skilful chess-player, and from thence stretched onwards
to his future, in which he lived, like all men of dominant ambition, far
more than he lived in his present. It was a future brilliant, secure,
brightening in its lustre, and strengthening in its power, with each
successive year; a future which was not to him as to most wrapped in a
chiaroscuro, with but points of luminance gleaming through the mist, but
in whose cold glimmering light he seemed to see clear and distinct, as
we see each object of the far-off landscape stand out in the air of a
winter's noon, every thread that he should gather up, every distant
point to which he should pass onward; a future singular and
characteristic, in which state-power was the single ambition marked out,
from which the love of women was banished, in which pleasure and wealth
were as little regarded as in Lacedaemon, in which age would be courted,
not dreaded, since with it alone would come added dominion over the
minds of men, and in which, as it stretched out before him, failure and
alteration were alike impossible. What, if he lived, could destroy a
future that would be solely dependent on, solely ruled by, himself? By
his own hand alone would his future be fashioned; would he hew out any
shape save the idol that pleased him? When we hold the chisel ourselves,
are we not secure to have no error in the work? Is it likely that our
hand will slip, that the marble we select will be dark-veined, and
brittle, and impure, that the blows of the mallet will shiver our
handiwork, and that when we plan a Milo--god of strength--we shall but
mould and sculpture out a Laocooen of torture? Scarcely; and Strathmore
held the chisel, and, certain of his own skill, was as sure of what he
should make of life as Benvenuto, when he bade the molten metal pour
into the shape that he, master-craftsman, had fashioned, and gave to the
sight of the world the Winged Perseus. But Strathmore did not remember
what Cellini did--that one flaw might mar the whole!

* * *

In the little _millefleurs_-scented billet lay, unknown to its writer as
to him, the turning-point of his life! God help us! what avail are
experience, prescience, prudence, wisdom, in this world, when at every
chance step the silliest trifle, the most commonplace meeting, an
invitation to dinner, a turn down the wrong street, the dropping of a
glove, the delay of a train, the introduction to an unnoticed stranger,
will flin