preferment, and he had procured for me the situation of private secretary

to the Ambassador at Vienna, where I should enter on my career under the

best auspices. In two years, I should return to my country, with a name

well known and a reputation already founded.

And Perdita?--Perdita was to become the pupil, friend and younger sister

of Evadne. With his usual thoughtfulness, he had provided for her

independence in this situation. How refuse the offers of this generous

friend?--I did not wish to refuse them; but in my heart of hearts, I made

a vow to devote life, knowledge, and power, all of which, in as much as

they were of any value, he had bestowed on me--all, all my capacities and

hopes, to him alone I would devote.

Thus I promised myself, as I journied towards my destination with roused

and ardent expectation: expectation of the fulfilment of all that in

boyhood we promise ourselves of power and enjoyment in maturity. Methought

the time was now arrived, when, childish occupations laid aside, I should

enter into life. Even in the Elysian fields, Virgil describes the souls of

the happy as eager to drink of the wave which was to restore them to this

mortal coil. The young are seldom in Elysium, for their desires,

outstripping possibility, leave them as poor as a moneyless debtor. We are

told by the wisest philosophers of the dangers of the world, the deceits of

men, and the treason of our own hearts: but not the less fearlessly does

each put off his frail bark from the port, spread the sail, and strain his

oar, to attain the multitudinous streams of the sea of life. How few in

youth's prime, moor their vessels on the "golden sands," and collect the

The Last Man