ged during the rest of the
day.

But the reader must bear in mind that there was nothing artificial or
affected in his musings, of whatever complexion they might be.
Nothing like the dramatic brown studies, and quick starts, which young
gentlemen, in love with Lara and Lord Byron, are apt to practise.
There never, indeed, was a character that possessed less cant of any
description. His work, which was a singular, wild tale--of mingled
passion and reflection--was, perhaps, of too original, certainly of too
abstract a nature, to suit the ordinary novel readers of the day. It did
not acquire popularity for itself, but it gained great reputation for
the author. It also inspired every one who read it, with a vague and
indescribable interest to see and know the person who had composed so
singular a work.

This interest he was the first to laugh at, and to disappoint. He shrunk
from all admiration, and from all sympathy. At the moment when a crowd
assembled round him, and every ear was bent to catch the words, which
came alike from so beautiful a lip, and so strange and imaginative a
mind, it was his pleasure to utter some sentiment totally different from
his written opinion, and utterly destructive of the sensation he had
excited. But it was very rarely that he exposed himself to these
"trials of an author." He went out little to any other house but Lady
Roseville's, and it was seldom more than once a week that he was seen
even there. Lonely, and singular in mind and habits, he lived in the
world like a person occupied by a separate object, and possessed of a
separate existence, from that of his fellow-beings. He was luxurious
and splendid, beyond all men, in his habits, rather than his tastes. His
table groaned beneath a weight of gold, too costly for the daily service
even of a prince; but he had no pleasure in surveying it. His wines and
viands were of the most exquisite description; but he scarcely tasted
them. Yet, what may seem inconsistent, he was averse to all ostentation
and show in the eyes of others. He admitted very few into his
society--no one so intimately as myself. I never once saw more than
three persons at his table. He seemed, in his taste for furniture, in
his love of literature, and his pursuit after fame, to be, as he himself
said, eternally endeavouring to forget and eternally brought back to
remembrance.

"I pity that man even more than I admire him," said Vincent to me, one
night when we were walk