Had these words been actually addressed to me by a living individual, I could not have heard them more plainly than now they fell upon my ear, uttered, besides, in a tone of cutting, sarcastic derision. “I will stand this no longer!” cried I, springing up from my seat and flinging my cigar angrily away. “I 'm certain no man ever accomplished any high and great destiny in life who suffered himself to be bullied in this wise; such irritating, pestering impertinence would destroy the temper of a saint, and break down the courage and damp the ardor of the boldest. Could great measures of statecraft be carried out--could battles be won--could new continents be discovered, if at every strait and every emergency one was to be interrupted by a low voice, whispering, 'Is this _all_ right? Are there no flaws here? You live in a world of frailties, Potts. You are playing at a round game, where every one cheats a little, and where the Drogueries are never remembered against him who wins. Bear that in your mind, and keep your cards “up.”'” When I was about to take my ticket, a dictum of the great moralist struck my mind: “Desultory reading has slain its thousands and tens of thousands;” and if desultory reading, why not infinitely more so desultory acquaintance? Surely, our readings do not impress us as powerfully as the actual intercourse of life. It must be so. It is in this daily conflict with our fellow-men that we are moulded and fashioned; and the danger is, to commingle and confuse the impressions made upon our hearts, to cross the writing on our natures so often that nothing remains legible! “I will guard against this peril,” thought I. “I will concentrate my intentions and travel alone.” I slipped a crown into a guard's hand, and whispered, “Put no one in here if you can help it” As I jogged along, all by myself, I could not help feeling that one of the highest privileges of wealth must be to be able always to buy solitude,--to be in a position to say, “None shall invade me. The world must contrive to go round without a kick from _me_. I am a self-contained and self-suffering creature.” If I were Rothschild, I 'd revel in this sentiment; it places one so immeasurably above that busy ant-hill where one sees the creatures hurrying, hastening, and fagging “till their hearts are broken.” One feels himself a superior intelligence,--a being above the wants and cares of the work-a-day world around him. “Any room here?” cried a merry voice, breaking in upon my musing; and at the same instant a young fellow, in a gray travelling-suit and a wideawake, flung a dressing-bag and a wrapper carelessly into the carriage, and so recklessly as to come tumbling over me. He never thought of apology, however, but continued his remarks to the guard, who was evidently endeavoring to induce him to take a place elsewhere. “No, no!” cried the young man; “I'm all right here, and the cove with the yellow hair won't object to my smoking.”