The Phantom was invisible; but these pursuits soon became to me distasteful as the rest.

Ever and ever I felt that I was born for something nobler than the greed of gain,--that life may be made equally worthless, and the soul equally degraded by the icy lust of avarice, as by the noisier passions.

A higher ambition never ceased to torment me.

But, but," continued Glyndon, with a whitening lip and a visible shudder, "at every attempt to rise into loftier existence, came that hideous form.

It gloomed beside me at the easel.