and while meditating what future steps I
should take in life.

That same afternoon I saw myself announced at the porter's window of
a very shabby-looking house in the Rue de la Forge as "Monsieur de
Corneille,"--the "de" being advised by my predecessor,--"Quatorzieme
pret a toute heure," and thus opened my professional career. I was told
that it was all important in my vocation that I should not be seen much
abroad in the world. There should be a certain mysteriousness about me,
when I appeared at a dinner-table, that might permit the host to speak
of me--to strangers--as his old friend the Baron de So-and-so, who
rarely ventured out even to dine with him. In fact, I should be as
guarded against publicity as though I were a royal personage. This
was not a hard condition at the time, since I was desirous of escaping
notice. I passed all my mornings, therefore, in writing--sometimes
memorials to a minister, sometimes statements for the press; now, they
were letters to the banker at Guajuaqualla, or to Don Estaban, or to
the great firm at the Havannah. The cost of postage deterred me from
despatching most of them, but I continued to write them, as though to
feed the cravings of my hope. When evening drew nigh, I abandoned the
desk for the toilet; and having arrayed myself in most austere black,
waited for the summons which should invite me to some unknown feast.
I have often perused records of the early struggles of a professional
life,--the nervous vacillations between hope and fear which haunt him
who watches day after day, for some time, that he is not forgotten
of the world; the fretful jealousies of the fortunate rival; the sad
depression over his own failures; the eager watching lest the footfall
on the stairs stop not at his door, and the wearisome sinking of the
heart as the sounds die away in the distance, and leave him to the
silence of his own despair. If I had not to feel the corroding regrets
of him who has toiled long and ardently for the attainment of a
knowledge that now lies in rust, unused, unasked for, unwanted, I had
to learn what are his tortures who waits till the world call him.

There I sat in all my "bravery." What a contrast between my sleek
exterior and the half-famished creature within! Sometimes my impatience
would break out into a fit of passion, in which I railed at the old
knave who had entrapped me, at fortune that deserted me, at myself, who
had grown indolent, and void of enterprise. So