"You would have been a Viking, Mr.Gueldmar, had you lived in the old days," he said with a smile.
"I should, indeed!" returned the old man, with an unconsciously haughty gesture of his head; "and no better fate could have befallen me! To sail the seas in hot pursuit of one's enemies, or in search of further conquest,--to feel the very wind and sun beating up the blood in one's veins,--to live the life of a _man_--a true man!.

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in all the pride and worth of strength, and invincible vigor!--how much better than the puling, feeble, sickly existence, led by the majority of men to-day! I dwell apart from them as much as I can,--I steep my mind and body in the joys of Nature, and the free fresh air,--but often I feel that the old days of the heroes must have been best,--when Gorm the Bold and the fierce Siegfried seized Paris, and stabled their horses in the chapel where Charlemagne lay buried!" Pierre Duprez looked up with a faint smile.

"Ah, _pardon_! But that was surely a very long time ago!" "True!" said Gueldmar quietly.