484 THE MOOR AND THE LOCH. 



them. The most successful are generally wearing themselves 

 out, and become " old before their time." Circumstances, and 

 indeed duty, may prevent some from over-taxing themselves ; 

 but how few there are who would have the resolution to 

 abate one atom of a prosperous worldly career, though they 

 half suspected it was killing them by inches ! Fame is the 

 very acme of excitement to the truly talented few ; and, as 

 the dram-drinker loves alcohol, they love it more than life 

 itself. 



The immoderate use of any of God's gifts in course of time 

 destroys all pleasure in them, and a constant craving after 

 excitement defeats its own end. Long ago I watched the 

 downward course of a young nobleman, born to a princely in- 

 heritance, but whose chief aim was to spend it on personal 

 gratification. When he was a boy at school, a day's trouting 

 or a shot at the partridges gave the keenest pleasure. As he 

 grew into a man, grouse and deer degraded the stubble-bird 

 in his estimation, and only the nobler game of the hills 

 and the heather could stimulate him to active exertion. He 

 rented a deer-forest, and for a few years deer-stalking and 

 salmon-fishing contented him, at least for the autumn months. 

 Among the last of his northern trips, his attendant told me 

 that, in fishing down a salmon-stream alive with fish, he 

 finished a quart-bottle of the best whisky; thus proving, 

 that on him the excitement of the finest sport in the world 

 had lost half its power, and needed the supplement of a 

 stimulus more potent still. The northern mountains and 

 rivers soon lost their charm ; he completed a course of the 

 grossest dissipation by dying in a lunatic asylum. 



If possible, a still more melancholy race was run by a 

 Highland chieftain. He was what is called " a favourite of 

 fortune." With excellent talents, and heir to grand sporting 

 estates, he had also wonderful aptitude for all manly recrea- 

 tions, and was considered an expert in most of them. For a 



