f life, but manner, which he assumed, gained a
pretty large belief to the statement. This son Brandon idolized. As
we have represented himself to say, ambitious men are commonly fond
of their children, beyond the fondness of other sires. The perpetual
reference which the ambitious make to posterity is perhaps the
main reason. But Brandon was also fond of children generally;
philoprogenitiveness was a marked trait in his character, and would seem
to belie the hardness and artifice belonging to that character, were not
the same love so frequently noticeable in the harsh and the artificial.
It seems as if a half-conscious but pleasing feeling that they too were
once gentle and innocent, makes them delight in reviving any sympathy
with their early state.

Often after the applause and labour of the day, Brandon would repair
to his son's chamber and watch his slumber for hours; often before his
morning toil commenced, he would nurse the infant in his arms with all
a woman's natural tenderness and gushing joy; and often, as a graver
and more characteristic sentiment stole over him, he would mentally say,
"You shall build up our broken name on a better foundation than your
sire. I begin too late in life, and I labour up a painful and stony
road; but I shall make the journey to Fame smooth and accessible for
you. Never, too, while you aspire to honour, shall you steel your heart
to tranquillity. For you, my child, shall be the joys of home and love,
and a mind that does not sicken at the past, and strain, through mere
forgetfulness, towards a solitary and barren distinction for the future.
Not only what your father gains you shall enjoy, but what has cursed him
his vigilance shall lead you to shun!"

It was thus not only that his softer feelings, but all the better and
nobler ones, which even in the worst and hardest bosom find some root,
turned towards his child, and that the hollow and vicious man promised
to become the affectionate and perhaps the wise parent.

One night Brandon was returning home on foot from a ministerial dinner.
The night was frosty and clear, the hour was late, and his way lay
through the longest and best-lighted streets of the metropolis. He
was, as usual, buried in thought, when he was suddenly aroused from his
revery by a light touch laid on his arm. He turned, and saw one of the
unhappy persons who haunt the midnight streets of cities, standing right
before his path. The gaze of each fell upon the o