Englander had come to him, only a few days before, like the gospel to a new convert. He had read with glad eyes, "You will hear every day the maxims of a low prudence. You will hear that the first duty is to get land and money, place and name. But why should you renounce your right to traverse the star-lit deserts of truth for the premature comforts of an acre, house and barn? Make yourself necessary to the world and mankind will give you bread, and if not store of it, yet such as shall not take away your property in all men's possessions, in all men's affections, in art, in nature and in hope." He had felt that he should take as the motto of his life: "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your mind." He had submitted, in his relations with her, to the command: "Give all to love; obey thy heart. It is a god, knows its own path and the outlets of the sky." In reply to the despondencies of his religious disbeliefs, he had accepted as an inspiration, the high advice: "Seek not the Spirit, if it hide inexorable to thy zeal. Say, 'Here am I; here will I abide, forever to myself soothfast! go thou, sweet Heaven, or at thy pleasure stay!' Already Heaven with thee its lot has cast, for only it can absolutely deal." And all this poetical transcendentalism had gone to his head, like a white wine, and he had begun to live on it, intoxicated with enthusiasm, and exalted above the "low prudence" and the small facts of life.
When he learned from her that Conroy was calling to see her frequently in the evenings, he had no
