freshness--times from which some men have emerged, as if
reborn. The crises of life are very silent. Suddenly the scene opened on
Randal Leslie's eyes. The bare desert common--the dilapidated
church--the old house, partially seen in the dank dreary hollow, into
which it seemed to Randal to have sunken deeper and lowlier than when he
saw it last. And on the common were some young men playing at hockey.
That old-fashioned game, now very uncommon in England, except at
schools, was still preserved in the primitive simplicity of Rood by the
young yeomen and farmers. Randal stood by the stile and looked on, for
among the players he recognized his brother Oliver. Presently the ball
was struck towards Oliver, and the group instantly gathered round that
young gentleman, and snatched him from Randal's eye; but the elder
brother heard a displeasing d