He had at first engaged in the pursuit with the hopes of raising
himself from his present obscurity, and resuming the rank and dignity
to which his birth entitled him; but, as usual, it ended in absorbing
every thought, and becoming the business of his existence. He was at
length aroused from this mental abstraction, by the calamities of his
household. A malignant fever swept off his wife and all his children,
excepting an infant daughter. These losses for a time overwhelmed and
stupefied him. His home had in a manner died away from around him, and
he felt lonely and forlorn. When his spirit revived within him, he
determined to abandon the scene of his humiliation and disaster; to
bear away the child that was still left him beyond the scene of
contagion, and never to return to Castile until he should be enabled
to reclaim the honours of his line.
He had ever since been wandering and unsettled in his abode;--sometimes
the resident of populous cities, at other times of absolute solitudes.
He had searched libraries, meditated on inscriptions, visited adepts of
different countries, and sought to gather and concentrate the rays which
had been thrown by various minds upon the secrets of alchymy.
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