ossessor of millions; unfortunately for the Abbe's
reputation, much of the latter being the wages of corruption.[C]

Chateaubriand speaks feelingly of the sufferings he and his companion
underwent in London, about the same period. Lodged in a dismal garret,
they were at one time obliged to economize their food almost as closely
as the inhabitants of a beleaguered town. He speaks of walking the
streets for hours together, utterly uncertain what to do, passing
stately houses and groups of blooming English children, and then
returning late at night to his attic, where his companion, 'trembling
with cold,' would rise from his ill-clad bed to open the door for him.
He strikingly contrasts his position then with his approach to London
twenty years later, as ambassador from France, driving in
coach-and-four through towns whose authorities came out to welcome him
in the usual pompous manner, and, while in London, giving magnificent
balls in one of the stately houses, and perhaps numbering among his
guests some of the blooming children he had once passed, now expanded
into full-blown and gorgeous flowers of aristocracy. These are, of
course, uncommon instances; but they teach that the most brilliant
present may have had the darkest past; that there is always ground for
hope, and that the caprices of fortune, if we take no higher view of
them, are mysterious enough.

The man who has been overtaken by reverses, need not look far abroad to
see that a system of compensation is pretty generally dealt out in this
life. Set him adrift in the world, with scarcely a dollar; let him walk,
almost a beggar, through the same streets he once trod, a man of wealth,
and it would be idle to assert that he will not be almost overwhelmed by
the force of bitter recollections. In proportion as other days were
happy, will these be miserable. As Dante has truly said, the memory of
former joys, so far from affording relief to the wretched, serves only
to embitter the present, as they feel that these joys have forever
passed away. But unless his lot be one of unusual calamity, as time
blunts the keenest edge of sorrow, he must be devoid of both philosophy
and religion, if he does not feel that life with a mere competence still
has many joys. It is unquestionably true that one's style of living has
not much to do with the sum of his happiness, though this is said with
no disposition to undervalue even the luxuries of life. So far from the
finest houses