“Yet you submit to a yoke, my son; one which is not of your own imposing either.”

“What kind of a yoke?”

“The yoke of society,—­you bow to public opinion in a measure.  You avoid a glaring act, often, more because it will not be approved, than because you have a real disinclination for it.  Is not that the case sometimes?”

Alfred did not exceedingly relish this probing, but he was too candid to cover up his motives from himself.  He answered a decided “yes!” but it was spoken, because he could not elbow himself out of the self-evident conviction forced upon him.

“Do you think it degrading for a man to conquer and govern the strongest, as well as the weakest impulses of his soul?” pursued his grandfather.

“Certainly not degrading,—­it is in the highest degree worthy of praise.  It is truly noble!  I acknowledge it.”

“And yet you deem such enjoyment as would result from this government, tame and flat.”

“I beg pardon; when I spoke of virtue, I referred to that smooth kind which is current, and seems more passive than active,—­that soft amiability which appears to deaden enthusiasm, and to shut up the soul in a set of opinions, instead of expanding it widely to everything noble and generous, wherever it may be found.”

“It was not genuine virtue, you referred to, then,—­it was only its resemblance.”

“It was what passes for virtue.  But to come at the main point, grandfather;—­where is happiness to be found, if we are to be warring with ourselves during a lifetime, checking every natural spring in the soul?”

“Stop there, Alfred!  We only quench the streams, which prevent the spirit’s purest wells of noble and happy feelings from gushing forth in freedom.  We must wage a warfare, it is true; why conceal it?  But it does not last for ever, and intervals of gladness come to refresh us, which the worn and blunted spirit of the man of pleasure in vain pants for.  An exquisite joy, innocent as that of childhood, pervades the bosom of truth’s soldier in his hours of peace and rest, and he lifts an eye of rapture to heaven—­to God.”

Alfred dwelt earnestly upon the noble countenance of the speaker, and his bosom filled with unwonted emotion, as the heavenly sweetness of the old man’s smile penetrated into his inward soul.  Goodness stood before him in its wonderful power, and he bowed down his soul in worship.  How insignificant then seemed his individual yearnings after present enjoyment, instead of that celestial love which can fill a human soul with so strong a power from on high.  He reflected upon that venerable being’s life—­so strong and upright; he dwelt upon his large and noble heart, which could clasp the world in its embrace.  He remembered months of acute suffering, both physical and mental, which had been endured with the stillness of a martyr’s inward strength; and then, too, he recalled times when that aged heart was more truly