This interview had not the more reconciled me to life.  I was vexed with what I regarded the nonchalance of my friend, and began to wish that I had left him to go through his own affairs as he might.  But reflection did justice to his gallant spirit, and I mentally thanked him for having relieved me from the life of an idler.  At this moment my name was pronounced by a familiar voice; it was Mordecai’s.  He had brought me some additional letters to the leaders of the party in Paris.  We returned to the hotel, and sat down to our final meal together.  When the lights were brought in, I saw that he looked at me with some degree of surprise, and even of alarm.  “You are ill,” said he; “the life of London is too much for you.  There are but three things that constitute health in this world—­air, exercise, and employment.”  I acknowledged to him my misgivings as to my fitness for the mission.  But he was a man of the world.  He asked me, “Do you desire to resign?  If so, I have the power to revoke it at this moment.  And you can do this without loss of honour, for it is known to but two persons in England—­Lafontaine and myself.  I have not concealed its danger from you, and I have ascertained that even the personal danger is greater than I thought.  In fact, one of my objects in coming to you at this hour was, to apprise you of the state of things, if not to recommend your giving up the mission altogether.”

The alternative was now plainly before me; and, stern as was the nature of the Israelite, I saw evidently that he would be gratified by my abandoning the project.  But this was suddenly out of the question.  The mission, to escape which in the half hour before I should have gladly given up every shilling I ever hoped to possess, was at once fixed in my mind as a peculiar bounty of fortune.  There are periods in the human heart like those which we observe in nature—­the atmosphere clears up after the tempest.  The struggle which had shaken me so long had now passed away, and things assumed as new and distinct an aspect as a hill or a forest in the distance might on the passing away of a cloud.  Mordecai argued against my enthusiasm; but when was enthusiasm ever out-argued?  I drove him horse and foot from the field.  I did more, enthusiasm is contagious—­I made him my convert.  The feverish fire of my heart lent itself to my tongue, and I talked so loftily of revolutions and counter-revolutions; of the opportunity of seeing humankind pouring, like metal from the forge, into new shapes of society, of millions acting on a new scale of power, of nations summoned to a new order of existence, that I began to melt even the rigid prepossessions of that mass of granite, or iron, or whatever is most intractable—­the Jew.  I could perceive his countenance changing from a smile to seriousness; and, as I declaimed, I could see his hollow eye sparkle, and his sallow lip quiver, with impressions not unlike my own.