His power over his fellows, over women no less than over men, had vanished.

Only where he evoked memories could his words, his voice, his glance, still conjure; apart from this, his presence was void of interest.

His day was done! He was willing to admit what he had hitherto been sedulous to conceal from himself, that even his literary labors, including the polemic against Voltaire upon which his last hopes reposed, would never secure any notable success.

Here, likewise, he was too late.

Had he in youth but had leisure and patience to devote himself seriously to the work of the pen, he was confident he could have ranked with the leading members of the profession of authorship, with the greatest imaginative writers and philosophers.