remainder of my days
to rest, and the care of this shattered constitution." It is impossible
to convey to the reader the tender and affectionate compassion with
which Sir Horace seemed to address these last words to himself.

"Do you ever look upon yourself as the luckiest fellow in Europe,
Upton?" asked Glencore.

"No," sighed he; "I occasionally fancy I have been hardly dealt with by
fortune. I have only to throw my eyes around me, and see a score of men,
richer and more elevated than myself, not one of whom has capacity for
even a third-rate task, so that really the self-congratulation you speak
of has not occurred to me."

"But, after all, you have had a most successful career--"

"Look at the matter this way, Glencore; there are about six--say six men
in all Europe--who have a little more common sense than all the rest of
the world: I could tell you the names of five of them." If there was a
supreme boastfulness in the speech, the modest delivery of it completely
mystified the hearer, and he sat gazing with wonderment at the man
before him.

CHAPTER XLV. SOME SAD REVERIES

"Have you any plans, Glencore?" asked Upton, as they posted along
towards Dover.

"None," was the brief reply.

"Nor any destination you desire to reach?"

"Just as little."

"Such a state as yours, then, I take it, is about the best thing
going in life. Every move one makes is attended with so many adverse
considerations,--every goal so separated from us by unforeseen
difficulties,--that an existence, even without what is called an object,
has certain great advantages."

"I am curious to hear them," said the other, half cynically.

"For myself," said Upton, not accepting the challenge, "the brief
intervals of comparative happiness I have enjoyed have been in periods
when complete repose, almost torpor, has surrounded me, and when the
mere existence of the day has engaged my thoughts."

"What became of memory all this while?"

"Memory!" said Upton, laughing, "I hold my memory in proper subjection.
It no more dares obtrude upon me uncalled for than would my valet come
into my room till I ring for him. Of the slavery men endure from their
own faculties I have no experience."

"And, of course, no sympathy for them."

"I will not say that I cannot compassionate sufferings, though I have
not felt them."

"Are you quite sure of that?" asked Glencore, almost sternly; "is not
your very pity a kind of contemptuous sentiment towa