re, the keener
perhaps because he knew that all doors were open to him and that he was
one of the great lions, not of those for whom the stranger must search
"Who's Who" upon his return from a function where half the guests had
made their little mark. He saw the lofty towers with their delicate
tracery, cutting the smoke on the banks of the Thames, the little room
below where he had made men, old and bored and suspicious, listen to
him; the more confident in his power to command their attention because
he knew that they had read and discussed, agreed with and denounced, his
sound contributions to colonial literature. The scene dissolved into a
wave of homesickness that made him choke and spring to his feet. Then he
swore at himself and returned to his codes.

When Judge Leslie learned that Hiram Otis's law library had been moved
out to Lumalitas he suggested that Gwynne should read at home until he
had mastered the laws governing the State of California, and the student
was far better satisfied out there in the quiet and the fresh air of his
veranda. When a point needed expounding, a horseback ride into Rosewater
was not an unwelcome diversion. His will had triumphed in its first bout
with memory, so subtly liberated by the written word, and before three
days of close study had passed he had the sensation of having found a
new and individual patch upon which squarely to plant his feet. The
future seemed more definite, more assured; moreover, his avid brain, its
energies too long in abeyance, settled upon the new and absorbing
study--it was eight years since he had opened a law-book, although he
had forgotten little he had read at that plastic time--like a swarm of
locusts. He recalled that a clever woman had once said in his hearing
that whenever she felt blasee she took up a new language, and at once
felt young and eager again. The remark had passed him by at the time,
but he recalled it as he devoured and stored away the statutes that in
many ways differentiated California from the other States of the Union.
The mere fact that his was not the order of brain that took kindly to
monotonous application, but inspired him with the more ardent desire to
conquer; the sense of being on any sort of a battle-field again gave a
color to life. He realized that in six months more of inaction he should
have fallen into a constant and morbid habit of self-analysis, and
although his soul-sickness could not be healed in a moment, the s