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in proportion to the spirituality of this object.
Ellison was remarkable in the continuous profusion of good gifts
lavished upon him by fortune. In personal grace and beauty he exceeded
all men. His intellect was of that order to which the acquisition of
knowledge is less a labor than an intuition and a necessity. His
family was one of the most illustrious of the empire. His bride was the
loveliest and most devoted of women. His possessions had been always
ample; but on the attainment of his majority, it was discovered that
one of those extraordinary freaks of fate had been played in his behalf
which startle the whole social world amid which they occur, and seldom
fail radically to alter the moral constitution of those who are their
objects.
It appears that about a hundred years before Mr. Ellison's coming of
age, there had died, in a remote province, one Mr. Seabright Ellison.
This gentleman had amassed a princely fortune, and, having no immediate
connections, conceived the whim of suffering his wealth to accumulate
for a century after his decease. Minutely and sagaciously directing the
various modes of investment, he bequeathed the aggregate amount to the
nearest of blood, bearing the name of Ellison, who should be alive at
the end of the hundred years. Many attempts had been made to set aside
this singular bequest; their ex post facto character rendered them
abortive; but the attention of a jealous government was aroused, and a
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