Then he hurried from face to face, exhausting one empty pleasure after another, until at last, after a year of idle dissipation, ambition obtained the upper hand, and intellect asserted its claims. He would, as he said, try philosophy for a time, and returned to Germany. Another life now began. "Quick! You must do something,--accomplish something," he said to himself. "But how? of what nature?" In the whirl of empty pleasures he had become too superficial and frivolous to recommence his neglected scientific studies with the redoubled industry which, after so long an interruption, they required; he could no longer adopt any regular profession. By means of his great ability, favored by his position, he did and learned what and where he pleased. As he began too much at the same time, he acquired nothing thoroughly, and obtained that so-called cosmopolitan education which dabbles in all colors, is skilled in all branches, whose variety often excites admiration, but cannot be of any practical value. For five years he visited universities, heard lectures from the most distinguished professors, and passed in review the various sciences. None satisfied him, for none aided him to reach the goal of his ambition with sufficient rapidity. At last the years of his early youth passed away, and he had as yet obtained nothing. Insignificant fellow-students went out into the world to enter upon the honorable career of government service, while he did not even know to what branch it would be best to devote himself in order to become a man of mark. He wrote several semi-scientific, semi-poetical works. The critics acknowledged their merit, but they were not read. The scientific portion was too commonplace for learned men, the poetry too dry for ordinary people; for, in spite of his genius, _Heinrich_ was no poet. His nature lacked that which alone can carry away the masses, and which no thought can supply,--heart impulse; and he did not succeed in becoming popular. An earnest, uninterrupted course of study would, in a very short time, have made him competent to enter upon some settled career; but too frequently _Heinrich's_ assiduous industry yielded to _Henri's_ pursuit of pleasure, and the wearied frame threatened to give way under this constant change from one extreme to the other. When he had at last exhausted all the intellectual and material treasures of his native land without the slightest profit to himself, some secret power again drove him forth to seek in a foreign country the happiness he could not find at home. He went to Italy. III. FROM FALSEHOOD TO FALSEHOOD.