There are some people who, on entering a great capital, feel a weight, an oppressive load fall upon their bosom, as if all those miseries of which we have spoken were infused into the burdensome atmosphere of the place, and were drawn in with every breath; but these must be men who have lived long, and known sorrows tangibly, who have felt the tooth of gnawing care, and the beak and talons of fierce anxiety, preying day by day upon the bleeding heart. Such, however, was not the case with Morley Ernstein; there seemed a well of hope in his bosom, the waters of which possessed a power ascribed to those consecrated by the Roman Church, of driving out all dark spirits from the spot over which they were sprinkled. The busy life, the eager energy within him, the warrior-spirit of strong animal existence, always ready to combat the ills of fate, guarded the door of imagination, and suffered no thought of coming evil to intrude. Thus all things seemed to smile around him; and although the lilacs and the laurels, the laburnums and the privets, which tenanted the square before his eyes, might look somewhat dull and smoky, when compared with the green trees of the country; though the air he breathed might seem but a shade thinner than pea soup, and the noise of eternal carriages might strike his ear as something less tuneful than the birds of his own fields; yet it was not upon these things that his mind rested. He thought, on the contrary, of all the wonders of that mighty place; of the vast resources comprised within it; of the intellectual pleasures that were there collected as if in a store-house; of the magnificent monuments of art that it contained; of the wealth, the abundance, the splendour, the beauty, the fancy; the genius, the wisdom, the grace, with which every street was thronged; of the vast and strange combinations that were there produced; of the laws, the systems, the philosophies, the wars, the colonies, the enterprises, that had thence issued forth; of the piety, the charity, the benevolence, the great aspirations, the noble purposes, the fine designs, the wonderful discoveries, which had there originated; and--as if to give the finishing touch of the sublime to all--came over his mind the vague, spectre-like image of the crime which there had a permanent existence, an unchangeable and undiscoverable home. Such were the feelings with which he viewed London, on returning to it as his own master, free to taste, to examine, to inquire, to judge, and to enjoy.