The friend, to whom "WARING" refers, is a restless, aspiring, sensitive
person, who has planned great works, though he has completed none: who
feels his powers always in excess of his performance, and who is hurt if
those he loves refuse them credit for being so. He is gone now, no one
knows whither; and the speaker, who is conscious that his own friendship
has often seemed critical or cold, vainly wishes that he could recall
him. His fancy travels longingly to those distant lands, in one of which
Waring may be playing some new and romantic part; and back again to
England, where he tries to think that he is lying concealed, while
preparing to surprise the world with some great achievement in
literature or art. Then someone solves the problem by saying that he has
seen him--for one moment--on the Illyrian coast; seated in a light bark,
just bounding away into the sunset. And the speaker rejoins

"Oh, never star
Was lost here but it rose afar!" (vol. v. p. 89.)

and, we conclude, takes comfort from the thought.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 94: Both of these first in "Hood's Magazine."]

[Footnote 95: First in "Hood's Magazine."]

[Footnote 96: I here use the word "conscience" in its intellectual
rather than its moral sense; as signifying that _consciousness_ of a
wrong done, which may, for a time, be evaded or pushed aside.]