nks from our veins; there is no bound in our
step. We look about us with dimmed eyes, and our breath grows short and
thick, and pains and coughs, and shooting aches come upon us at night;
it is a bitter life--a bitter life--a joyless life. I would I had never
commenced it. And yet the harsh world scowls upon us: our nerves are
broken, and they wonder we are querulous; our blood curdles, and they
ask why we are not gay; our brain grows dizzy and indistinct, (as
with me just now,) and, shrugging their shoulders, they whisper their
neighbours that we are mad. I wish I had worked at the plough, and known
sleep, and loved mirth--and--and not been what I am."

As the Student uttered the last sentence, he bowed down his head, and a
few tears stole silently down his cheek. Walter was greatly affected--it
took him by surprise; nothing in Aram's ordinary demeanour betrayed any
facility to emotion; and he conveyed to all the idea of a man, if not
proud, at least cold.

"You do not suffer bodily pain, I trust?" asked Walter, soothingly.

"Pain does not conquer me," said Aram, slowly recovering himself. "I
am not melted by that which I would fain despise. Young man, I wronged
you--you have forgiven me. Well, well, we will say no more on that head;
it is past and pardoned. Your father has been kind to me, and I have
not returned his advances; you shall tell him why. I have lived thirteen
years by myself, and I have contracted strange ways and many humours
not common to the world--you have seen an example of this. Judge for
yourself if I be fit for the smoothness, and confidence, and ease
of social intercourse; I am not fit, I feel it! I am doomed to be
alone--tell your father this--tell him to suffer me to live so! I am
grateful for his goodness--I know his motives--but have a certain pride
of mind; I cannot bear sufferance--I loath indulgence. Nay, interrupt me
not, I beseech you. Look round on Nature--behold the only company
that humbles me not--except the dead whose souls speak to us from the
immortality of books. These herbs at your feet, I know their secrets--I
watch the mechanism of their life; the winds--they have taught me their
language; the stars--I have unravelled their mysteries; and these, the
creatures and ministers of God--these I offend not by my mood--to them
I utter my thoughts, and break forth into my dreams, without reserve and
without fear. But men disturb me--I have nothing to learn from them--I
have no wish t