As he wrote his eyes sparkled and he seemed filled with enthusiasm. At length he threw aside his pen, and rising began to pace the vast apartment with long strides. "Alas!" he muttered, "perhaps after all I am only a vain dreamer, as hosts of others have been before me. But no, my scheme is feasible and cannot fail; it is based on sound principles and a thorough knowledge of mankind; besides, the immense wealth that an all-wise God has placed at my disposal will aid me and form a mighty factor in the cause. In the past I used that wealth solely for my own selfish ends, but now all is different; I have no thought of self--the philanthropist has replaced the egotist; I have aided the poor, relieved the stricken and brought joy to many a sorrowing home, but hitherto I have acted only in isolated cases; now I meditate a grand, a sublime stroke--to give freedom to man throughout the entire length and breadth of the Continent of Europe. If I succeed, and succeed I must, every down-trodden human being from the coast of France to the Ural Mountains, from the sunny Mediterranean to the frozen Arctic Ocean, will reap the benefit of my efforts and shake off the yoke of tyranny. Where shall I begin? Ah! with France, my own country, the land that gave me birth. I shall thus return good for evil, and Edmond Dantès, the prisoner of the Château d'If, will free the masses from their galling chains. My most potent instrument will be the public press; by means of journals I will found, or buy, the minds of all Europeans shall become familiarized with the theory of universal liberty and ripened for sweeping revolutions and the establishment of republics; I will also call fiction to my aid; struggling novelists and feuilletonists shall receive liberal subsidies from my hand on condition that they disseminate my ideas, theories and plans in their romances and feuilletons; thus will I reach thousands upon thousands who hold themselves aloof from politics, and almost insensibly they will be transformed into zealous, active partisans of the order of things that is to be; poets, too, shall sing the praises of freedom louder and more enthusiastically than ever before; in fine, no instrument, no means, however humble and apparently insignificant, shall be neglected when the proper moment arrives, but until it does arrive I must wait, wait patiently, wait though while waiting an internal fire consume me, and my veins throb with anxiety and expectation to the point of bursting."
He sank into a chair, and, burying his face in his hands, was lost in profound thought.