past existence
the dimness of unexpressed poetical sensation had clung and hovered. It
was this which had deadened his soul to the active world, and wrapped
him in the land of dreams; it was this which had induced that vague and
restless dissatisfaction with the Actual which had brought the thirst
for the Ideal; it was this which had made him fastidious in love,
repining in pleasure, magnificent in luxury, seeking and despising all
things in the same breath. There are many, perhaps, of this sort,
who, having the poet's nature, have never found the poet's vent to his
emotions; have wandered over the visionary world without chancing to
discover the magic wand that was stored within the dark chamber of their
mind, and would have reduced the visions into shape and substance. Alas!
what existence can be more unfulfilled than that of one who has the
soul of the poet and not the skill? who has the susceptibility and the
craving, not the consolation or the reward?

But if this cloud of dreamlike emotion had so long hung over Godolphin,
it began now to melt away from his heart; a clearer and distincter view
of the large objects of life lay before him; and he felt that he was
standing, half stunned and passive, in the great crisis of his fate.

The day was now fixed for their departure to Wendover, when Saville was
taken alarmingly ill; Godolphin was sent for, late one evening. He
found the soi-disant Epicurean at the point of death, but in perfect
possession of his senses. The scene around him was emblematic of his
life: save Godolphin, not a friend was by. Saville had some dozen or
two of natural children--where were they? He had abandoned them to their
fate: he knew not of their existence, nor they of his death. Lonely in
his selfishness was he left to breathe out the small soul of a man
of bon-ton! But I must do Saville the justice to say, that if he was
without the mourners and the attendants that belonged to natural ties,
he did not require them. His was no whimpering exit from life: the
champagne was drained to the last drop; and Death, like the true boon
companion, was about to shatter the empty glass.

"Well, my friend," said Saville, feebly, but pressing with weak fingers
Godolphin's hand--"well, the game is up, the lights are going out, and
presently the last guest will depart, and all be darkness!" here the
doctor came to the bedside with a cordial. The dying man, before he
took it, fixed upon the leech an eye whic