"I've tried another's fetters, too,
With charms, perchance, as fair to view;
And I would fain have loved as well,
But some unconquerable spell
Forbade my bleeding breast to own
A kindred care for aught but one.
"'Twould soothe to take one lingering view,
And bless thee in my last adieu;
Yet wish I not those eyes to weep
For him that wanders o'er the deep;
His home, his hope, his youth, are gone,
Yet still he loves, and loves but one."[110]
While thus, in all the relations of the heart, his thirst after
affection was thwarted, in another instinct of his nature, not less
strong--the desire of eminence and distinction--he was, in an equal
degree, checked in his aspirings, and mortified. The inadequacy of his
means to his station was early a source of embarrassment and
humiliation to him; and those high, patrician notions of birth in
which he indulged but made the disparity between his fortune and his
rank the more galling. Ambition, however, soon whispered to him that
there were other and nobler ways to distinction. The eminence which
talent builds for itself might, one day, he proudly felt, be his own;
nor was it too sanguine to hope that, under the favour accorded
usually to youth, he might with impunity venture on his first steps to
fame. But here, as in every other object of his heart, disappointment
and mortification awaited him. Instead of experiencing the ordinary
forbearance, if not indulgence, with which young aspirants for fame
are received by their critics, he found himself instantly the victim
of such unmeasured severity as is not often dealt out even to veteran
offenders in literature; and, with a heart fresh from the trials of
disappointed love, saw those resources and consolations which he had
sought in the exercise of his intellectual strength also invaded.
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