He felt, indeed, that Ernest was not a man "to betray the noon of manhood to a myrtle-shade:"-- that with so sanguine, buoyant, and hardy a temperament, he would at length recover from a depression which, if it could bequeath a warning, might as well not be wholly divested of remorse.

And he also knew that few become either great authors or great men (and he fancied Ernest was born to be one or the other) without the fierce emotions and passionate struggles, through which the Wilhelm Meister of real life must work out his apprenticeship, and attain the Master Rank.

But at last he had serious misgivings about the health of his ward.

A constant and spectral gloom seemed bearing the young man to the grave.

It was in vain that Cleveland, who secretly desired him to thirst for a public career, endeavoured to arouse his ambition--the boy's spirit seemed quite broken--and the visit of a political character, the mention of a political work, drove him at once into his solitary chamber.