like this"

Whoever inquires into human circumstances will be struck to find how
invariably a latent current of fatality appears to pervade them. It
is the turn of the atom in the scale which makes our safety or our
peril, our glory or our shame, raises us to the throne or sinks us to
the grave. A secret voice at Mordaunt's heart prompted him to dissent
from this proposal, trifling as it seemed and welcome as it was to his
present and peculiar mood: he resisted the voice,--the moment passed
away, and the last seal was set upon his doom; they moved onward
towards the bridge. At first both were silent, for Lord Ulswater used
the ordinary privilege of a lover and was absent and absorbed, and his
companion was never the first to break a taciturnity natural to his
habits. At last Lord Ulswater said, "I rejoice that you are now in
the sphere of action most likely to display your talents: you have not
spoken yet, I think; indeed, there has been no fitting opportunity,
but you will soon, I trust."

"I know not," said Mordaunt, with a melancholy smile, "whether you
judge rightly in thinking the sphere of political exertion the one
most calculated for me; but I feel at my heart a foreboding that my
planet is not fated to shine in any earthly sphere. Sorrow and
misfortune have dimmed it in its birth, and now it is waning towards
its decline."

"Its decline!" repeated his companion, "no, rather its meridian. You
are in the vigor of your years, the noon of your prosperity, the
height of your intellect and knowledge; you require only an effort to
add to these blessings the most lasting of all,--Fame!"