“Nay,” said the Earl, “I spoke wantonly, and stand corrected. I have no reason to complain of the course I have chosen. Ambition, like any other passion, gives us unhappy moments; but it gives us also an animated life. In its pursuit, the minor evils of the world are not felt; little crosses, little vexations do not disturb us. Like men who walk in sleep, we are absorbed in one powerful dream, and do not even know the obstacles in our way, or the dangers that surround us: in a word, we have no private life. All that is merely domestic, the anxiety and the loss which fret other men, which blight the happiness of other men, are not felt by us: we are wholly public;--so that if we lose much comfort, we escape much care.” The Earl broke off for a moment; and then turning the subject, inquired after the Lesters, and making some general and vague observations about that family, came purposely to a pause. Aram broke it:--“My Lord,” said he, with a slight, but not ungraceful, embarrassment, “I fear that, in the course of your political life, you must have made one observation, that he who promises to-day, will be called upon to perform to-morrow. No man who has any thing to bestow, can ever promise with impunity. Some time since, you tendered me offers that would have dazzled more ardent natures than mine; and which I might have advanced some claim to philosophy in refusing. I do not now come to ask a renewal of those offers. Public life, and the haunts of men, are as hateful as ever to my pursuits: but I come, frankly and candidly, to throw myself on that generosity, which proffered to me then so large a bounty. Certain circumstances have taken from me the small pittance which supplied my wants;--I require only the power to pursue my quiet and obscure career of study--your Lordship can afford me that power: it is not against custom for the Government to grant some small annuity to men of letters--your Lordship’s interest could obtain for me this favour. Let me add, however, that I can offer nothing in return! Party politics--Sectarian interests--are for ever dead to me: even my common studies are of small general utility to mankind--I am conscious of this--would it were otherwise!--Once I hoped it would be--but--” Aram here turned deadly pale, gasped for breath, mastered his emotion, and proceeded--“I have no great claim, then, to this bounty, beyond that which all poor cultivators of the abstruse sciences can advance. It is well for a country that those sciences should be cultivated; they are not of a nature which is ever lucrative to the possessor--not of a nature that can often be left, like lighter literature, to the fair favour of the public--they call, perhaps, more than any species of intellectual culture, for the protection of a government; and though in me would be a poor selection, the principle would still be served, and the example furnish precedent for nobler instances hereafter. I have said all, my Lord!”