er no sacrifice is
great enough; but in this age of mechanism, what career is left to a
chivalrous spirit like his? He then longs for the happiness of private
life in the company of so perfect a creature as Venetia; but he is still
so young, and Venetia, who loves him like a brother and a friend, can
not as yet understand the nature of another kind of love. He then leaves
for the university, with grief implanted at the bottom of his heart.
Disraeli then shows how, after three years, during which time his genius
had been smouldering as it were, it at last appeared in a splendor quite
unrivalled and unexampled, like a star equally strange and brilliant,
which scarcely has it become visible in the horizon, than it already
reaches its zenith. Not only is he distinguished by his writings, but by
a thousand other ways, which fill the heart and dazzle the eyes. Where
every thing is remarkable he is most noticed; and the most conspicuous
where all is brilliant. He is envied by men, praised and sought after by
women, admired by all. His life has become a perpetual triumph, a
splendid act, which is enthusiastically applauded, and in which he ever
plays the best and most heroic part. In the midst of this infatuation of
a whole nation, among those handsome and noble women who forget
themselves too much since they forget themselves entirely for the honor
of a look from him, why is he not happy? What is he craving for? What is
his occupation? Why, when envied by all, is he yet to be pitied? It is
that his life is still, and will ever be, the life of the heart which
finds no satisfaction to its desire in the midst of the world wherein it
is doomed to live.

On one occasion he finds himself at the house of the most fashionable
woman in London, of the great and beautiful person whose love for him is
greater than he would wish. Many people are assembled there; dinner is
about to be announced. No one but himself attracts attention or calls
for enthusiastic eulogies; yet he is sad, absent, wearied. By his proud,
handsome looks, his reserve, and his melancholy attitude, he might be
taken for an unearthly being, condemned, as a punishment, to visit our
terrestrial orb. All of a sudden his melancholy gives way to the
liveliest animation; his cheeks glow, and happiness beams in his
beautiful eyes. What has happened? Among the guests arriving he has
heard the servant call out the name of his old tutor at Cherbury, the
friend of all the friends