In his eyes a cloud and burthen lay;" a shadowy sorrow dropped its pall
of darkness over his mind and obscured his perception of all awakening,
quickening inspirations; a smouldering fire within him withered up every
vernal shoot of impulse and turned all the spring-time foliage of
thought and fancy sere. His voice, his look, his mien, betrayed that an
ever-living woe encompassed him with gloom.

Ronald fruitlessly strove to rouse him from this state of supine
despondency. The active employment, the all-engrossing interest which
would have medicined his unslumbering sorrow, were remedial agents
denied by his father's unwise decree. As a substitute, though of less
potency, Ronald strove to inspire him with his own strong love for
literature. The young American had a passion for books which were the
reflex of great minds. His quick hearkening to the voices breathing from
their pages, and made prophetic by some sudden experience; the ready
plummet with which he sounded their depths of reasoning; the sentient
hand with which he plucked out their truths and planted them in his own
rich memory, to grow like trees filled with singing-birds: these had
rendered his communings with master-spirits one of the noblest and most
strengthening influences of his life. What wonder, when literature was
so bounteously distributed over his native land that it made itself
vocal beneath every hedge,--enriched the humblest cottage with a
library,--found its way, in the inexpensive guise of magazines, a
welcome visitant at every fireside,--poured out its treasures at the
feet of rich and poor, liberally as the liberal sunshine, freely as the
free air?

Maurice, educated in a different atmosphere, at the same age as Ronald,
was a stranger to the companionship of written minds, save those to
which his college studies had formally presented him; and his dark
unrest rendered it difficult for him to follow his friend into the
teeming Golconda of literature, and to gather the gems spread to his
hands. And when, at last, Ronald's enthusiasm proved contagious and
kindled Maurice to seek out some great author's charm, it too often
chanced that he stumbled upon passages that irritated him, and increased
his moody discontent. We instance one of these occasions as illustrative
of many others.

Ronald, whose busy brush had been brought to a stand-still by an
unusually dark day, when he returned to his apartments, found his friend
reading Bulwer's "Caxton