Excerpt from The Romancists: Nouvelles His first steps in life were guided by the instinct of this innate passion. At college he allied himself with children richer than himself, not through pride, but from choice. Precocious in his studies he progressed less through self-love, than a certain need of distinc tion. He would cry in the midst of the class when he had not his place on the bench of honor on Saturday. He was doing his part well and working with ardor, when a lady friend of his mother made him a present of a beautiful turquoise, and often instead of listening to his lesson, he watched the ring glittering on his finger. It was the same love of gold which he had been sensible of when a child. When the child was a man this dangerous passion soon brought its fruits. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.