And the smile lingered about the corners of his mouth and eyes, as if the issue in question were to be of that peculiarly harmonious kind usually supposed to be reserved for the themes of poems, or the conclusions of novels.
"I never was interested to hear of the every-day lives of men who have loved, and wanted to make their way in the world; for I never expected I should be such a man.

Now, I'm sorry; it would have been useful to me, wouldn't it ?" "Perhaps it might," responded the old gentleman, musing at the change in the attitude of the young man's mind--once so self-sufficient and assertive, now so dependent and inexperienced.

"Very few lives are bare and empty enough not to teach one something worth knowing.

I know the events of one man's life," he added, after a few moments of thoughtful consideration; "perhaps it might lead to some good, if I were to tell them to yon." "Did he marry a woman he loved ?" demanded Bressant.
"You can judge better of that when you hear what happened before his marriage," returned the professor, apparently a little put out by the abruptness of the question.

"He made several mistakes in life; most of them because he didn't pay respect enough to circumstances; thought that to adhere to fixed principles was the whole duty of a man: nothing to be allowed to the accidents of life, or to the various and unaccountable natures of men, their uncertainty, fallibility, and so on.