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by the syren song of Fame alluring him on and yet on by its spirit-stirring tones,—but in the hour of visionless solitude—of mental exhaustion—in the hour of stern retrospection—of fearful foreboding—when the nothingness of the world and the world's pursuits—the nothingness of what he himself has pursued and idolized—is forced upon his startled conviction,—in the hour of disgust with the frivolity of his fellow-creatures, and his own unworthy littleness in ministering to the folly which he despises,—in the hour when his inmost soul yearns for companionship, for confidence, for sympathy, for affection—when he keenly feels that his minstrel's crown is entwined with thorns;—then appeal to such an one for the reality of his happiness. He will tell you that the few and feverish hours of intellectual excitement but ill compensate for the increased sensitiveness of nerves unsheathed, as it were, by his own mind's workings,–for the languid pulses of reaction wearied by his too long-sustained efforts,—that his loftiest imaginings place him not above the reach of the cruel shafts of envy and malevolence,—that his deep feelings shield him not from the impertinence of the curious—the sheers of the ignorant—the coldness of the unappreciating,—all of which evils enter as iron into his soul. He will tell you that his wasted gifts and neglected responsibilities haunt his dying hour as so many ministers of vengeance.
It is thus, we believe, that experience would verify the truths of what are frequently termed Miss Landon's melancholy views of the world. Admitting their truth, however, there is one other admission necessary, that all her gloomy representations belong to human nature in its unchanged state, destitute of the light of Christianity to brighten and
