‘That would be very sublime,’ replied Walstein. ‘But I assure you, if there be one thing that disgusts me more than another, it is the anticipation of renewed travel! I have seen all that I wish, and more than I ever expected. All that I could experience now would be exertion without excitement, a dreadful doom. If I am not to experience pleasure, let me at least have the refuge of repose. The magic of change of scene is with me exhausted. If I am to live, I do not think that I could be tempted to quit this city; sometimes I think, scarcely even my house.’ ‘I see how it is,’ exclaimed Madame de Schulembourg, shaking her head very knowingly, ‘you must marry.’ ‘The last resource of feminine fancy!’ exclaimed Walstein, almost laughing. ‘You would lessen my melancholy, I suppose, on the principle of the division of gloom. I can assure you, my dear Madame de Schulembourg,’ he continued, in a very serious tone, ‘that, with my present sensations, I should consider it highly dishonourable to implicate any woman in my destiny.’ ‘Ha! ha! ha!’ laughed Madame; ‘I can assure you, my dear Mr. Walstein, that I have a great many very pretty friends who will run the risk. ‘Tis the best cure for melancholy, believe me. I was serious myself at times before I married, but you see I have got over my gloom.’ ‘You have, indeed,’ said Walstein; ‘and perhaps, were I Doctor de Schulembourg, I might be as gay.’ ‘Another compliment! However, I accept it, because it is founded on truth. The fact is, I think you are too much alone.’ ‘I have lived in a desert, and now I live in what is called the world,’ replied Walstein. ‘Yet in Arabia I was fairly content, and now I am-----what I shall not describe, because it will only procure me your ridicule.’ ‘Nay! not ridicule, Mr. Walstein. Do not think that I do not sympathise with your affliction, because I wish you to be as cheerful as myself. If you were fairly content in Arabia, I shall begin to consider it an affair of climate.’ ‘No,’ said Walstein, still very serious, ‘not an affair of climate--certainly not. The truth is, travel is a preparation, and we bear with its yoke as we do with all that is initiatory--with the solace of expectation. But my preparation can lead to nothing, and there appear to be no mysteries in which I am to be initiated.’ ‘Then, after all, you want something to do?’ ‘No doubt.’ ‘What shall it be?’ inquired Madame de Schulembourg, with a thoughtful air. ‘Ah! what shall it be?’ echoed Walstein, in accents of despondence; ‘or, rather, what can it be? What can be more tame, more uninteresting, more unpromising than all around? Where is there a career?’ ‘A career!’ exclaimed Caroline. ‘What, you want to set the world in a blaze! I thought you were a poetic dreamer, a listless, superfine speculator of an exhausted world. And all the time you are very ambitious!’ ‘I know not what I am,’ replied Walstein; ‘but I feel that my present lot is an intolerable burthen.’