by which a steady philosophic mind reaches forth and draws to itself, in their collective entirety, the objects of its contemplations; that pertains not to the young enthusiast. By his eagerness, all objects are deceptively foreshortened; by his intensity each object is viewed as detached; so that essentially and relatively everything is misseen by him. Already have we exposed that passing preposterousness in Pierre, which by reason of the above-named cause, which we have endeavoured to portray, induced him to cherish for a time four unitedly impossible designs. And now we behold this hapless youth all eager to involve himself in such an inextricable twist of Fate, that the three dextrous maids themselves could hardly disentangle him, if once he tie the complicating knots about him and Isabel.
Ah, thou rash boy! are there no couriers in the air to warn thee away from these imperillings, and point thee to those Cretan labyrinths, to which thy life's cord is leading thee? Where now are the high beneficences? Whither fled the sweet angels that are alleged guardians to man?
Not that the impulsive Pierre wholly overlooked all that was menacing to him in his future, if now he acted out his most rare resolve; but eagerly foreshortened by him, they assumed not their full magnitude of menacing; nor, indeed,—so riveted now his purpose—were they pushed up to his face, would he for that renounce his self-renunciation; while concerning all things more immediately contingent upon his central resolution; these were, doubtless, in a measure, foreseen and understood by him. Perfectly, at least, he seemed to foresee and understand, that the present hope of Lucy Tartan must be banished from his being; that this would carry a terrible pang to her, which in the natural recoil would but redouble his own; that to the world all his heroicness, standing equally unexplained and unsuspected, therefore
