Alone in his study sat Gottfried the scholar. The shelves which lined the apartment on every side groaned beneath the weight of bulky quartoes and ponderous folios. The accumulated learning of many ages and countries, flowing in diverse channels, had mingled into one stream, and, with its fertilizing current, contributed to enrich the mind of Gottfried. And these many volumes, couched in languages which to all but their owner were a sealed book, which many years’ assiduous labor and midnight vigils alone could unclose,—these were but the index of Gottfried’s attainments. Never in the palmiest days of chivalry had knight been more constant to his mistress than Gottfried to his books. Without these, life would have been to him a blank, and the world a desert. What to him were the companionship of friends, the charms of social intercourse? He recognized no friends but his books; and with them alone he held intercourse. He had cultivated his intellect to the neglect of his heart: beneath his fostering care, the former had swelled into the proportions of a giant; the latter, like an untilled garden, had been abandoned to the rank growth of weeds, which had already overshadowed it, and checked the growth of kind feelings and human affections. But of this defect Gottfried was not conscious; or, at least, he would not have acknowledged it to be such. With all his wisdom, he knew not the meaning of virtue; for he was perpetually confounding it with learning; so that with him the philosophy of life might be said to consist in these few words: “To be learned is to be virtuous.” Thus it was, that, in the pride of his attainments, he looked down upon other men as immeasurably his inferiors, and was even half convinced that they were of a different nature from himself. He aspired to become in the world of intellect what Alexander was in the physical world, and, like that monarch, sighed to think that there were no more worlds to conquer,—no more victories to be gained. Gottfried had just written the concluding paragraph of a treatise upon some abstruse subject, which possessed an interest only for scholars like himself. His pen dropped wearily from his fingers, and he passed his hand across his eyes. “Yes,” said he, musingly, and a smile lighted up his face, “at length it is finished, the labor of many years. But the reward is to come. My fame as a scholar, already great among men, will become greater still. Fame, bright goddess of my youthful dreams! how through weary years have I toiled for thee! How willingly have I resigned those objects on which other men set their affections! Wealth, pleasure, love,—I have sacrificed them all to this one engrossing pursuit. Who shall say that I have lived in vain?” Gottfried had labored for many hours without rest. He took down his scholar’s cap and cloak from the wall against which they were suspended, and attired himself for a walk.