rally
repeated, but in a previous letter more precisely detailed; namely, to
appeal to the reading public in his acknowledged person, and by some
striking and original work. This idea he had often contemplated and
revolved; but partly the necessity of keeping pace with the many
exigencies of the hour had deterred him, and partly also the conviction
of his sober judgment that a man does himself no good at the Bar even by
the most brilliant distinction gained in discursive fields. He had the
natural yearning of the Restless Genius; and the Patient Genius (higher
power of the two) had suppressed the longing. Still, so far, the
whispers of his correspondent tempted and aroused. But hitherto he had
sought to persuade himself that the communications thus strangely forced
on him arose perhaps from idle motives,--a jest, it might be, of one
of his old college friends, or at best the vain enthusiasm of some more
credulous admirer. But the enclosure now sent to him forbade either of
these suppositions. Who that he knew could afford so costly a jest or
so extravagant a tribute? He was perplexed, and with his perplexity
was mixed a kind of fear. Plain, earnest, unromantic in the common
acceptation of the word, the mystery of this intermeddling with his
fate, this arrogation of the license to spy, the right to counsel, and
the privilege to bestow, gave him the uneasiness the bravest men may
feel at noises in the dark. That day he could apply no more, he could
not settle back to his Law Reports. He took two or three unquiet
turns up and down his smoke-dried cell, then locked up the letter and
enclosure, seized his hat, and strode, with his usual lusty, swinging
strides, into the open air.

But still the letter haunted him. "And if," he said almost audibly,--"if
I were the heir to some higher station, why then I might have a heart
like idle men; and Helen, beloved Helen--" He paused, sighed, shook his
rough head, shaggy with neglected curls, and added: "As if even then
I could steal myself into a girl's good graces! Man's esteem I may
command, though poor; woman's love could I win, though rich? Pooh! pooh!
every wood does not make a Mercury; and faith, the wood I am made of
will scarcely cut up into a lover."

Nevertheless, though thus soliloquizing, Ardworth mechanically bent his
way towards Brompton, and halted, half-ashamed of himself, at the house
where Helen lodged with her aunt. It was a building that stood apart
from all the