Oh, what would he have given for his liberty then! All his aspirations for glory and renown, all his hopes of winning praise and advancement, all the dreams of young ambition, all the bright imaginations of love, rose up before him as memories of the dead. Those prison walls were their cold sepulchre, that solitary chamber the tomb of all the energies within him. He had well nigh become frantic with disappointment; but he struggled successfully with the despair of his own thoughts, as every man of a really powerful mind will do. No one can obtain full mastery of the minds of others, without having full mastery of his own. He would not suffer his fancy to dwell upon sad things; he strove to create for himself objects of interest; and from the arched window he made himself acquainted as a friend with every object in the wide-spread scene beneath his eyes. Every church spire, every castle tower, every belt of wood, every stream and every road, every hamlet and every house, for miles around, were described and marked as if he had been mapping the country in his own mind. But it was only that he was seeking for objects of interest; and he found them; and variety too, he found; for every hour and every season brought its change. The varying shadows as day rose or declined; the different hues of summer and of winter, of autumn and of spring; the changeful aspect of the April day; the frowning sublimity of the thunder storm; the cold, stern, desolate gloom of the wintry air, all gave food to nourish fancy with, and from which he extracted thought and occupation. He had withal, one grand support and consolation: the best after the voice of religion, a conscience clear of offence. He could look back upon the past and say, I have done well. There was no reproach within him for opportunities missed, advantages wasted, or ill deeds done; and often and often, he thought of the first song that poor Ella Brune had sung him, and of that stanza in which she said, "In hours of pain and grief, If such thou must endure, Thy breast shall know relief In honour tried and pure; For the true heart and kind, Its recompence shall find; Shall win praise, And golden days, And live in many a tale."