thought
his eloquence barren, his attempts at companionship awkward, and all
manly pursuits and aims, life itself, vain and worthless. To what end?
sighed the blossomless youth, and cried aloud, as soon as he was relieved
of his father's society, what was the good of anything? Whatever he
did--whichever path he selected, led back to Raynham. And whatever he
did, however wretched and wayward he showed himself, only confirmed Sir
Austin more and more in the truth of his previsions. Tom Bakewell, now
the youth's groom, had to give the baronet a report of his young master's
proceedings, in common with Adrian, and while there was no harm to tell,
Tom spoke out. "He do ride like fire every day to Pig's Snout," naming
the highest hill in the neighbourhood, "and stand there and stare, never
movin', like a mad 'un. And then hoam agin all slack as if he'd been
beaten in a race by somebody."

"There is no woman in that!" mused the baronet. "He would have ridden
back as hard as he went," reflected this profound scientific humanist,
"had there been a woman in it. He would shun vast expanses, and seek
shade, concealment, solitude. The desire for distances betokens emptiness
and undirected hunger: when the heart is possessed by an image we fly to
wood and forest, like the guilty."

Adrian's report accused his pupil of an extraordinary access of cynicism.

"Exactly," said the baronet. "As I foresaw. At this period an insatiate
appetite is accompanied by a fastidious palate. Nothing but the
quintessences of existence, and those in exhaustless supplies, will
satisfy this craving, which is not to be satisfied! Hence his bitterness.
Life can furnish no food fitting for him. The strength and purity of his
energies have reached to an almost divine height, and roam through the
Inane. Poetry, love, and such-like, are the drugs earth has to offer to
high natures, as she offers to low ones debauchery. 'Tis a sign, this
sourness, that he is subject to none of the empiricisms that are afloat.
Now to keep him clear of them!"

The Titans had an easier task in storming Olympus. As yet, however, it
could not be said that Sir Austin's System had failed. On the contrary,
it had reared a youth, handsome, intelligent, well-bred, and, observed
the ladies, with acute emphasis, innocent. Where, they asked, was such
another young man to be found?

"Oh!" said Lady Blandish to Sir Austin, "if men could give their hands to
women unsoiled--how different wou