profession of both has its existence in opinion, and yet you care nothing for what is abstract and picturesque in it."
"You have cared only too much," replied she, gazing upon him sadly.
"Not so," returned he earnestly, a last gleam of enthusiasm kindling up his large clear eyes; "I have not cared enough. Deeply do I feel at this moment, when the scattered thoughts obey my bidding no longer, and the hand, once so swift to give them tangible shape, lies languid at my side, that I have not done half that I ought to have done. How many hours of wasted time, how many worse than wasted, now rise up in judgment against me! And, oh, my God! have I sufficiently felt the moral responsibility of gifts like my own? Have I not questioned, sometimes too rashly, of what it was never meant mortal mind should measure? Have I not sometimes flung the passing annoyance of a wounded feeling too bitterly on my pages? I repent me of it now!"
