whose soul is filled with you--a woman in whom your eloquence has awakened, amidst frivolous and vain circles, the sense of a new existence--a woman who would make you, yourself, the embodied ideal of your own thoughts and dreams, and who would ask from earth no other lot than that of following you on the road of fame with the eyes of her heart. Mistake me not; I repeat that I have never seen you, nor do I wish it; you might be other than I imagine, and I should lose an idol, and be left without a worship. I am a kind of visionary Rosicrucian: it is a spirit that I adore, and not a being like myself. You imagine, perhaps, that I have some purpose to serve in this--I have no object in administering to your vanity; and if I judge you rightly, this letter is one that might make you vain without a blush. Oh, the admiration that does not spring from holy and profound sources of emotion--how it saddens us or disgusts! I have had my share of vulgar homage, and it only makes me feel doubly alone. I am richer than you are--I have youth--I have what they call beauty. And neither riches, youth, nor beauty ever gave me the silent and deep happiness I experience when I think of you. This is a worship that might, I repeat, well make even you vain. Think of these words, I implore you. Be worthy, not of my thoughts, but of the shape in which they represent you: and every ray of glory that surrounds you will brighten my own way, and inspire me with a kindred emulation. Farewell.--I may write to you again, but you will never discover me; and in life I pray that we may never meet!" CHAPTER V. "Our list of nobles next let Amri grace." /Absalom and Achitophel. "Sine me vacivum tempus ne quod dem mihi Laboris."*--TER. * Suffer me to employ my spare time in some kind of labour. "I CAN'T think," said one of a group of young men, loitering by the steps of a clubhouse in St. James's Street--"I can't think what has chanced to Maltravers. Do you observe (as he walks--there--the other side of the way) how much he is altered? He stoops like an old man, and hardly ever lifts his eyes from the ground. He certainly seems sick and sad." "Writing books, I suppose." "Or privately married." "Or growing too rich--rich men are always unhappy beings." "Ha, Ferrers, how are you?" "So-so. What's the news?" replied Lumley. "Rattler pays forfeit." "O! but in politics?" "Hang politics--are you turned politician?" "At my age, what else is there left to do?" "I thought so, by your hat; all politicians sport odd-looking hats: it is very remarkable, but that is the great symptom of the disease." "My hat!--/is/ it odd?" said Ferrers, taking off the commodity in question, and seriously regarding it. "Why, who ever saw such a brim?" "Glad you think so." "Why, Ferrers?"