At that time the church, of St. Martin-in-the-Fields was buried in a mass of dingy buildings, which, clustering up about it on all sides, blotted it out from the sun. These buildings were intersected by numerous dark courts and passages, and in one of them there was a retired tavern frequented by a few persons, mostly of an intellectual caste--artists, musicians, authors; men of high aspirations, but whom fortune never seemed weary of persecuting, and who met here of an evening to compare notes, and vent their complaints against the world. This was exactly the sort of company that fell in with my tastes. It was a satisfaction to me to herd with disappointed men, and hear them rail at the prosperity which refused to crown their merits. Their failures in life had given a peculiar turn to their minds, and tinged their conversation with a spirit of fatalism. They were one and all clearly convinced that it was in vain to struggle against destiny--that no genius, however original or lofty, could secure its legitimate rewards by legitimate means--and that, in short, the only individuals really deserving of success were those who, by a perverse dispensation of laurels, never could attain it. This view of the wrongs and injustice they suffered from society stirred up much pride and bitterness among them, and led them into many abstract disquisitions, which were rendered attractive to me, no less by the nature of the topics they selected, than by the piquancy and boldness with which they dissected them. The most remarkable person in this little knot was a young man of the name of Forrester. Like myself, he was of no profession, and appeared to be drawn into the circle by much the same motives. He was tall and pale, and generally reserved in speech; but subject to singular fluctuations--sometimes all sunshine, breaking out into fits of wild enthusiasm, and sometimes overwhelmed with despondency. These vicissitudes of mood and temperament, which indicated a troubled experience beyond his years, interested my sympathies. The more intimate I became with him, the more reason I had to suspect that his life, like my own, was the depository of some heavy secret; but I did not venture to question him on this point, from an apprehension which his bearing toward me led me to entertain that a similar suspicion lurked in his mind respecting me. I confess that I dreaded any allusion to my own history, and carefully avoided all subjects likely to lead to it; for I should have been ashamed to acknowledge the sufferings I underwent from a cause which most men would have treated with ridicule and skepticism. I was quite aware that it was vulnerable to attacks of that sort, and the terror of having the deception, if it were one, which I had cherished with such fervor, rudely assailed and beaten down by common sense, made me preserve a strict silence in every thing relating to myself--a precaution that probably gave a keener zest to the curiosity I desired to baffle.