We drew near to each other, and as my arm wound around him, I said, “Aubrey, your love has been to me a more precious gift than any who have not, like me, thirsted and longed even for the love of a dog, can conceive. Never let me lose that affection! And do not think of me hereafter as of one whose heart echoed all that his lip uttered. Do not believe that irony, and sarcasm, and bitterness of tongue flowed from a malignant or evil source. That disposition which seems to you alternately so light and gloomy had, perhaps, its origin in a mind too intense in its affections, and too exacting in having them returned. Till you sought my friendship, three short years ago, none but my uncle, with whom I could have nothing in common but attachment, seemed to care for my very existence. I blame them not; they were deceived in my nature: but blame _me_ not too severely if my temper suffered from their mistake. Your friendship came to me, not too late to save me from a premature misanthropy, but too late to eradicate every morbidity of mind. Something of sternness on the one hand, and of satire on the other, has mingled so long with my better feelings that the taint and the stream have become inseparable. Do not sigh, Aubrey. To be unamiable is not to be ungrateful; and I shall not love you the less if I have but a few objects to love. You ask me my inducement to leave you. ‘The World’ will be sufficient answer. I cannot share your contempt of it, nor your fear. I am, and have been of late, consumed with a thirst,--eager, and burning, and unquenchable: it is ambition!” “Oh, Morton!” said Aubrey, with a second sigh, longer and deeper than the first, “that evil passion! the passion which lost an angel heaven.” “Let us not now dispute, my brother, whether it be sinful in itself, or whether, if its object be virtuous, it is not a virtue. In baring my soul before you, I only speak of my motives, and seek not to excuse them. Perhaps on this earth there is no good without a little evil. When my mind was once turned to the acquisition of mental superiority, every petty acquisition I made increased my desire to attain more, and partial emulation soon widened into universal ambition. We three, Gerald and ourselves, are the keepers of a treasure more valuable than gold,--the treasure of a not ignoble nor sullied name. For my part, I confess that I am impatient to increase the store of honour which our father bequeathed to us. Nor is this all: despite our birth, we are poor in the gifts of fortune. We are all dependants on my uncle’s favour; and, however we may deserve it, there would be something better in earning an independence for ourselves.” “That,” said Aubrey, “may be an argument for mine and Gerald’s exertions; but not for yours. You are the eldest, and my uncle’s favourite. Nature and affection both point to you as his heir.”