"Ah!" said he, more gently than usual, "I am glad to see you--and to apologise--I offended you the other day. But you would not get very gracious answers from souls in purgatory, if you talked to them of the happiness of heaven. Never speak to me about homes and fathers! Enough, I see you forgive me. Why are you not going to the opera? _You_ can!" "And you too, if you so please. A ticket is shamefully dear, to be sure; still, if you are fond of music, it is a luxury you can afford." "Oh, you flatter me if you fancy the prudence of saving withholds me! I did go the other night, but I shall not go again. Music!--when you go to the opera, is it for the music?" "Only partially, I own: the lights, the scene, the pageant, attract me quite as much. But I do not think the opera a very profitable pleasure for either of us. For rich idle people, I dare say, it may be as innocent an amusement as any other, but I find it a sad enervator." "And I just the reverse--a horrible, stimulant! Caxton, do you know that, ungracious as it will sound to you, I am growing impatient of this 'honourable independence!' What does it lead to?--board, clothes, and lodging,--can it ever bring me any thing more?" "At first, Vivian, you limited your aspirations to kid gloves and a cabriolet--it has brought you the kid gloves already, by-and-by it will bring the cabriolet!" "Our wishes grow by what they feed on. You live in the great world--you can have excitement if you please it--I want excitement, I want the world, I want room for my mind, man! Do you understand me?" "Perfectly--and sympathise with you, my poor Vivian; but it will all come. Patience! as I preached to you while dawn rose so comfortless over the streets of London. You are not losing time--fill your mind, read, study, fit yourself for ambition. Why wish to fly till you have got your wings? Live in books now: after all, they are splendid palaces, and open to us all, rich and poor." "Books, books!--ah, you are the son of a bookman! It is not by books that men get on in the world, and enjoy life in the meanwhile." "I don't know that; but, my good fellow, you want to do both--get on in the world as fast as labour can, and enjoy life as pleasantly as indolence may. You want to live like the butterfly, and yet have all the honey of the bee; and, what is the very deuce of the whole, even as the butterfly, you ask every flower to grow up in a moment; and as a bee, the whole hive must be stored in a quarter of an hour! Patience, patience, patience!" Vivian sighed a fierce sigh. "I suppose," said he, after an unquiet pause, "that the vagrant and the outlaw are strong in me; for I long to run back to my old existence, which was all action, and therefore allowed no thought."