unravel its secrets; all that the earth nourished ministered to one desire:-and what of low or sordid did there mingle with that desire? The petty avarice, the mean ambition, the debasing love, even the heat, the anger, the fickleness, the caprice of other men, did they allure or bow down my nature from its steep and solitary eyrie? I lived but to feed my mind; wisdom was my thirst, my dream, my aliment, my sole fount and sustenance of life. And have I not sown the wind and reaped the whirlwind? The glory of my youth is gone, my veins are chilled, my frame is bowed, my heart is gnawed with cares, my nerves are unstrung as a loosened bow and what, after all, is my gain? Oh, God! what is

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my gain ?' Eugene, dear, dear Eugene!' murmured Madeline, soothingly, and wrestling with her tears, 'is not your gain great? is it not triumph that you stand, while yet young, almost alone in the world, for success in all that you have attempted ?'

"And what,' exclaimed Aram, breaking in upon her, 'what is this world which we ransack but a stupendous charnel-house? Everything that we deem most lovely, ask its origin? -Decay! When we rifle nature, and collect

YOUTHFUL ROMANCES.

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wisdom, are we not like the hags of old, culling simples from the rank grave, and extracting sorceries from the rotting bones of the dead? Everything around us is fathered by corruption, battened by corruption, and into corruption returns at last.

Corruption is at once the womb and grave of Nature, and the very beauty on which we gaze,-the cloud, and the tree, and the swarming waters,-all are one vast panorama of death! But it did not always seem to me thus; and even now I speak with a heated pulse and a dizzy brain. Come, Madeline, let us change the theme.

Thus the early life of Eugene was passed in passionate yearnings after knowledge: but all his acquisitions did not satisfy him—nothing, in fact, in the world, could satisfy his romance; and just in his critical pass through life-the perilous period between the school and manhood --he gave himself up to calculate his gains and his losses; and brooding moodily, as he did, over some disappointment of a mysterious influence, the bright scholar wrecked his talents, his reputation, his life itself, on his romances.

But this critical pass in life was signalised in the case of Harris with his entry into the service of the Military Auditor General. He

had applied for an increase of only Rs. 3 to his salary at Messrs. Tulloh & Co.'s, and had his application been entertained, he would have remained satisfied-his energy, perhaps, have been gone, and he plodded on in life at the auction counter, without forcing himself out so prominently in after life; but Providence works His designs most mysteriously, and his application was rejected. This led him to present himself at the examination for a vacancy in the Military Auditor General's Office, where, after entry, he came in contact with Mr. Mackenzie, popular even in the odious situation of an Income-Tax Commissioner at Calcutta. This officer was above the narrow-minded prejudices of many of his countrymen. The surly contumacy of hot-brained Englishmen, which despises the Native, was not to be found in the kindly and humane constitution of the Collector; and he freely associated himself with his "nigger" clerk. He entered into the character and the constitution of the mind of Harris, and discovering a powerful intellect, he at once resolved to lead it to a full development. With this view, he introduced him to Colonel Champneys, the Deputy Military Auditor General, another Englishman zealously

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devoted to do good to any one who stood in need of him, and extremely anxious to make his clerks intelligent, knowledge-seeking men. He very soon perceived the worth of his obscure copyist, and resolved to promote him to respect and emolument by his patronage, and directed his mind with a stern injunction to books and education. Harris's prospects now brightened: at the very time which should determine the future tendency of his mind, he found himself under the care of Colonel Champneys and Mr. Mackenzie, lending him books containing solid thought and knowledge, not only from their own private collections, but even from the Calcutta Public Library; and Harris read them all with a greedy avidity, feeling the stirrings of a noble aspiration within, God above, and a goal before him.

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CHAPTER VI.

HIS ENERGY AND AMBITION DIRECTED TO A SPECIFIC COURSE.

IMPORTANCE of a specific course of life.-Two subdivisions of the better class of Young India.—The worst described.—Our so-called Savants.-Their vanity and presumption.-Their dishonesty in essays and books. An audacious attempt of this kind stated.—The fate of a young man who begins to work in earnest.—The daily labours of a so-called Savant, and mer of his class.--Observations of contemptible ignorance of the most rudimentary knowledge and learning stated.--The "domestic literary treason" of the elder Disraeli.—Study pursued in India more as a means to rise than as an end in itself.-Want of earnestness and pre-calculation with Young India in all his undertakings. He justly meets with the discomfiture of Alnascar.-Harris prominently distinct in his traits of character. His pursuit of knowledge as an end, not as a means.s.--His remarkable zeal after learning.--His manner of spending leisure.-A remarkable scene in the mock Bengalee Temple.-Who achieves success?

As yet we have seen Harris possessing natural general energy and decision, which might not have yielded the fruit they actually have done. These were disciplined by happy external influences-perhaps also increased by them: but this energy, and even talent, might have been