Having
scanned the writer's comment on the Slavonic peoples, Piers laughed
aloud; so evidently it was a report at second or third hand, utterly
valueless to one who had any real acquaintance with the Slavs. This
moment of spontaneous mirth did him good, helped to restore his
self-respect. And as he pondered old ambitions stirred again in him.
Could he not make some use of the knowledge he had gained so
laboriously--some use other than that whereby he earned his
living? Not so long ago, he had harboured great designs, vague but
not irrational. And to-day, even in bidding himself be humble, his
intellect was little tuned to humility. He had never, at his point
of darkest depression, really believed that life had no shining
promise for him. The least boastful of men, he was at heart one of
the most aspiring. His moods varied wonderfully. When he alighted at
the London terminus, he looked and felt like a man refreshed by some
new hope.
Half by accident, he kept the paper he had been reading. It lay on
his table in Guildford Street for weeks, for months. Years after, he
came upon it one day in turning out the contents of a trunk, and
remembered his ramble in the Sussex woodland, and smiled at the
chances of life.
On Monday morning he had a characteristic letter from Moncharmont,
part English, part French, part Russian. Nothing, or only a passing
word, about business; communications of that sort were all addressed
to the office, and were as concise, as practical, as any trader
could have desired.
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