profound and exultant satisfaction with which a man who
knows that he has not lived in vain--that he has entailed on the
world an heirloom of instruction or delight--looks back upon departed
struggles, is one of the happiest emotions of which the conscience can
be capable. What, indeed, are the petty faults we commit as individuals,
affecting but a narrow circle, ceasing with our own lives, to the
incalculable and everlasting good we may produce as public men by one
book or by one law? Depend upon it that the Almighty, who sums up all
the good and all the evil done by His creatures in a just balance, will
not judge the august benefactors of the world with the same severity
as those drones of society, who have no great services to show in the
eternal ledger, as a set-off to the indulgence of their small vices.
These things rightly considered, Maltravers, you will have every
inducement that can tempt a lofty mind and a pure ambition to awaken
from the voluptuous indolence of the literary Sybarite, and contend
worthily in the world's wide Altis for a great prize."

Maltravers never before felt so flattered--so stirred into high
resolves. The stately eloquence, the fervid encouragement of this man,
usually so cold and fastidious, roused him like the sound of a trumpet.
He stopped short, his breath heaved thick, his cheek flushed. "De
Montaigne," said he, "your words have cleared away a thousand doubts
and scruples--they have gone right to my heart. For the first time I
understand what fame is--what the object, and what the reward of labour!
Visions, hopes, aspirations I may have had before--for months a new
spirit has been fluttering within me. I have felt the wings breaking
from the shell, but all was confused, dim, uncertain. I doubted the
wisdom of effort, with life so short, and the pleasures of youth so
sweet. I now look no longer on life but as a part of the eternity to
which I _feel_ we were born; and I recognise the solemn truth that our
objects, to be worthy life, should be worthy of creatures in whom the
living principle never is extinct. Farewell! come joy or sorrow, failure
or success, I will struggle to deserve your friendship."

Maltravers sprang into his boat, and the shades of night soon snatched
him from the lingering gaze of De Montaigne.

BOOK IV.

"Strange is the land that holds thee,--and thy couch
is widow'd of the loved one."
EURIP. _Med._ 442
Translation by R. G.

CHAPTER